The views of the snow were gorgeous in the Bolton Valley Village today; we’ve been getting hit with rounds and rounds of continued light snow as impulses come into the area and help push along moisture streaming over from the Great Lakes.
I hadn’t been up to the mountain since Saturday, so I was eager to get out for a ski tour when I had time today. There’s been no specific synoptic storms in the area, but the snow has been piling up the thanks to the continuous feed of moisture off the Great Lakes and the upper-level low pressure to our north. Seeing the snowpack depth at the Mt. Mansfield stake quickly jump up to near 20 inches is a strong sign that it’s been snowing around here. Having that closed upper low over Hudson Bay with broad upper level troughing is a great setup when you have a 4,000’ wall of mountains sitting downwind of a moisture source like the Great Lakes.
The snowpack depth at the Mt. Mansfield Stake has been shooting right up above average over the past few days thanks to the continuous parade of smaller weather impulses affecting the area as well as the moisture pushing into the area from the Great Lakes.Up at the snowy Wilderness Summit above 3,000′ on today’s ski tour
Even without data from the Mt. Mansfield stake to go on, I know it’s been snowing because we’ve recently had several inches of new snow down at our place in the valley, so the snow is hitting all elevations with the current temperature regime. Indeed, I found that snow depths were up substantially at all elevations during today’s ski tour. I toured again using the Wilderness Uphill Route, so I was able to check snowpack depths from the valley on up and compare them to what I’d last seen on Saturday. The updated snow depths are below, with Saturday’s depths listed first, then today’s depths following in bold. The depths I found up at 3,000’ and above are certainly consistent with what is being reported for the snowpack depths at the Mt. Mansfield stake.
Concomitant with the increasing depths, the quality of the powder skiing even jumped another notch relative to the already great conditions we experienced on Saturday. In fact, even though the surface snowpack is excellent right-side-up powder that is beautifully dry, it’s getting deep enough that it’s starting to be a bit too much for the lowest angle slopes if you’re in fully untracked snow. I’d brought my 115 mm fat skis for today’s tour because they had already been a good choice on Saturday, but I was glad to have them for planing more efficiently on the lowest angle slopes today.
Along with all the natural snow they are picking up, the resort in blowing lots of snow as well in anticipation of opening in a few days.
Indeed, it was snowing today during my tour akin to what’s been happening for the past several days, but today’s snowfall was lighter and less consistent than what I experience on Friday or Saturday. Our next Clipper system is now coming into the area though, so snowfall should pick up with that. We’re under a Winter Weather Advisory here along the spine of the Northern Greens, and the latest BTV NWS Event Total Snowfall map currently has some areas of 8-12” and 12-18” shading.
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.
I wasn’t initial sure what to expect from the Thanksgiving snowstorm at Bolton Valley, but with a solid shot of new powder over the existing base snow, there were excellent soft turns out there today.
With the Thanksgiving winter storm wrapping up overnight, today was clearly a day to get out for some skiing, but I wasn’t initially sure where I was going to go. The storm seemed to be more potent further south based on observations that I’d seen, as well as images from mountain cameras like the Okemo snow stake webcam and the Sugarbush snow stake webcam – they both showed about a foot of new snow at elevation. We’d been watching Bolton Valley’s webcams throughout the storm, and the resort was certainly getting some decent accumulations, but Bolton doesn’t have a specific snow stake webcam and it was a bit difficult to get a feel for just how much they’d received from the wider views. This morning, I perused a variety of mountain webcams from around the state, and in the end, there didn’t seem to be all that much difference in practical base area accumulations and coverage between what I was seeing at Bolton and the various resorts father south. I also checked on how much liquid equivalent was in the new snow, since that has such a big impact the quality of the skiing, and while the VermontCoCoRaHS numbers seemed to be around an inch of liquid to our south, we’d picked up over 0.6 inches of liquid in the snow that fell at our house in the Winooski Valley, so I’d expect Bolton Valley to have picked up at least that much. With some base snow already in place at Bolton, that felt like plenty of snow for some good touring and turns.
