Erica is done with her first ski tour of the season and is happy to have had great powder conditions for the outing.
I told E about how good the skiing was yesterday, so she was interested in getting out and the two of us headed up to Bolton Valley today for another tour. Thanks to the ongoing lake-effect snow from Lake Ontario, surfaces have been getting some nice freshening. Since my report detailing the snow conditions during yesterday’s tour, we’ve had another inch or two of additional snow down at the house in the valley, so I’m sure Bolton has had at least that much as well. It was really dumping when I left yesterday afternoon, so that period alone should have contributed some nice accumulations.
Between settling and the additional snow that’s been falling, snow depths seemed to be just about where they were yesterday, so just refer to the detailed snow depth profile I provided in that post for approximate snow depths that were out there today. Temperatures were in the mid-20s F out on the mountain early this afternoon, so it was just a bit cooler than yesterday, and consistent with that, the snow was a bit drier. Whereas yesterday I estimated the upper layers of powder in the snowpack to be in the 8% H2O range, today I’d say we were hitting powder that was more in the 6 to 8% H2O range. E is notorious for getting out on the snow one day too late when conditions aren’t as good as the day before, but that wasn’t the case this time. While there were a few more tracks out there today than what I found yesterday, the dry air and drier snow falling kicked the quality of the powder up a notch. The existing base snow, the continued settling of the lower layers of surface snow, and new rounds of dry snow coming in have set up some beautiful right-side-up powder. The drier nature of the powder was evident in the way it was even easier to ski lower-angle slopes; I’d brought fat skis to help in that regard, but my wife was on mid-fats, and she had no issues maintaining speed on even the mellowest pitches. So once again, essentially any mowed terrain from roughly single black diamond pitch down to gentle slopes was in play for great powder turns today.
A view along our ski tour in Bolton’s Wilderness area today – we had beautiful temperatures, no wind, and fantastic powder for Erica’s inaugural tour of the season.
In terms of the ongoing snowfall, today was much like yesterday with continued light snowfall of varying intensity throughout our tour, and it was steadier when we were finishing up our descent, but not nearly as heavy as when I was leaving yesterday. The direction of the more intense incoming moisture from Lake Ontario seemed to be a bit more to our north today, but it sounds like the Jay Peak area has been doing well from that setup.
Residual accumulations visible on the Stowe Mountain Resort webcam thanks to our most recent round of early season snows
The first flakes of the season at our site in Waterbury were back on the 16th of the month with that last big snow event, but thanks to the system moving through yesterday into today, we accrued the first accumulations I’ve seen here. Temperatures were certainly above freezing here in the valley, but the intensity of the precipitation is what brought on the accumulation when one of the more active cells on the radar came through our area.
Accumulations finally started to take hold down at our elevation of 500 feet in the Winooski Valley in Waterbury when one of the more potent cells of precipitation crossed the spine of the Green Mountains in our area.
Based on posts that were showing up in the Northern New England thread at the American Weather Forum yesterday, it was clear that many valley locations were starting to see accumulations as the temperatures came down. Temperatures dropped well into the 20s F overnight, so by morning, CoCoRaHS reports revealed valley accumulations of anything from a trace to as much as a few inches in a stripe across Northern Vermont.
As our latest fall snowstorm moved through the area yesterday and into the night, many sites in a stripe across Northern Vermont reported accumulations to CoCoRaHS this morning.
A view of some of the powder turns on Perry Merrill. While yesterday was definitely the best day to get out in terms of fresh snow quality, today still delivered some very nice turns as long as you were high enough and early enough to avoid the warming temperatures.
With this latest round of autumn snow culminating in over a foot of accumulation on Mt. Mansfield, the setup was calling for some early season turns. With the way the temperatures were expected to rise today, I think yesterday was the way to go for potentially the best overall snow quality for powder turns, but I was too busy to get out to the slopes. I did get out this morning though, and while snow preservation was undoubtedly better yesterday, the clouds totally disappeared today to reveal incredible snowliage in the sunshine.
A view of the beautiful snow and foliage from the Top Notch area on my approach to the mountain today.
