Vermont Snow Updates 2009-10

[J.Spin]

Waterbury totals:
Overnight: 4.9” snow/0.13” L.E.
Event: 9.0” snow/0.55” L.E.

As last night’s latest round of upslope moisture approached the area in the late evening, I was still awake to be able to check and clear the snowboard at midnight. At that point we’d picked up 0.7 inches of snow, and it looked like we were on our way to another inch or so like we’ve seen for the past several rounds. At some point however, the upslope really cranked up and there was a 4.2-inch stack of fluff on the board this morning. That accumulation all fell in about six hours, so I must have been coming down pretty hard for a while. We actually picked up a similar amount of liquid equivalent to what we’ve been getting in these episodes (0.13” overnight) but the snow growth moved into the more typical upslope mode and the snow density dropped to the 2-3% H2O range.

Up in the mountains, Bolton picked up another 6 inches to bring their event total to 16 inches, and most of the resorts in the Northern Greens seem to be in the 1-foot plus range for accumulations now. Some reported overnight accumulations are listed below:

Jay Peak: 6”
Smuggler’s Notch: 6”
Stowe: 7”
Bolton Valley: 6”
Mad River Glen: 4”
Sugarbush: 3”

-J

 

[J.Spin]

Bolton Valley, VT 21FEB2010

On Sunday morning we woke up to find that 4.9 inches of 2-3% H2O Champlain Powder™ had fallen at the house overnight. I’d expected the more typical inch or so that we’d been receiving with the impulses of moisture that were supported by the upslope flow, but conditions for snow growth had clearly improved and we were happy with the surprise. The Bolton-Stowe area was reporting 6-7 inches of new snow, so Ty and I headed up to Bolton to catch some of the morning freshies. It seemed like the skiing was going to be great with another half foot on to of the 10 inches of dense snow they’d picked up in the previous couple of days.

Up at the Timberline base (~1,500’), I checked in a couple of spots and found 7 to 9 inches of new snow, which was a bit more than I’d expected based on the morning report. Ty played in the new snow for a bit while we hung out and waited for the lift to open. A few more people showed up, but the lineup was still only about 10 people when they started loading around 9:30 A.M.

We mixed up the skiing between on and off piste, and conditions were good, but not perfect. The main wrinkle was that there had been a little bit of icing later on Saturday before the overnight fluff, so that sat atop the previous snow. The crust was thin and pretty inconsequential in terms of the actual skiing, but you could still hear it and the overall feel of the turns was therefore not as smooth as it might have been. Some places, such as areas in the trees that had some protection, were totally devoid of the crust, so those spots were especially sweet.

I brought E’s camera for Ty to use, but we had to get home to get ready for afternoon ski program at Stowe, so we didn’t really have time to get set up for him to get any pictures. So, the subjects for the day were just Ty and the surroundings, but I added some shots from the morning below:

J.Spin

 

[J.Spin]

Stowe, VT 21FEB2010

We were up at Stowe on Sunday afternoon, and thanks to the foot or so of snow that they’d received in the previous few days, on piste conditions were certainly improved over what we’d experienced the prior couple of Sundays. I wouldn’t say it was a huge improvement though. I had a combined group of students with another parent, and we split for one run where I took the more advanced guys down the lower part of Hayride. It was a great challenge for them, steep with big bumps, but it was also still horribly icy. I had one student who is thinking of bumping up to the young advanced group, and based on his eagerness and ability to manage that nastiness with nice control, it looks like he should move up. The quad was still down, so the line at the gondola was very long, but lines were minimal at the double and triple. When we rode the Lookout Double, the Lookout trail seemed like it had decent snow quality, although there were still some areas of low coverage. I haven’t been on the double in a long time and I’d forgotten just how awesome the Lookout Trail actually is. E and the boys were up at Stowe yesterday and conditions sounded similar, although they did enjoy the lack of weekend crowds. Perhaps this current system will really be the one to get the conditions back on track for those heavily used trials, since it sounds like there could be a good shot of liquid equivalent in it.

J.Spin

 

[J.Spin]

Waterbury event totals: 12.5” snow/0.97” L.E.

