A view of the snowpack and the skin track as I make my way up into the Gotham City area during today’s ski tour
Today was another chance to take advantage of the new snow from Winter Storm Ronnie, and I had time in the morning to head up to the mountain for some turns. Based on the incredible numbers of visitors yesterday, I figured that untracked lines would be few and far between on the lift served terrain, so I decided to hit the Bolton Valley Nordic & Backcountry Network for a ski tour and get some exercise.
The morning weather was very similar to what we’d been gifted yesterday – sunny, with little wind and temperatures a bit below freezing. I didn’t have time to head all the way up to Bryant Cabin, but I was able to go for a nice loop up the Bryant Trail, onto Coyote, and then up to Gotham City on my tour. With the number of visitors yesterday, I thought that even the backcountry terrain might be heavily tracked up, but that wasn’t the case – there had been a moderate amount of activity, and plenty of untracked lines remained.
There was excellent powder to be found, and I’d say it was just as good as yesterday – if it was protected from the sun. Even with temperatures generally below freezing yesterday, the clear and sunny skies with that late March sun angle were too much for the snow. I suspect the situation was somewhat better if you went high enough in elevation, but least in the 2,000’ to 2,500’ elevation band where I was skiing, areas that had seen direct sun had a substantial sun crust. The effect of the sun was potent enough that it absolutely wrecked the powder skiing in those exposed areas, and it was such a thick and semi-breakable crust in places that the skiing was extremely challenging there. Thankfully, if you skied shaded snow, the powder was in beautiful shape, so I certainly stuck to those lines as much as possible. We’ll likely be warming up at all elevations this week with some spring-like weather, but we may have another substantial storm cycle coming in next week to bring back more spring powder skiing.
A Google Earth map with GPS tracking data from today’s ski tour on the Bolton Valley Nordic & Backcountry Network
Ty launches out of the powder as we navigate our way through some of the Sure Shot trees during today’s outing. Winter Storm Ronnie may have initially left us powder that was somewhat upside-down, but it improved a lot as the system pulled away and granted us with some drier champagne on the back side of the storm cycle.
This weekend has been an interesting dichotomy of days with Winter Storm Ronnie coming through – yesterday was an absolute blitz of a storm day as that session’s photos indicate, but the storm had departed by today and it was just one of those clear, calm, quiet, midwinter days with perfect temperatures that were just a bit below freezing.
I used the term “quiet” to describe the weather, but that in no way described the number of visitors to the mountain. We arrived right around the opening time for Timberline, and the cars were already pouring into the resort. I’m not sure about the lore behind nobody skiing after President’s week, but the number of people out today clearly revealed that such an idea is a crock. People continued to come to the resort all morning, and by the time we left in the late morning period, Bolton had an employee stationed at the bottom of the Bolton Valley Access Road and cars were backed up onto Route 2. I’ve seen them station someone at the bottom of the road when the road conditions are extremely difficult, or the resort is not running the lifts due to power/storm issues, but that wasn’t the case this time – there were just so many people coming to the resort that the parking was bursting at the seams. To punctuate just how many people were skiing around here, my friend Dave even came up from Boston to crash overnight last night at our place because he was skiing Sugarbush today. Apparently, everyone wanted to get out to ski after Winter Storm Ronnie.
Ty slices through some of the powder left by Winter Storm Ronnie during today’s outing at Bolon Valley
“And, when I see an image from today’s session like the one I chose as the feature for this report/post, with Ty blasting through waist to chest-deep powder, I guess it’s hard to complain too much about the powder not being as outrageously perfect as it might have been.”