I started my ascent from the Gondola base at 1,600’ and walked with my skis on my pack for a few minutes to get above the areas with the most melting, then I transitioned for touring and skinned up from there. The snow was already becoming spring-like down low in the sun, and areas in the shade featured refrozen snow. So even yesterday, the freezing level made it above the base elevations. I encountered my first real winter snow that had not seen a thaw-freeze cycle at about 2,800’ in the shade, and then at around 3,200’ I began finding some winter snow even in the sun. I made snow depth checks along the way, and here’s the depth profile I found in the late-morning to midday period:
Depths had consolidated a bit even up at 3,600’ based on Powderfreak’s pictures from yesterday, and the sun was really doing a number on the snow down low. The Gondola terrain gets hit by the sun, and the accumulations down near the Gondola base were just about gone by the time I finished my descent.
An eastward view out toward the snow-capped White Mountains of New Hampshire on today’s descent
In terms of the skiing, I encountered just about every sort of condition that Mother Nature can throw at you, from dense, silky powder, to refrozen areas with unbreakable melt crust, to spring snow, to sticky, freshly melted snow. Once you were down below the driest snow up top, the best approach was to fucus on the snow that was in that happy medium between seeing the most sun on the skier’s left, and that which had seen no sun on the far skiers right in the shade of the trees. The snow on the skier’s left that had seen some hours of sun was getting sticky, and snow that was shaded by the trees was still frozen with either an unbreakable or breakable melt crust, but in between there was an area of quality snow that had seen just enough sun to soften up but not get sticky. Once you were down below roughly 2,000’, everything was melting, so you just sort of kept going until you felt the snow was too thin. You could still make it all the way to the base with the help of shaded areas depending on what level of rock skis you might be on, but I took off my skis for the last few hundred vertical because I didn’t want to beat them up too much.
Snow cover was disappearing in sunny areas down at the base elevations of the resort as I approached the end of my descent
That was a solid dump for the middle of October though, and with the bonus snowliage it was a great way to kick off the season.
By Tuesday, accumulations were starting to appear in the upper elevations of Mt. Mansfield, with snow levels continuing to drop and accumulations jumping as the event continued on into Wednesday.
This was a great early season event for the local mountains, and even at elevation, there were still enough leaves left on some of the trees to create excellent snowliage images.
We had our first reported snow of the season here in Vermont over a month ago when flakes were spotted atop Jay Peak, but this latest round of winter weather has now brought us the first actual accumulations of the season. Our initial images of the accumulations came out yesterday morning when Powderfreak sent out some shots from the higher elevations of Mt. Mansfield during his usual Stowe Mountain Resort duties. Later in the day he sent along a nice image of the cloud ceiling and flakes falling on Spruce Peak while he was out on an afternoon hike. The snow was down to at least the 3,100’ elevation as of the afternoon, and with more moisture pushing into the spine of the Greens according to the radar, the potential for some additional overnight accumulations was looking good. The moisture seemed to be drifting a bit south though, and I saw a comment from Powderfreak that he felt the Central and Southern Greens would have the better chances for accumulations during the overnight period.
A shot from Killington’s North Ridge Webcam of today’s new snow during our period of first snow accumulations for the 2024-2025 winter season. Accumulations began in the area yesterday and the Central Green Mountain s picked up some of the best snows overnight.
Ty dives into the Outlaw woods during today’s Bolton ski outing as we take on the snow from the third day of Winter Storm Tormund
Today was the third day of our ongoing storm cycle, and Winter Storm Tormund has now brought Bolton’s storm total to 32 inches after another few overnight. E and I headed up for a morning session of turns with Ty, and it was a great chance to see how conditions were looking as the system began to wind down. Bolton wasn’t kicking off lift service from the Vista Quad until 10:00 A.M., so there was no need to rush up to the mountain first thing in the morning. As a bonus, the Wilderness Chair was opening at 10:30 A.M. for the first time since the storm cycle started, so that represented a nice opportunity to get into some fresher snow.
Snow was starting to mix with and change to rain in the valleys when we headed up to the mountain, but the snow line was still relatively low overall – certainly below 1,500’. More snow continued to fall all morning while we were out on the mountain, but it was of moderate to only occasionally heavy intensity. The clouds were also not as thick as they’d been earlier, and at times the weather was a mix of sun and snow, so the snowfall wasn’t accumulating as efficiently as it had over the previous couple of days. The upside of the thinner clouds was that the light intensity was much higher than it had been, so it made for some easier action photography. There was some wind when we first arrived up at the resort, and it really set up an overly wintry feel, but those winds dissipated before too long even up near the summits, and it started to feel more like a late-season ski day.