Between 6:00 P.M. and midnight we picked up 4.4 inches of snow to add to yesterday’s totals, and then between midnight and 6:00 A.M. we picked up 6.8 inches to get us to where we are now. Light snow continued when I left the house this morning, and it was generally the same story all the way in to Burlington. As I drove through Jonesville and Richmond, the totals did seem to fall off a bit compared to what we got in Waterbury, potentially due to downsloping as Powderfreak mentioned. I’d say I saw accumulations that looked to be as low as half a foot in that area. Here in Burlington on the UVM campus it looks like they’ve picked up about 8 inches. The roads weren’t actually too bad, and the drive in to Burlington took perhaps an extra ten minutes this morning; it is nice to have a highway department that can throw a foot of snow around quickly and let everyone get on with their business, so hat’s off to the road crews.

Below is what I’ve seen so far for storm totals in some of the Vermont mountains, listed north to south. Currently Sugarbush is reporting the highest storm total at 25 inches, although that is a bit surprising with Mad River Glen right next door reporting 14 inches, but perhaps there was some local banding of heavy snow.

Jay Peak: 18”
Smuggler’s Notch: 16”
Stowe: 18”
Bolton Valley: 14”
Mad River Glen: 14”
Sugarbush: 25”
Killington: 14”
Okemo: 16”
Bromley: 14”
Magic Mountain: 12”
Stratton: 14”
Mount Snow: 13”

J.Spin

 

[J.Spin]

Waterbury event totals as of 3:00 P.M.: 19.1” snow/1.75” L.E.

For much of the morning, the snowfall intensity in Burlington was rather light, the flakes were small, and additional accumulation was occurring slowly. Around 1:00 P.M. however, the snowfall cranked way up to probably more than an inch per hour, the flakes became huge, and the pace of accumulation was renewed. I left UVM around 2:30 P.M. to pounding snow, and the drive home was more difficult than the trip in this morning because the intense snowfall kept accumulations on the road. Accumulations still appeared to be a bit lower in the Jonesville-Bolton area than Richmond. As I approached the town of Bolton, the snowfall tapered off dramatically and it looked like it almost wanted to change over to rain; I suspect the intensity of the snowfall is helping to keep the precipitation as snow. Temperatures stuck right around 34 F for the entire drive to Waterbury.

At 3:00 P.M. I cleared the snowboard, which had 6.6 inches of snow on it comprised of a whopping 0.78 inches of liquid. There has really been quite a conveyor belt of moisture coming into the area, and we’re closing in on 2 inches of liquid equivalent with this event. Even if the mountains picked up only that much, it would go a long way toward improving the quality of those high traffic areas that have needed it over the past month or so. Snowfall is less intense at the moment, but there’s been another half inch of accumulation on the board.

I’ve added event totals for those Vermont ski areas that I’ve seen with afternoon updates:

Jay Peak: 30”
Stowe: 21”
Mad River Glen: 26”
Sugarbush: 34”
Killington: 25”
Pico: 22”
Okemo: 26”
Mount Snow: 30”

J.Spin

 

[Anthony]

The next few days are going to be critical to see what percentage of the precipitation falls as snow or rain and what role elevation will take. Today was no doubt a epic day for those that were out there. Thinking of heading to Northern VT next week.

 

[J.Spin]

Waterbury event totals: 20.4” snow/2.37” L.E.

Down at this our elevation we had some additional wet snow last night, but rain also mixed in to make quite a dense conglomerate. It's felt a lot like the Pacific Northwest out there the past couple of days, which is quite a switch after spending several weeks in a dry, Colorado-style weather pattern. As of yesterday afternoon, Mt. Mansfield was up to 2.49 inches of liquid equivalent from this event, and that should go up a bit more once yesterday evening’s additional snow is added in. The snow depth at the stake was up to 88 inches as of yesterday afternoon as well.

I’ve updated the ski area snowfall totals that I’ve seen for some of the Vermont areas with this event:

Jay Peak: 36”
Smuggler’s Notch: 26”
Stowe: 32”
Bolton Valley: 43”
Mad River Glen: 36”
Sugarbush: 46”
Killington: 37”
Pico: 34”
Okemo: 42”
Bromley: 29”
Magic Mountain: 26”
Stratton: 32”
Mount Snow: 37”

Some of the mountains picked up between 3 and 4 feet of snow in the past couple of days, and since it wasn’t just fluff it should be very beneficial to base building. The next snowfall event starts today; it doesn’t look to be as big as the last one in this area, but it once again looks to be all snow for the higher elevations. Winter storm warnings and winter weather advisories for the next storm are up throughout the state, and snowfall is expected to continue through to the beginning of next week.

J.Spin

 

[J.Spin]

Waterbury event totals as of 6:00 A.M.: 2.0” snow/0.44 L.E.