In any event, the skiing was great, but the only thing that really stood out as exceptional was the weather. The snow had dried out and potentially consolidated in its lower levels somewhat overnight, and a bit of lighter snow had fallen as the storm departed, so the powder was not nearly as upside-down as it had been yesterday. The resurfacing had mostly been completed by the end of the day yesterday, but as of today Bolton was reporting a storm total of 16 inches, and based on my own liquid analyses from down in the valley at our place, the were 1 to 2 inches of liquid equivalent in there. I’ve definitely been hearing talk of it being the best day of the season, but that was mostly hyperbole with respect to conditions around here in the Northern Greens. If you just went by the snow quality and powder skiing, it probably sneaks into the top 10 in terms of great days because of the weather factor, but it really doesn’t come anywhere near the top five. Even this season, which seems to be running a bit below average in terms of snowfall, there have just been too many storm cycles that finished off with quality champagne over a substantial based and a good front end of dense snow that knock today down several spots in terms of the powder skiing. It was still and excellent day to be out on the slopes though; it’s not every storm that we get that sort of weather right as the system departs. And, when I see an image from today’s session like the one I chose as the feature for this report/post, with Ty blasting through waist to chest-deep powder, I guess it’s hard to complain too much about the powder not being as outrageously perfect as it might have been.
Dylan charges through some of the fresh powder as Winter Storm Ronnie rages on during our session at Bolton Valley today
Starting in the wee hours of the morning today, Winter Storm Ronnie began delivering snow, and once things got going, heavy snowfall pounded the mountains all day. In our area, the snowflakes coming in from the system were relatively small, and my early morning liquid analyses from the snow revealed that it was a fairly synoptic-like 12.0 to 1 snow to liquid ratio. That ratio actually dropped as the storm continued through the day, with a 10.6 to 1 ratio for my afternoon analysis, and an 8.4 to 1 ratio for my evening analysis. Despite the relatively small flakes, the snowfall was still in the inch per hour range or more, so there was a lot of liquid coming out of the sky. The very heavy snowfall and small flakes made for some very tough photography out on the mountain today, but we still fired away to get what we could.
Erica comes over a rise and eyes her next section of powder during our morning session at Timberline today.Will blasts between a couple of trees during today’s session – a snowboard was a great tool for riding in today’s dense snow on the front end of Winter Storm Ronnie
Although the storm was still in progress and we’d only received a portion of the anticipated accumulation by the time the lifts started running this morning at Bolton, we still kicked things off with an early start. We were worried about making the ascent of the Bolton Valley Access Road today with the heavy snowfall, but an uphill plow run had been done fairly recently, so it was actually quick and painless getting up to the Timberline Base. We quickly met up with Stephen and Johannes, and Dylan and his friend Will from college as well, so we had a party of six exploring the mountain.
There didn’t appear to be much elevation dependence with the snowfall, so we were happy to hang down at the relatively lower elevations of Timberline and make use of the great terrain there. While there hadn’t been a call for much wind with this storm, it was still blowing quite hard, and that was another incentive to stay down at the Timberline elevations for a while. We eventually did move up to the main mountain, skiing both Wilderness and Vista, and even by the summits up above 3,000’ the wind was similar to what we’d experienced down at Timberline. As the morning moved on, the wind decreased substantially to the point where it wasn’t even a factor.
Dylan surfs through the trees and carves at speed – it was fresh tracks all the time and just about anywhere at the resort today with the continued heavy snowfall from Winter Storm Ronnie all morning.
In terms of the ski conditions, the moderately dense snow had already put down an excellent resurfacing even for the first runs in the morning. The new snow was atop recent rounds of snow from previous storms, so that presumably helped, and with snowfall continuing all day at around an inch per hour, the trails were constantly getting refreshed. The resurfacing made the quality of the on piste turns quite impressive aside from scoured or very high traffic areas, but the powder skiing off piste left something to be desired. With the dense snow falling, the powder was somewhat upside-down, and its density allowed you to easily get bogged down on anything but steep terrain. That’s not to say that the powder skiing wasn’t still tons of fun, but you could tell it wasn’t up to the typical standards of a storm cycle in the Northern Greens where the snow gradually lightens into upslope fluff and really sets up some top notch powder.
All in all, though, it was an excellent session of storm day skiing at the resort. We stopped in for lunch with Dylan and Will at Fireside Flatbread and had some excellent pizza – I got to try their barbeque chicken bacon ranch pizza that Dylan has been raving about. There weren’t any substantial lift queues to speak of today, and it was likely that the ongoing storm kept some people from venturing out to the mountains. The drive down the access road was fairly tough when we finally left in the afternoon, so I can understand why that would keep some folks home, perhaps hoping to come out tomorrow if the storm winds down.
With inch-per hour snowfall hitting the mountain today, our car was well covered after just a few hours of skiing and riding.