“Today was the third day of our ongoing storm cycle, and Winter Storm Tormund has now brought Bolton’s storm total to 32 inches after another few overnight.”
Since temperatures had come down overnight, the new accumulations of snow were once again drier than what had been falling yesterday afternoon, so like I’d experienced yesterday morning during my tour at Timberline, the quality of the powder this morning was better than it was in the afternoon. It does show the importance of typically getting out early for powder as we move through April, since the sunlight intensity is growing stronger, and it more easily affects the quality of the snow.
I brought E and Ty for a run through Vista Glades, since it had been so nice yesterday afternoon, and it delivered once again. Up at those elevations around 3,000’, the snowfall has been quite dry at any time of day, so you’re really getting some of the best conditions. We spent the rest of our session on Wilderness, taking advantage of all the new terrain it offered, and the lower traffic definitely helped supply a lot more fresh snow. Bolton Outlaw was skiing great, we had some nice turns in the Outlaw Woods, and a couple of great runs in the whole length of Wilderness Woods. We explored some of the tree skiing terrain to the skier’s left of Peggy Dow’s that was really nice, and that’s a place I don’t visit too often.
Ty surfing and slicing through our third day of Winter Storm Tormund powder
The freezing level seemed to be climbing as our session continued. Toward the end of the morning, on each run it seemed that the snow began to get wetter at a higher elevation. It did keep snowing all morning, but it was comfortable with the lack of wind and there was certainly an “April” feel to the storm today because it didn’t have as much bite as a midwinter one. It looks like we’ll be moving out of the wintry conditions into more spring-like conditions in the coming days based on the forecast, so it should be fun to see how the snow changes. The snowpack should have some extra staying power after all these substantial late-season storms though.
Dylan out for some Friday afternoon turns enjoying the continued fresh snow from Winter Storm Tormund
When I left home this morning, I’d packed an assortment of skis on the roof rack because I wanted to be ready to roll with whatever Winter Storm Tormund decided to throw at us for the next rounds of snowfall. Full fat Teles were definitely the call for ski touring at Timberline this morning, and with the snowfall continuing throughout the day, stopping off for some lift-served turns this afternoon seemed like a good way to mix things up and take advantage of the nicely shifted schedule that Bolton is now offering. This afternoon before heading home from Burlington, I sent out a text to the family letting them know that I was heading to the mountain, and to see if anyone wanted to meet up for some turns if they were going to be there. Erica had let me know that Dylan might be heading up for some Friday afternoon turns, so I’d been watching my phone for an update about his plans. Low and behold, just as I’m heading down French Hill on I-89 in Williston, a red Subaru with a bunch of gear on the ski rack passes by on the left. It looked suspiciously like Dylan’s car, and before I knew it, I got a text indicating that he and his friends were right in front of me. Well, that settled that with respect to whether I’d be able to meet up for turns!
Significant rainfall in the lower valleys meant plentiful snow up higher in the mountains in places like the Bolton Valley Village.
It was raining steadily as we drove through the lower valleys on our way to the mountain, and naturally we hoped that meant there was some nice snowfall occurring at elevation. Indeed, the snow line was pretty low, switching quickly to snow before we even hit 1,000’ on the Bolton Valley Access Road. Up in the Village, it was snowing hard – much harder than what I’d encountered when I’d been out ski touring this morning. The resort was busy with visitors, but there were enough people coming and going this afternoon that we were quickly able to get a couple of parking spots right near each other in the top row of the main lot.
An upper window of the The Inn at Bolton Valley reveals some of the recent accumulations from Winter Storm Tormund.
Based on what I was expecting in terms of snow and powder conditions, I grabbed my fat alpine boards for the session, since I knew we’d be encountering a lot more tracked conditions in all the dense new snow, and I figured we’d take full advantage of the opportunities the resurfacing would give us to jump into steep terrain.
Jack out today on the hill reaching for his next turn and enjoying the bounty of Winter Storm Tormund.