As of the overnight period we’re back over to snow down here in the Winooski Valley. 2.0 inches of new snow fell overnight, comprised of 0.20 inches of liquid for a simple 10:1 ratio or 10% H2O content. Relative to the first one, this second storm has been fairly tame in this area, with 0.24 inches of liquid falling on Thursday, and nothing much happening yesterday before we got back into the snow overnight.

Even with the lull, the precipitation totals up on Mt. Mansfield have been substantial; here are the hydrometeorological liquid data from the stake over the past several days in association with these two storms:

Tue 2/23: 0.12”
Wed 2/24: 2.37”
Thu 2/25: 0.95”
Fri 2/26: 0.61”
------------------
Sum: 4.05”

The precipitation has been all snow up at that elevation (~3,700’), based on what I’ve seen from when I was up there on Thursday and heard from others, along with 29 F being the highest temperature reported with those hydrometeorological observations. The snowpack at the stake had also reached 96 inches as of yesterday afternoon, so depending on settling, it could be around 100-inch mark with last night’s additional snowfall. The overnight/24-hour totals I’ve seen for some of the Vermont resorts are listed below from north to south:

Jay Peak: 4”
Burke: 3”
Smuggler’s Notch: 7”
Stowe: 8”
Bolton Valley: 5”
Mad River Glen: 2”
Sugarbush: 4”
Pico: 4”
Killington: 4”
Okemo: 1”
Bromley: 4”
Magic Mountain: 6”
Stratton: 6”
Mount Snow: 14”

The light snow continues at the house now, and there’s another half inch on the snowboard since the 6:00 A.M. clearing, so there will be a bit more accumulation to report today.

J.Spin

 

[J.Spin]

Stowe, VT 25FEB2010

On Thursday, Stephen and Johannes joined us for some turns at “Stowequalmie” as it seemed. Down at the base elevations (~1,500’), the temperature was a couple of degrees above freezing, and the precipitation was mixed rain and snow, but not too far up in elevation it was all snow falling. The uppermost elevations were in the clouds, so visibility was low up there, but those areas also had the driest snow. The middle elevations were sort of that sweet spot where visibility was up, and the snow was still nice. The lower ½ to ¼ of the mountain had great visibility, but the snow was fairly wet, so off piste skiing wasn’t quite as easy as it is with our more typical Vermont fluff. Some groomed areas on piste on the lower mountain had that wet pack snow that I’ve experienced on the lower elevations of Whistler Blackcomb.

In terms of the powder in the middle and upper elevations, it was fairly dense, and boy was it deep! As other have mentioned, there were feet of it. The snowpack up there also seemed a bit upside down however. I think some denser snow had fallen on top of some drier snow from Wednesday, so it created that phenomenon. Off piste, it reminded me very much of a trip E and I had to Schweitzer back in 2001, where four feet of Cascade Concrete had fallen on the mountain and many people simply found themselves drowning in it because it was so difficult to ski.

With our crew and the conditions, we didn’t spend much time off piste aside from playing in the snow off the edges of the trails, but we had a good time on the trials. Any issues of iciness or coverage were long buried, and it was great to see the mountain looking better as we approach March. Freddie’s Chute under the Sunny Spruce Quad is finally all covered, so we had a fun run down there. Ty really loved blasting the moguls on West Smuggler’s, since with the weather pattern we’d been in previously, it had probably been a couple of months since he’d skied moguls without at least some concern for hard snow or low coverage. Stephen spied all the untracked snow sitting in the meadows area and wanted to try a run there. He didn’t initially know why E decline the chance to check it out, but she know what the untracked snow would be like down at that elevation. I brought them over and we had a lot of fun, but I think they learned how difficult it can be to ski deep, wet snow.

As the afternoon wore on, the mix of precipitation at the base elevations changed over to mostly wet snow and picked up in intensity. We hung out for some après ski in the Great Room Grill and it was a bit tough to pull ourselves away as we watched the snow continue to fall. A few pictures from the day have been added below:

J.Spin

 

[jamesdeluxe]

Someone posted this link on Snowjournal:
http://www.uvm.edu/skivt-l/?Page=depths.php

I'm not a Mansfield snow stake geek... I assume this indicates that northern VT is in comparatively good shape?