A view of some of the growing storm accumulations in the Bolton Valley Village today
Overall, the decision ended up being relatively easy, and I headed up to Bolton around midday. Down at the base of the Bolton Valley Access Road at 340’, new snow accumulations were just spotty, with areas of grass visible, but by the time I hit the Village at 2,000’, I found 6 to 8 inches of fresh snow, so the skiing prospects were looking good. I ascended by the Wilderness Uphill Route, and the skin track was nicely set. I probed snow depths throughout the tour, and by the time I hit the Wilderness Summit at roughly 3,150’, depths were in the 12 to 14-inch range. Above 2,000’ there was already existing snowpack in place, so the higher-elevation snow depths I measured on today’s tour weren’t necessarily all from this most recent storm, but here’s the detailed snow depth profile from today:
Some accumulations of snow up near the Wilderness Summit during today’s ski tour
Although the precipitation from this storm was 100% snow even at our site at 500’ in the valley, temperatures were around freezing down low, so the accumulations were quite dense. That wasn’t the case up on the mountain though – the snow was considerable drier, and the powder was of good quality. It was clearly sub-10% H2O powder, and if I had to guess it was probably in the 8% H2O range above 2,000’. I’d brough mid-fat skis today since I was initially unsure of how deep the powder was going to be and how good the overall coverage would be, but one could easily go with fatter skis if they wanted. With some existing dense base snow in place, even black diamond terrain was easily in play today. You’ll still want to be on mowed, on-trail terrain though – I suspect that venturing onto anything with too many obstacles would find you hitting things below the base. And the trees are still not ready yet – the base isn’t deep enough to cover the typical obstacles in the woods. Today’s powder turns were great though, and the snow was dry enough that even low-angle terrain was fun. Fat skis could help there for a bit more planing and speed if you’re on the fence about what width to shoot for.
One of the views of the early season accumulations from along the slopes during today’s tour
Thanks to our upwind friend Lake Ontario, snow was falling the entire time I was out touring. For most of the tour the snowfall was of varying light intensity depending on whether a larger pulse of lake moisture was hitting the spine or not, but it jumped up to borderline heavy snowfall when I was leaving a bit before 2:00 P.M. There was a good shot of moisture hitting the mountain at that point and the top half of the Bolton Valley Access Road had taken on enough accumulation that people were really taking their time on the descent. With the lake effect snow event taking place right now, we’ve had about another inch of new snow down here in the valley, so I suspect they’ve had at least another couple of inches up at the resort. And there’s more moisture pushing into the area this evening based on the radar, so there should be some additional freshening of the powder surfaces for tomorrow.
A couple of skiers trudge up toward the Vista Quad amidst the very heavy snowfall delivered by our most recent Alberta Clipper system.
The clipper that began affecting the area yesterday evening was definitely potent – by the time I headed up to the mountain early this morning, we’d already picked up 7 inches of new snow at the house. I couldn’t really get a sense for accumulations heading up the Bolton Valley Access Road, but up in the Bolton Valley Village elevations around 2000’ I was measuring 8 inches of new snow. That was definitely a transient number though, because it was snowing at a rate of at least an inch per hour. Visibility was so low in the heavy snowfall that you could only see a distance of about a dozen chairs on the Mid Mountain Lift – beyond that the lift simply disappeared.
A snowcat returning to the operations area as I set off on my morning ski tour from the based of Wilderness
I started off my session with a quick tour up to about 2,500’ using the Wilderness Uphill Route. Powder depths didn’t seem to increase drastically with elevation, as I measured about 9 inches at the 2,500’ level. Being a weekday morning, it was very quiet and I don’t recall seeing another soul until a lone rider appeared as he descended the Wilderness Liftline off in the distance. The Vista Quad had started loading, and the appearance of the rider meant that people were starting their first descents. It was a good sign that it was time for me to descend as well. I descended on Lower Turnpike, which hadn’t seen much skier traffic, so there were plenty of fresh turns to be had. I’d brought my 115 mm fat skis, and they were definitely the right tool for the terrain, keeping me surfing at a nice pace on the lower angle slopes. My analyses from down at the house indicated that we’d picked up about a third of an inch of liquid at that point, and assuming something similar for the mountain, that meant the powder was somewhere in the 3 to 4% H2O range. It offered little resistance with respect to slowing my descent, and fat skis were more than enough to keep the turns bottomless.