Main lift service for the afternoon was off the Vista Quad, so we hit a bunch of fun, steeper terrain like Vista Glades and Vermont 200 that made good use the resurfacing. Vista Glades was excellent, with all its stumps, rocks, ledges, bumps, and whatever other obstacles it contains well buried under a deep base and the thick layers of fresh snow. It offered lots of swooping and rolling terrain that made for a great ride. Even at higher elevations, the snow was a bit denser than what I’d encountered in my morning tour due to the warming of the day. Now that we were rolling into the second day of the storm cycle, plenty of folks had obviously been out enjoying the systems bounty, so we were mostly skiing tracked and packed snow, but it was skiing beautifully. The higher you went, the drier the snow was, but it was still quite decent down to even 2,000’. We did jump into some untracked areas of powder as well, and that snow was certainly skiing denser than it had in the morning, but it was still plenty dry for some nice powder turns.
The powder has definitely dried out a bit as Winter Storm Tormund rolls on, but I still took advantage of the nice steeps of the Spell Binder Headwall on today’s tour, and it definitely delivered.
With Winter Storm Tormund still churning out the snow today, I decided to head up to the mountain for some turns in the morning. For Bolton’s schedule at this time of year, the lifts don’t start running until noon on weekdays, so ski touring was the natural choice for morning turns. I was initially undecided about whether I was going to tour at Wilderness or on the Backcountry Network, but I ultimately didn’t end up touring in either place. On my way up the Bolton Valley Access Road, I was passing by Timberline and suddenly realized… duh, that was the place to tour! I’ve been touring almost exclusively out of Bolton’s main base area this season because of the access to the superior snowpack depth and snow quality provided by being able to start above the 2,000’ elevation. The snow depth and quality down at the base of Timberline at 1,500’ just hasn’t been there until very recently, and it had been so long since I toured down there, I’d almost forgotten it existed. But when the snow is good, you can’t beat the convenience of ski touring at Timberline with its shorter drive and immediate access to nicely-pitched terrain, so once I was reminded, I jumped at the chance to start my tour there.
Partially-sheltered chairs lined up behind the Timberline Base Lodge have take on a bit of snow from ongoing Winter Storm Tormund
Skier traffic was light when I arrived at the base of Timberline, with about a half dozen cars or so in the parking areas. There was some snow falling when I started my tour, but at that point we were in a rather light phase of the ongoing storm cycle. I took depth measurements of the accumulations right at the Timberline Lodge as I was just beginning my ascent, and settled snow depths were right around 18 inches. From there, it seemed to increase by a couple of inches for each 500 feet of vertical gained. The resort was reporting 26 inches for a storm total at that point, and that would make sense for accumulations up around 3,000’ based on my measurements from those slightly lower elevations. Temperatures had cooled off overnight, so the most recent accumulations were drier and knocked the skiing up a notch relative to what I’d found yesterday afternoon. Overall, it was still a moderately dense accumulation of new snow, but it had a little better gradient of density for powder turns.
This chair outside the Timberline Base Lodge was a sign of the recent snows from Winter Storm Tormund that had hit Bolton Valley even down at the 1,500′ elevation.
As I ascending the Timberline skin track on Twice as Nice, I was gauging my options for the descent. Even with the slightly drier snow topping off the ongoing accumulations, I knew from yesterday that having enough pitch was still going to be important for optimal powder turns. I was leaning toward descending on Twice as Nice itself, since it has one of the most consistent pitches among the trail selections – it doesn’t have any heavy steeps, but it also doesn’t have the required compensatory flatter sections. My leaning changed when I watched a snowboard descending the trail with his dog, and I saw that he was bogged down and coming to a near standstill in one of the lower pitched areas. That was enough to convince me to head toward Spell Binder, where I knew I would at least get to sample the steep headwall section for some solid turns.
Evergreens near the Timberline Mid Station elevations adorned with hefty amounts of snow from Winter Storm Tormund
As expected, the headwall of Spell Binder absolutely delivered. The turns were surfy and buoyant in the roughly two feet of fresh powder, and I could absolutely feel the improvement that had come with that most recent drier snow topping off the rest of the accumulation. Just like yesterday afternoon, it was another session of plowing into the powder as deeply and aggressively as you wanted, and you were still nowhere near the subsurface. As a bonus, even the powder in the lower pitched areas skied fine, and I didn’t have any issues with speed. Either my 115 mm boards had surface area to spare for my weight relative to the snowboarder I’d seen, or he had some other issue (wax, etc.) keeping him from planing on those lower pitches. It was a great powder session to kick off the day, and with the storm continuing to roll along, it looks like there will be more fresh snow sessions on the way as we moved toward the weekend.