 

[J.Spin]

It’s been a busy week so I haven’t been able to post my conditions updates, but the recent storms did a great job patching up any bare spots on the local slopes, and improved snow quality impressively in those high traffic areas where it had deteriorated. These school break weeks have been great the past couple of seasons, last year it was six feet in six days, and this year it was four feet in four days. This year’s edition featured less snowfall in this area, but certainly more liquid equivalent. It really wasn’t Champlain Powder™ this time around like it was last year, but due to the dearth of snowfall around here during the middle of the season, we needed the liquid. Here are the Mt. Mansfield liquid equivalent data from the period:

Tue 2/23: 0.12”
Wed 2/24: 2.37”
Thu 2/25: 0.95”
Fri 2/26: 0.61”
Sat 2/27: 0.53”
------------------
Sum: 4.58”

That was all snow in the higher elevations that quickly brought the snowpack at the Mt. Mansfield Stake past 100 inches as others have noted. Saturday brought another 5 inches of snow up at Bolton to basically finish off the storm cycle. I posted a Bolton Valley trip report from Saturday with additional pictures, but aside from the lowest elevations where things were getting too warm for the powder, it was pretty much business as usual with added base depths:

J.Spin

 

[J.Spin]

Someone posted this link on Snowjournal:
http://www.uvm.edu/skivt-l/?Page=depths.php
I assume this indicates that northern VT is in comparatively good shape?

It's generally a sign of decent base depths when the stake hits 100 inches; the interesting thing about this season is that it happened on the early side. I posted a comment (pasted below) on Eastern about how it was fairly early for the snowpack at the stake to hit the century mark, and Powderfreak also commented on how their records show it was also the least snowfall required to hit the century mark. He said it usually it takes 300+ inches of snowfall to get the stake to 100 inches of snowpack.

"There's nothing new to report from down here in the Winooski Valley since yesterday's snowfall, but the latest Mt. Mansfield hydrometeorological data are in: the snowpack at the stake did indeed pass the century mark, hitting 101 inches as of yesterday afternoon. A quick look at the data from SkiVT-L suggests that hitting the 100-inch mark at the Mt. Mansfield stake before March is rather infrequent; there have only been a couple of seasons since 1954 where that has happened:

Those seasons ('68-'69 and '81-'82) had much stronger starts however, so the spike the snowpack has seen this week really shows how substantial these two storms have been.

I've added in yesterday's liquid equivalent measurement as well, so these back to back events have added about 4.5 inches of liquid to the snowpack:"

Tue 2/23: 0.12"
Wed 2/24: 2.37"
Thu 2/25: 0.95"
Fri 2/26: 0.61"
Sat 2/27: 0.53"
------------------
Sum: 4.58"

On another snowfall note, I happened to check on how things were going out at Lost Trail Powder Mountain, our local ski area in Montana, and was amazed to see that they have only reported 111” of snow this season.

For a place that typically gets 300+ inches of snowfall, I figured there had to be an error or something, but after looking at Tony’s data for the Northern Rockies, I guess that might be the way things have gone out there. We’ve had more snowfall than that down in the valley at our house (117.5”) and we’re still only 77% of average. Down here, we picked up a bit less than two feet from last week’s storms because of the elevation dependence, so there’s still a lot of ground to make up. I did see in Tony’s stats that thanks to the recent storms, our local ski areas are almost back up to average in terms of snowfall.

-J

 

[J.Spin]

Stowe, VT 28FEB2010

We’d skied at Stowe last Thursday in the midst of the big storm cycle, but Sunday was our first chance to see how things had shaken out for the snow surfaces once things had settled down. The slopes looked gorgeous as we approached the mountain, with lots of sun among some fair weather clouds. I was initially encouraged by the snow surfaces when we took an early run on Spruce Peak a bit before 1:00 P.M; the sun had warmed up the snow and there had seen enough cycling to produce some corn. Gone was the wet surface that had persisted in the lower elevations during the storms, and it was really fun slicing smooth arcs into the open terrain of the NASTAR Hill area.

I was hoping that the skiing would be soft like that all around, but that certainly wasn’t the case over on Mt. Mansfield. Unlike the previous Thursday, where the middle elevations of Mansfield seemed to offer the best skiing in terms of balancing visibility with reasonably dry snow, the middle elevations had some of the most difficult snow on Sunday. The top third to perhaps half of the mountain had fairly nice mid winter snow, but below that there had been enough warming that the surfaces had become hard. Off piste was also pretty messy around there. The saving grace in the very lowest elevations was that they had started to corn up a bit, but the middle elevations just stayed hard and high traffic areas on piste were well on their way to the icy disposition they’d had before the big resurfacing. Our final run of the day down North Slope was a great example of that phenomenon, and I’m not sure I can say that the surface was actually any better than what one would have seen back during the snow drought before the big storms.