A view of the Miso Kome hut as I return from my morning ski tour and the heavy snowfall continued to hit the resortStephen and Johannes head up through the snowfall to meet me at the base of the Vista Quad
After my descent I caught up on texting with my colleague Stephen about getting together for some turns. He and his son were just finishing suiting up in the lodge and they met up with me near the base of the main mountain lifts a few minutes later. We rode the Vista Quad and hit Alta Vista followed by Fanny Hill. The subsurface out there is really firm due to the extended period we recently went through without much snowfall. Aside from the areas of powder along the trail edges, Alta Vista was really firm. Fanny Hill was much better – after the initial steep chute area, the rest of the trail was out of the wind and had seen little skier traffic. It had a mid-angle pitch that skied perfectly for bottomless turns in the available powder. I couldn’t stay too long at the mountain, but from what I was able to sample, that mid-angle terrain was great. You really wanted to be getting fresh tracks though for quality turns – there just wasn’t enough liquid equivalent down at that point to really hold up to multiple skiers before you’d be contacting the base. A third of an inch of liquid can’t go too far in that regard, but thankfully it was midweek, so there were plenty of opportunities for untracked snow.
Today on Fanny Hill at Bolton Valley – the snow just keeps falling, so we’ll keep making turns!
Of the 11 winter storms we’re recorded so far this season at our site in the Winooski Valley, 3 have delivered more than a half inch of liquid equivalent, and they’ve had a notable upward trend in L.E. The November 21st storm brought 0.72” of L.E., the November 26th storm brought 1.14” of L.E., and this most recent storm that began on December 3rd brought more than 1.40” of L.E., with snowfall continuing tonight. These storms have really helped to build the mountain snowpack, and the snow depth at the Mt. Mansfield Stake is now more than a foot above average.
The snow just continues to pile up in the Bolton Valley Village with these weekly larger systems and the smaller ones in between.
Bolton Valley was reporting another 14” of snow in 24 hours, and I popped up to the mountain this afternoon to check it out. Elevation has had quite an impact on the snow from this most recent storm, and the snow depth profile coming up out of the Winooski Valley is quite extreme. There’s really no snow at the base of the Bolton Valley Access Road aside from leftover piles, and it’s like that all the way up above 1,000’, and then the depth begins to ramp up. Here’s the snow depth profile I found on today’s ski tour:
Folks up in the Bolton Valley Village are constantly having to clear the snow with storm cycles frequently affecting the area in the past few weeks.
It was more challenging to get depth readings in those upper elevations since the pack is getting pretty deep and there are a lot of different layers with varying consistencies, but that general trend I’ve seen on the mountain recently of almost an inch of depth increase per 100’ of elevation gain seems to generally be holding. The depths I was getting at 3,000’ also seem generally in line with the current reading at the Mt. Mansfield Stake of 33” at 3,700’.
I arrived up in the Village in the early afternoon to a maelstrom of huge flakes coming down in association with the back side of the storm system, so the mountain continued to tack on more to the snow totals. Fat skis were unquestionably the play for today. The accumulations from this storm definitely came in denser than the previous one, and while fats were of course great for stability, they were also really nice for planing on lower angle slopes and getting additional turns out of that snow. Even though you were only sinking maybe 6 to 10 inches into the powder because of the density, it was still slow going if the slope angle got too low. Steep slopes indeed offered the best turns, and the base is so dense and deep that even on those pitches there’s not much to worry about in terms of coverage on the upper mountain.
A pair of skiers gets ready for a ski tour as a snow plow works its way through the Bolton Valley Village trying to keep up with the continuing snowfall
Ty rides through some of the fresh powder we encountered today in Bolton’s Outlaw Woods
Last night we picked up another 4 to 5 inches of snow here in the valley from the weak cold front swinging through the region, and not surprisingly, the local mountains picked up twice that amount. Bolton Valley was reporting 10 inches of new snow atop the 15+ inches they’d received from the storm at the beginning of the week, and this new snow came in around 5% H2O according my morning liquid analyses. The new drier snow atop the base was a recipe for some great skiing.
Ty was off from work this afternoon, so we popped up to the mountain for a ski tour on Wilderness. Relative to the last storm, the Winooski Valley down by the base of the Bolton Valley Access Road did better with this event; whereas the coverage was somewhat patchy after the last storm, it was generally continuous with a few inches present this morning. I checked snowpack depths during the tour as usual, and it’s getting tougher to get measurements as the snowpack gets deeper, but with settling through the afternoon, depth increases seemed to be as follows relative to what I found yesterday:
So essentially, the snowpack depths I found today were about 500 feet lower in elevation than equivalent depths I found yesterday.