Dropping through the steeps of Devil’s Playground today at Bolton Valley thanks to 2+ feet of new snow from Winter Storm Tormund. Thanks to the density of the snow that fell atop snowpack from a long winter season, you could hit just about any terrain with reckless abandon and be well protected from any underlying obstacles.
I was too busy to get up to the mountain for turns this morning, but in terms of lift-served skiing at Bolton, that’s not an issue because their current midweek lift schedule is 12:00 P.M. to 7:00 P.M. It’s brilliant that they shifted to that schedule for lift operations, and they aren’t even using the lights for it because daylight simply lasts so long; their expansive western exposure really plays into that.
I did have time to get out for turns this afternoon though, and despite the substantial snows that are being deposited in the mountains and even all the way down to the lowest valleys, the road conditions have been quite nice with April sun intensity and temperatures near the freeing mark. It wasn’t until I was up around 2,000’ on the Bolton Valley Access Road that the road held any snow, and even then it was just a bit of slush with the help of plowing and salting, etc. It was snowing hard when I arrived at the mountain, probably in the inch per hour range, but nothing too outrageous, then it lightened up a bit as the afternoon wore on. There was some wind at times, but at other points it would be nearly calm, even up to elevations just below the ridgeline. Temperatures were in the upper 20 s F, or maybe a little lower than that in the summit areas, but it was comfortable in the way that you might expect April to deliver.
And the skiing… wow… what a resurfacing! I’m starting to lose count of the number of huge resurfacing storms we’ve had up here in the Northern Greens this season, but a quick look through my storm data from here at my site suggests the mountains have had at least 10 of them with an inch or more of liquid equivalent. That’s pretty impressive for a season that has been struggling to reach average snowfall around here, and it really gets one thinking about what an above average season can produce, since I don’t think we’ve had a solidly above average one since ’18-’19. In any event, I guess average to even a bit below average snowfall is certainly appreciated around here when it delivers like this.
So we’ve had a decent number of these resurfacing storms this season, but this one… Winter Storm Tormund, it really put down a shellacking of the slopes. As soon as I dropped into my first few turns off the Vista Summit, I knew; there had to be at least two inches of liquid equivalent in that snow. This wasn’t just your typical “nice, this is definitely keeping me off the subsurface” type of snowfall, this was on that next level. This snow laughed at the thought of you getting anywhere near the subsurface. We’ve had about an inch and a half of liquid equivalent in the snow thus far down here at the house, and with the way that snow skied on the mountain this afternoon, they’re obviously well above that.
The early morning report from the resort was 6 to 8 inches of new snow, so I was surprised with how deep it was when I was up there this afternoon. I routinely measured 16 to 20 inches off the Vista trails, with 24 inches common in some areas. I even got some 30-inch measurements, although those could easily have been in hollows or due to a little drifting. Bolton is reporting 24 inches as their top measurement as of this afternoon, and I’d say that’s right in line with what I found out there. The snow isn’t wet, nor is it super dense, but it’s dense enough that you are well protected from hitting anything below. As is typical with this type of snow, the best powder skiing required substantial pitch, and this type of resurfacing just begs for you to ski the steep stuff anyway, so I obliged and hit the really steep lines off Vista. The super steep sections of Devil’s Playground were a hoot – I always forget just how steep they are, but with this snow you can simply drop in and fly with reckless abandon.
Winter Storm Tormund really meant business in the local mountains – I was finding new snow depths in the range of 20 to 30 inches when I was out for my session at Bolton Valley today.
With the amount of liquid that’s already gone into the snowpack with this storm cycle, this is a major boost for the spring skiing season – at least with respect to the natural snow trails. The snowmaking terrain always lasts no matter what we get for spring storms, but having storms like these just bring more natural snow options to the table for much longer. And Winter Storm Tormund isn’t over yet according to the forecasts – it looks like it continues right into the weekend, so the storm totals and contribution to the snowpack will hopefully increase further over the next couple of days. Bolton was at 324 inches of snowfall on the season as of this afternoon, so it’s at least shaping up to be in the average range at this point.