It really would have been nice to have some upper mountain lifts to use under those conditions, or if I wasn’t with the kids in our group it probably would have been fun to do some laps up in the Alpine. When the stake is in the 100” range as it is now, the top of Mansfield does start to turn into one huge snowfield. With these recent sunny days I’ve been staring at the east side of Mansfield from UVM and seeing how white it is in the alpine areas. Some more substantial clouds did come in later in the day on Sunday and at about 3:00 P.M. when we were up at the Octagon, it started to flurry a bit. Nothing seemed to come of that however. We’re planning to be up at Stowe again tomorrow afternoon, so we’ll see how the conditions are. There hasn’t been any significant snowfall this week though, so with additional traffic and some spring temperature cycling in the lower elevations I’d be surprised if snow surfaces were improved at all. I’m sure the coverage will be outstanding though. I bet surfaces will still be nice in the highest elevations, but we might spend a good deal of time over at Spruce if the sun gets things corned up there.

I did get one picture from Sunday as we approached the mountain; it really was a gorgeous day for the most part, even if snow surfaces weren’t great at all elevations, and you can see where some parts of the Mansfield alpine are really loaded with snow:

J.Spin

 

[J.Spin]

Bolton Valley, VT 06MAR2010

With temperatures at the house closing in on the mid 40s F by midday Saturday, we were expecting corn snow up on the mountain, but as it turns out, that wasn’t quite what we found. We started off at Timberline, and if anywhere on the mountain was going to feature spring snow, the lower half of Timberline was going to be it. We joined up with Stephen and Helena, and once we got off at the Timberline mid station, we headed over to Spell Binder based on a request from Dylan. The Spell Binder headwall was far from spring snow, it was mid winter snow, but pretty firm since there had obviously been some temperature fluctuations down there. It may have been due to the cool west or northwest breeze that was blowing, but only the lower elevation spots in direct sunlight featured corn snow. Those spots were good, but you had to stick to the skier’s right of the runs, and even then you were looking at partial runs.

If we weren’t going to get much in the way of spring snow, we decided that we’d head to the top of the main mountain and see where we could find the best winter snow. I didn’t know how high the freezing levels had gone during the week, but once we got to the top of Wilderness, I could see that they had certainly gone above 3,000’ in areas exposed to the sun. We skied Bolton Outlaw, and the snow was OK for presumably going above freezing at some point, but certainly not like last Saturday. I checked out some of the snow in the trees, and it turned out that up around the 3,000’ mark, snow that had not seen any sun was still dry and powdery. Based on what I saw up there, it looked like north-facing terrain from about 2,500’ on up likely held onto some good powder. While sunny and at times warm, the weather was pretty dry last week, so that may have helped with the preservation. I bet some of the north-facing lines below Paradise Pass or off the peak of Ricker Mountain would deliver some great turns.

One note of interest that I observed from the Wilderness area was the state of the snowpack in the higher reaches of Ricker Mountain. There’s a lot of snow up there. You can actually see snowfields starting to form in some areas due to the big storms that came through at the end of February. Also, I saw that the big trail map at the top of the Wilderness Lift was starting to get buried, and as I recall it’s pretty high off the ground. I can see new lines forming all over the place high up on Ricker Mountain now, so I’m sure there are plenty of good turns up top for those that have time to hike above the lifts. If the boys had the stamina and inclination at this point, that would be a fun way to spend some days.

Lower down on Wilderness we took some turns in some of the trees off Old Turnpike, and the untracked snow wasn’t half bad. There was some nice settled powder in spots, but it was highly variably because if you got to a spot where the sun had hit (which was most places), there would be a sun/melt crust. Lower Turnpike itself featured great snow as usual. There was good packed powder on the shaded side of the trail, which transitioned right over to corn on the sunny side with little if any hybrid in between. You could almost alternate winter and spring skiing with each turn if you wanted to.

Although there was the slight breeze and the air temperature was probably just in the 30s F, the bright sun made things quite comfortable so the base area had that spring feel in the afternoon. We hung outside with the kids for a bit and got some waffles from the hut before making a last run back down to Timberline. By the time we headed back down, the Timberline area was already closed, so it had that spooky, private ski area feel. A few images from the day are attached below:

J.Spin

 

[rfarren]

Would you have to worry about tree wells if you were going to ski those snowfields on top of Ricker?