A snowcat/groomer works around Bolton’s main base area as snow is being made in the background. The resort had lots of mountain operations taking place as they get ready for resumption of lift service on Friday
The Wilderness Uphill Route had seen plenty of skier traffic, and there was a dual skin track all the way to the Wilderness Summit that made conversation easy while we ascended. I was hoping to bring Ty over toward Fanny Hill again in line with the tour I’d done yesterday, but ski patrol had fenced off Upper Crossover. They really want touring to be confined to Wilderness, and I guess that’s not too surprising with the amount of operations they have going on Vista. With the amount of activity we saw going on all around the resort, it’s obvious that they’re going full tilt in preparation for re-opening on Friday with their partial-week schedule. I’m not sure how much of the mountain they’re going to open, but with the amount of natural snow out there, they’re going to have a lot of options.
A truck in the parking lot holds some of the recent snow that Bolton Valley has received.
In terms of the skiing, it was great. Conditions were already excellent yesterday, and now Mother Nature threw another 10 inches on top of that, so it’s about what you’d expect – lots of bottomless powder. We hit the Wilderness Summit just as sunset was approaching, so the views to the west were stupendous on such a fine afternoon. With the snow remaining deep, you wanted to shoot for intermediate pitches and above for decent turns. Based on my experience from yesterday, we did have full fat skis today, so that helped a lot with floatation and the ability to turn on those lower-angle slopes a bit more.
Adding a set of tracks to Fanny Hill while out on a ski tour at Bolton Valley today – thanks to the remnants of Winter Storm Cait, Bolton was reporting 15 inches of new snow, and it had sufficient density to ski even the steepest terrain.
Tuesday: We are still reeling from the season’s first big snowstorm that smothered the northern Green Mountains in a heavy blanket of prime base building snow Sunday night to Monday morning. In addition to the 12-15″ we woke up to Monday morning, it appears we’re in for another 1-3″ today here in the upper elevations and – perhaps even more importantly – the return of cold temperatures on the ol’ “wet bulb” to fire up snowmaking efforts again. As we get closer to Friday we’ll keep you posted on trails and lifts for this weekend, but perhaps needless to say, we will definitely be expanding terrain this weekend, including Snowflake Lift, a small buildout in the Hide Away Terrain Park and several trails making their season debut. Stay tuned on that front.
No lift service today, but we’ve gone ahead and opened the Wilderness Designated Uphill Route so you can get some fresh pow laps in if your schedule allows.
Based on Powderfreak’s comment from yesterday about skiing on just the top 4” of the snow, and the density of the snow down from my liquid analyses down here at our house, I brought mid-fats for today’s tour. I figured I’d be riding Sierra Cement, but that wasn’t at all what I experienced. I’ll mention more about the snow density after covering the storm accumulations and snowpack depths.
There’s a very impressive elevation gradient with respect to the snow accumulations from this storm. Down at the base of the Bolton Valley Access Road at 340’, there isn’t even complete coverage on all aspects – I’d call the snowpack there T – 2”. I didn’t monitor the snowpack too closely on my ascent to the Village, but coverage was certainly continuous by 1,000’. Up in the Village around 2,000’ or so, I found 10-12” of snow, and here are some measurements at elevations during my tour:
2,000’: 10-12”
2,500’: 15-16”
3,000’: 18-20”
As the numbers reveal, there’s a huge snow depth gradient above 2,000’ – you’re basically looking at the depth going up about an inch every 100’ of vertical. Now those numbers are for total snowpack depth because I’m not sure if I’d be able to distinguish exactly what portion came from this most recent storm, but much of it was from this storm (as Bolton’s summit storm total of 15” would suggest).
The Wilderness Uphill Route has a beautifully packed skin track in place at this point, so travel on the snow is easy. And getting back to that discussion of snow density, it’s not Sierra Cement. In the higher elevations, the density going several inches down into the snowpack is sub-10% H2O powder – I’d put it somewhere in the 6 to 8% H2O range if I had to guess. You sink well down into it, I’d say a good foot, and it’s nicely right-side-up. As I mentioned, I brought mid-fats, but fat skis are actually the tool you want (or a snowboard, etc.).
Tendrils show snow crashing out off to the west of Bolton Valley as more squalls get set to hit the mountain.Catching the third set of tracks down Upper Fanny Hill today on the prodigious snow left from Winter Storm Cait
It was quickly obvious on my ascent that some decent pitch would be required for turns, so I toured all the way to the top of Wilderness. I checked out Bolton Outlaw, and it had seen enough traffic to track it up pretty thoroughly, so I continued on to Upper Fanny Hill and put the third set of tracks down there. I continued on to Fanny Hill proper and got probably the fourth set of tracks there. The powder skiing is fantastic as long as you’ve got at least intermediate pitch. Shallower than that and the powder is just too deep to keep decent momentum (and that’s another reason to bring fat skis because you can make use of that extra floatation).