 

[J.Spin]

Would you have to worry about tree wells if you were going to ski those snowfields on top of Ricker?

It’s always good to be cautious about that sort of thing, but in general, I haven’t found the higher elevation snowfields around here to have too many tree wells (a.k.a. spruce traps, etc.) of the type that would swallowing a person whole. I think the combination of smaller trees up there, as well as the enhanced exposure to wind reduces the issue to some extent. There certainly are wells though, and they become a bigger issue when you’re off your skis because you are boot packing, getting up from a fall, or whatever. The more notable occurrences of tree well issues I’ve personally seen around here have been in the middle elevations, where the snow may be a bit less compacted, and the trees larger. I had a friend fall into a pretty big one in the Kitchen Wall/Nosedive Glades area many years back, and then another friend fall into one at Sugarbush. We have the Sugarbush instance documented in one of our videos. Of the two, I think the Stowe incident was probably more serious, because he may not have been able to get out easily on his own. Thankfully a friend found him and helped him out.

-J

 

[J.Spin]

Stowe, VT 07MAR2010

Like Saturday, Sunday was another warm, sunny day, and we headed off to Stowe in the afternoon for our weekly program. I was very curious to see if spring conditions would develop to a greater extent than the spotty softening we’d found at Bolton on Saturday, but with Spruce Peak’s southern exposure, I was confident that we could at least find a decent amount of corn snow over there. During our drive up to Stowe, the midday views of all the snow-covered alpine areas in the surrounding peaks were very impressive. There’s a nice-looking snowfield atop Hunger Mountain, and obvious lines were popping out in various spots up and down the Worcester Range. Hopefully people are getting out and hitting these spots.

I was supposed to have two snowboarders in my group for the day, so I started off the afternoon on my board in preparation for riding with them. Before group began, I went off with Ty and Dylan for a run off the Sunny Spruce Quad, and we hit Fredie’s Chute. The snow was already plenty soft, so the turns were great. With its southern exposure and ledgy areas though, there are already a few bare spots starting to open up on. Seeing that the snow conditions were already excellent in terms of softening, I was planning to work on bumps for the afternoon with the kids. So, when my snowboarders didn’t show up and I was left with a group of exclusively skiers, I quickly switched to skis. A couple of fantastic carves on West Slope had me enjoying my board, but I find skis far superior in the bumps.

With just three skiers in tow, two of them being Ty and Dylan, we were off to find ourselves some soft bumps. We worked our way over toward the Sensation Quad and did a run on Whirlaway. Whirlaway is a favorite of James, one of our other students, but since he was out for the day, the other guys ripped it up in his honor. We next took on Upper Smuggler’s, and for the first time this spring they got to hit the final, very steep section of Upper Smuggler’s that has often been closed this season due to low snow depths. It’s another southern exposure trail, so a couple of bare spots were appearing, but coverage was almost perfect and the boys had a lot of fun. As it turned out, they hadn’t had their butts kicked quite hard enough, so I decided that we should do a run on Chin Clip.

We headed down Chin Clip just as the sun was leaving it and things were starting to tighten up, but we still caught good snow. Coverage was perfect as far as I saw, and the endless bumps were huge; it was classic Chin Clip. We ran into a group of three Telemark skiers during our descent, and they were very impressed with how the boys were playing in the bumps. When they asked how I was able to keep up, I told them that I spend a lot of time on my Telemark skis; then, when I get on my alpines I feel like a super hero. At least that’s what my quads tell me, and they seem to know what they’re talking about.

A few pictures from the day have been added below:

J.Spin

 

[J.Spin]

Bolton Valley, VT 13MAR2010

We headed up to Bolton on Saturday afternoon for a bit if skiing, unsure if the conditions were going to warrant much of a stay. Weather wise, there was neither fresh powder nor bright sun, so it was looking like our first lackluster sort of day up there in a while. We hit the Timberline area at around 1:30 P.M., where the temperature at the 1,500’ elevation was probably in the low 40s F. Fortunately, the snow was nicely softened into spring corn and the skiing was fantastic. As soon as we’d started our first run down Twice as Nice we knew we were going to stick around. A quick check in the trees revealed that the off piste hadn’t really softened to the perfection that we’d found on the trails, whether due to the shelter of the trees or lack of traffic. Basically though, it was a great day of on piste spring skiing, just without the sunshine. As of Saturday, coverage was wall to wall all the way down to the lowest elevations of Timberline (~1,500’) so that was nice to see. We didn’t venture to the main mountain, but with its additional elevation, coverage should only be enhanced over Timberline. I could tell that a couple of the more sensitive spots on Timberline were close to opening up to ground, so without any new snow over the past few days I’m sure there will be a few areas to watch out for unless the groomers did some patch work. It sounds like the big coastal storm was bringing some precipitation to parts of southern New England, but it was simply dry and overcast while we were up at Bolton.

With neither off piste nor major bump skiing in mind for the day, E and Ty decided to ride their Telemark skis. For Ty, it was his first day on his Teles in quite a while, probably over a month, so he was excited to get back on them. A few weeks back I’d picked up a couple of binding wedges at OGE, and this was his first chance to try his skis with them. I guess it can be common to have too much forward lean in kids’ Telemark setups, with “rocker launch” being a potential issue, and although it didn’t seem to be a major problem with Ty’s rig when I checked the resting height of his boot’s heel, it seemed like it was worth picking some up wedges for a few bucks since they’ve been recommended and he might benefit. Ty didn’t indicate that he could feel any major differences in his skiing with the wedges in place, but they certainly weren’t a problem. I’ll have to check the heel of his boots and see where they rest now. Even though Ty couldn’t discern any major changes with the wedges installed, potentially through progression alone, E and I agreed that he had his best day yet on his Telemark gear. He’s still working on being able to hold a lower stance through turns, and I can see that that’s going to challenge him for a while. He’s able to hold his lower Telemark stances longer and longer however. Ty noted that he’s got a weaker side with regard to his Telemark stance/turn, and like E, he worked on that during the afternoon. The most obvious advancement for Ty was his ability to come into airs in one Telemark stance, switch it up in the air, and land in the opposite Telemark stance. I enjoy playing around with that a lot, and whether because Ty had reached that stage of progression, or he had enjoyed seeing the ski jumpers doing their Telemark landings in the Olympics a couple of weeks back, he really got into it on Saturday. Finding that he was able to land his jumps in a Telemark stance kept Ty pretty invigorated all afternoon, so he had a very good day and ultimately opted to go with his Telemark skis again on Sunday at Stowe.

Since it was pretty gray and overcast, I didn’t get anything in the way of scenery shots, but I did grab a few shots of the boys in action in the corn snow:

J.Spin

 

[J.Spin]

Stowe, VT 14MAR2010

On Sunday we were back at Stowe for our weekly program, and the afternoon began with similar conditions to what we’d experienced at Bolton on Saturday. There wasn’t any significant precipitation; it was just mostly cloudy with a couple holes of blue sky and temperatures in the 40s F. My group stayed on Spruce Peak for the entire afternoon, where surfaces were spring corn and the skiing was excellent. There were certainly a few spots of ground opening up on steep, south-facing trails with natural snow. One example would be Fredie’s Chute, which had essentially complete coverage when we’d skied it the previous week. The ledges there on the skier’s left showed a lot of exposed spots on Sunday, although the right side still had full coverage and skiable lines. We weren’t going to be skiing it with the group we had on Sunday, but I noticed that patrol had roped off the entrance corral anyway. We didn’t head to the upper parts of Spruce, although it sounded like some ground was showing through up there as well. We skied all the usual terrain on the lower half of Spruce, and there were no coverage concerns on any of that. Toward the end of the afternoon it started spitting rain showers, and then for the final few runs the precipitation intensified over in the Spruce Peak area. Fortunately, the skiing was winding down by that point. It’s been sunny and warm this week, so I’m sure that some of the more sensitive south-facing terrain on Spruce will have lost additional coverage. But, it’s been clear with most nights going below freezing, so the corn cycling should be going well. Mansfield looked great in terms of coverage when we were there, although I’d imagine a few of the lower-elevation spots in the sun could start having some open spots; the snowpack at the stake did drop by 5 inches between the Sunday and Thursday readings. The big storm that brought inches of rain to southern parts of New England didn’t seem to be much of an event in this area, as I only recorded 0.15 inches of liquid in my rain gauge for the entire system.

I had an intermediate group on Sunday, with a couple of students that were working on transitioning fully over to parallel, so we did a lot of drills to get them on their way. After Saturday’s experience, Ty decided to ride his Telemark skis again to work on his Tele turns, so instead of going with one of the more advanced groups, he came with us and tried to focus on that. I was on my Telemark skis to enable working with Ty, but it was nice to be able to use that Telemark versatility and work just as smoothly on alpine turns with the other students.