In terms of snow quality, it’s as I described at elevation, and of course the overall depth decreases as you descend, but the quality stays high right down to 2,000’. Only just as you approach 2,000’ do you encounter any sort of snow quality issues, and there’s a slight crème brûlée crust in there a couple of inches below the surface where there must have been a bit of warming. At that elevation it’s still quite subtle and you can essentially ignore it.
As Bolton’s snow report indicates, the resort is considering expanding their open terrain thanks to this storm, and moving to some of the natural snow terrain is pretty obvious at this point. We’ll have to see which terrain can hold up to lift-served traffic, but I can’t believe there’s not more talk about this storm and what it could do for the start of the season. This storm was a total liquid equivalent bomb, and not only that, the snow is good to go. This storm was an absolute season-starter. Sometimes storms like this come in so dense or warm, that the tenor will be “This is going to be a great base as soon as we get some good snow on top of it”. Well, there’s no need to wait, the snow is already good to go, and it’s currently getting covered more with the snow from today. It’s not every day you get such a base-building storm that immediately offers up fantastic midwinter skiing. We didn’t even have to wait until December for this one – it somehow snuck in during November, which is another great bonus.
Enjoying some of Bolton’s fresh powder during this morning’s ski tour thanks to Winter Storm Jimenez
I headed up to the mountain this morning to catch a quick ski tour and check out the snow we’d received from Winter Storm Jimenez up to that point. Bolton was indicating 4 to 5 inches of new snow as of the morning report, and that’s what I found fairly consistently in touring from 2,100’ up to around 2,700’ on terrain that had previously been packed. Turns were generally bottomless with 115 mm width skis on low and moderate angle terrain, but the quality of the turns was bolstered by the fact that the subsurface continues to improve with each storm. That dense mid-month storm really substantiated the base, and Winter Storm Iggy added some drier snow atop that, so the depth and quality of the snowpack is improving by leaps and bounds. There have been additional accumulations today from a strong cold front passing through the area, and the next synoptic system in the queue is expected to impact the area tomorrow night and has been named Winter Storm Kassandra. That system seems to have a bit more potential for some upslope snow on the back side, and I’ve seen storm total estimates as high as 12 to 18 inches for the local mountains, which would represent another great addition to the snowpack.
Views of some of the recent snow from Winter Storm Jimenez on my drive to Bolton Valley this morning
A snowy view of the Wilderness Chair greets me today as i begin a late afternoon ski tour to check out the recent snows from Winter Storm Iggy.
As expected, Winter Storm Iggy came through and transformed the ski conditions in the local mountains this weekend. A survey of the Vermont ski area snow reports revealed surprisingly consistent storm totals running around 10 inches up and down the spine of the Central and Northern Greens, with lower amounts down at the southern resorts due to an influx of some mixed precipitation.
Ty was coming home from NVU Lyndon for the weekend, and with Iggy starting up Thursday evening, E was able to pick him up late that afternoon because he didn’t have any Friday classes. The timing was perfect because they got home just ahead of when the flakes started falling, and it was a great example of the utility of accurate winter weather forecasting.
“All in all I’d describe the turns as mostly bottomless, quite surfy, and that powder was all atop that bomber base that was present from the previous storm cycle, so you could really have confidence in what was below the new snow.”
Dylan and Colin only have one early class on Fridays, so after they were done with that, Ty joined them, and the three of them headed up to Bolton for some turns. They scored quite a day with the fresh snow and minimal midweek visitors on the slopes. They had such a blast that after coming home, eating dinner, and watching some GoPro videos from the day, they switched up to some different gear and went back out for night skiing until last chair.
I didn’t have a chance to head out earlier in the day today, but I did get up to the mountain with about an hour of light left, so went for a tour on Wilderness to check out all the new snow. The storm was still ongoing, but at that point I found the following surface snow depths:
2,000’: 6”
2,500’: 7-8”
2,800’: 8-9”
One of the street lights in the Bolton Valley Village parking lot illuminates the snow from Winter Storm Iggy as darkness falls this evening.