I’ve attached a couple of scenic shots below that I captured around noontime on Sunday:

J.Spin

 

[J.Spin]

Bolton Valley, VT 20MAR2010

Yesterday afternoon up at Bolton was very much like a week earlier: generally overcast, but warm enough to keep the spring corn soft and enjoyable. Temperatures were again in the 40s F and there was some breeze in the higher elevations. The biggest changes I saw from last week were in snow coverage. After yet another week with warm temperatures and no snow, significant bare spots are starting to show up at the Timberline elevations. From what I saw in my daily Bolton Valley email snow reports from yesterday and today, the mountain is still 100% open in terms of on piste terrain. But, if we have another week like the past three, it would be very likely that they would have to start closing some terrain heading into next weekend. It still may not be possible to keep everything open, but fortunately, this week doesn’t look as though it will continue the recent weather trends. We actually had some accumulating snow down at the house this morning, for the first time in three weeks. That’s a sign that something is changing. Also, the NWS point forecasts for the higher elevations of the Green Mountains around here have some sort of snow in them almost every day this week. We haven’t seen anything remotely like that since back in February. There’s still a lot of questions as to where the moisture will go and where the freezing levels will be, but at least the mountains have got the chance to accumulate some snow this week. Also, much cooler temperatures are going to slow down the melting we’ve seen so far this month.

In terms of skiing, after focusing on his Telemark skiing last weekend, Ty wanted to get back in the bumps yesterday. So, with warm temperatures I said we’d hit some of the steep bump runs off Vista, and E and the boys would get a good workout. With a puzzled look, E initially asked me what bump runs I was talking about, because she had no clue. I was sort of surprised, but what I did was simply run upstairs and grab my laptop to show her my current desktop background. It’s a shot I picked up from the Bolton Valley Facebook Page a couple of weeks back:

After three weeks with nothing in terms of snowfall, the snowpack isn’t quite as bounteous as in the picture, but the coverage is still great aside from a few isolated pockets, and the bumps are still there – except I think on Hard Luck. We didn’t ski it, but it looked like it had been groomed. I laughed at the fact that I had to show E and the boys that picture. In almost four seasons at Bolton, I’ve yet to bring her and the boys down any of the runs like Spillway, Show Off, Hard Luck etc. I know that we’ve touched on a few edges of the runs in our travels through the off piste, but we certainly haven’t hit the runs together or hit the bumps. I know that Ty has skied Hard Luck before, but that was in powder back in the middle of April 2007 when we earned turns with Dave, and there were no bumps to be seen. Up to this point when the whole family has been together, there hasn’t been an occasion to ski any of those trails, since Dylan hasn’t been quite ready to tackle them. Also, I don’t recall those trails developing bumps like that every spring, probably due to the combination of too much snowfall/too little traffic, etc.

Anyway, Dylan has progressed this season to the point that he’s got the skills and stamina to tackle just about any bump run, so tackle them we did. We started off down at Timberline, but quickly made our way over to the main mountain and up to the top of Spillway. Having not skied Spillway with bumps in I don’t know how long, I’d forgotten how steep some of those pitches are. The bumps were huge at times; it felt like you were dropping several feet in the air per turn. Ty was definitely challenged; with the combination of very steep pitch and huge bumps, he had plenty of crashes as he tried to take them aggressively and find out what worked for him. Dylan was more conservative, but very smooth and he didn’t even seem to be phased by the pitch at all. Although it’s not as long as Chin Clip, Ty definitely found the steep pitches and huge bumps on Spillway more challenging than when we’d skied Chin Clip a couple weeks back.

We moved over to Show Off for more bumps on the next run, and compared to Spillway it was easier skiing judging by the way Ty handled it. We also hit the Vista Glades, which the boys consider a playground because of all the terrain features. Vista Glades had some good sections of bumps, and then we added more by skiing Schuss below it. On the lower mountain we teamed each our upper mountain runs with the bumps on the Vista Quad lift line, and then a run through the smaller terrain park below it. With just Spillway, Show Off, and Schuss, E and the boys got a good sampling of bumps off Vista, and they had a lot of fun. Now that Dylan is ready to handle them, I’m sure we’ll visit those runs more frequently when conditions warrant. Dylan’s stamina has grown by leaps and bounds this season, and is certainly one of the hallmarks of his improvements this spring. Ultimately that’s going to enable longer days with more varied terrain as we move forward.

J.Spin