I decided not to tour all the way to the Wilderness Summit because I was losing daylight, but the quality of the powder I encountered was excellent. I was surprised to find that I could feel a difference in snow density below about 2,500’, but it was fairly subtle and the turns were really great from top to bottom. All in all I’d describe the turns as mostly bottomless, quite surfy, and that powder was all atop that bomber base that was present from the previous storm cycle, so you could really have confidence in what was below the new snow.
With the dense snow put down by out most recent winter storm, it looks like much of Bolton Valley’s terrain would be set to open with the help of one more wintry system.
I hadn’t been up to the mountain since that fantastic period of skiing from mid-December through the holidays; no major winter storms had come through the area since Winter Storm Elliot, and the skiing just hadn’t seemed good enough to pull me away from other things. That changed with this most recent storm though – Bolton’s snow report from this morning indicated that they’d picked up half foot of new snow in the past couple of days. Although the storm did contain mixed precipitation, it delivered 1.33” of liquid equivalent down here at our site in the valley, with most of that as snow/frozen. Assuming the local mountains exceeded that as they usually do, that’s a storm cycle that has all the makings of a solid resurfacing/base building event.
“…I gave the typical on piste conditions a rating of 2 on a 0 to 10 scale, but I have pretty high snow quality standards…”
With this latest storm, Bolton Valley indicated that the Wilderness Uphill Route was officially open again, which is a good sign that there had been a substantial addition to the snowpack. My observations from today while I was out touring definitely reinforced that notion. With the effects of this most recent storm, the base snow is actually so dense that I couldn’t do any depth checks, but I’d say you’re looking at probably a foot of base depth at the 2,000’ level. If the snow density is that same as what I’ve cored down here at our site in the valley, that would have about 2 inches of liquid equivalent in it. Since the snowpack is just too dense to do any easy depth readings, I don’t have an estimate for the increases of snowpack depth with elevation. The Mt. Mansfield Stake up at 3,700’ is indicating a snowpack depth of 20 inches as of today though, so I’d assume you’re looking at something in that range once you’re up at the local summit elevations above 3,000’.
A view of the Wilderness Chair while out on today’s ski tour
In terms of the skiing, I wasn’t really expecting much real powder with how dense the snowfall was from this past storm; my tour was really a chance to get out for some exercise and see how the off piste snowpack and snow surfaces were looking. I only found about an inch or so of lighter snow above the base, and that was pretty consistent at all elevations in the 2,000’ to 3,000’ range. Snow coverage of the natural terrain is actually quite good though with that impressively dense base, and Lower Turnpike with a good amount of skier-packed areas has great wall-to-wall coverage. Steeper terrain with ledges, obstacles, and wind scouring/drifting is not as consistent in its coverage, but the base snow is just so dense that most of the natural terrain is going to be good to go with the next decent storm. The best snow quality I found was actually in natural snow areas that had been skier packed, since areas of undisturbed/unpacked snow still held the potential to punch through the uppermost layers of the base. On my descent I definitely employed a mix of alpine and Telemark turns, and the safety of alpine turns with that full width of surface area for both skis in the center was the way to go when navigating snow that hadn’t been packed by skiers.
I stuck around for some lift-served skiing since I’d seen that Alta Vista had been opened, and I think it had seen some of the more recent snowmaking, because it had some of the best conditions I found. The best snow by far was what people had pushed to the side, but the main surface was better than elsewhere. Most of the on piste surfaces were typical of what you’d expect for manmade snow that had seen lift-served skier traffic, so really nothing to note in terms of quality. When I got home and Dylan asked me about the conditions, I gave the typical on piste conditions a rating of 2 on a 0 to 10 scale, but I have pretty high snow quality standards, so he knows where a value of 2 would stand. Even without any big storms over the past couple of weeks, the resort has been expanding their terrain with runs like Spillway, and they were blowing snow on Hard Luck as well. The recent snow was substantial enough that even some natural snow terrain had been opened. Surprisingly, they don’t have to lower areas of Wilderness open yet to lift-served access, which is pretty typical under these conditions, but they would need to groom it first, so that may take some extra time.
Even if the snow quality isn’t there yet in terms of typical Northern Greens surfaces, it was definitely nice to get back on the slopes after the break. We had light snow falling during the morning with some blue skies, and some nice snow/rime on the trees. With that base in place, terrain is likely to expand heavily if these next couple of potential systems in the coming week deliver any substantial snow.
Another beautiful rime-covered tree with the clock tower in the background at the Bolton Valley Village Circle
