Vermont Snow Updates 2009-10

[Tony Crocker]

Age 7 (where Ty is now) was when Adam most enjoyed skiing moguls.

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.

I did not think Chin Clip was particularly steep. Whatever is in that picture from Bolton is much steeper IMHO.

We pay a lot of attention to Ty as he breaks new ground each season. But I'm wondering looking at those bumps and the comments about Dylan. Is Dylan's skiing ahead of where Ty was 2 years ago?

 

[J.Spin]

I was up at Bolton for a few turns this morning, and consistent with their reporting, there really wasn’t any more accumulation up there than what we got at the house (495’). Not counting drifting and scouring, the accumulations with this event were surprisingly similar at all elevations I visited up to ~2,800’. The temperature in the village (~2,100’) was mid 20s F while I was there this morning, and 26 F when I left a bit after 10:00 A.M. On my descent down the access road, the temperature at the bottom (340’) was 32 F. The precipitation was light during my time on the mountain, some snow, but also some mixed precipitation and a bit of mist that added a glaze to some of the vehicles but didn't adversely affect the new snow. There was actually a pretty good breeze of 20 MPH or so in places, and I hadn’t seen any of the lifts running aside from the handle tow by the time I left. Some of the nicest views were actually on my way down the access road where the winds hadn’t blown the snow out of the trees; I’ll try to get some pictures up later today. There were snow accumulations all the way into Burlington, and they generally seemed to taper to lower amounts as I headed west from the mountains, but it’s also possible a bit of melting had occurred as it was getting near midday. In Burlington at around 11:30 A.M. the temperature was ~35 F here at UVM.

In terms of skiing, I found that the best turns were on low to moderate angle terrain that had been groomed prior to the new snow (but not since), and were not disturbed by the wind. My pick of the morning was definitely Lower Turnpike, where, with little elevation dependence in terms of snow accumulations, the turns just got better and better as I descended below any effects of the wind. My RT 86s aren’t very fat (127/86/113) and turns were mostly bottomless on Lower Turnpike in the couple inches of dense powder. I didn’t go near any steep or bumpy terrain however, as even though the snow is fairly dense, it was obvious that it was nowhere near enough to make things soft on that terrain.

Some Waterbury observations from earlier this morning have been added below:

Consistent with the forecast, snow came in last night and we picked up some accumulation down here in the Winooski Valley. As of 6:00 A.M. on the snowboard, there was 1.3 inches of snow comprised of 0.19 inches of liquid. The temperature is below freezing, and it appears that all surfaces are evenly covered with snow. I’ve kept this event combined with the frontal passage on Sunday, and as of 6:00 A.M. we’d picked up a total of 1.7” snow/1.96” liquid for the event.

With the recent rain from this system, the Winooski was probably the highest I’ve observed since being at this location; as of yesterday evening the water was only about a foot or two below the snowmobile bridge down below our house, whereas that gap is typically more like 8 to 10 feet.

The radar returns upstream seem to be weakening, but light snow continues here for the time being, and as of 7:00 A.M. there was an additional 0.3 inches of snow on the snowboard. It doesn’t sound like the mountains got much more than we did in terms of overnight snow, but I’m thinking of stopping in up at Bolton for some turns on the way into Burlington, so I may have some observations to report from the higher elevations as well.

J.Spin

 

[J.Spin]

We pay a lot of attention to Ty as he breaks new ground each season. But I'm wondering looking at those bumps and the comments about Dylan. Is Dylan's skiing ahead of where Ty was 2 years ago?

I asked my wife the same thing later that day, and her thought was that Dylan is probably in a similar place to where Ty was at that age. She pointed out that comparison can be difficult because they have somewhat different styles: Ty is more dynamic, while Dylan seems smoother. Dylan has reached a point where he can ski just about everything now, and although he's going to do it more conservatively and slowly than Ty, we should get to see them doing more difficult terrain together more often, and watch their individual styles under those conditions.

-J

 

[J.Spin]

Bolton Valley, VT 24MAR2010

We picked up 1.7 inches of snow at the house yesterday morning, which was a lot considering the amount of snowfall we’ve seen this March, so I decided to stop up at Bolton to earn some turns and maybe ride the lifts if the skiing was decent enough. The reports coming in from the local ski areas indicated that they’d picked up similar accumulations to what I’d seen at the house, but the 1.7 inches I’d measured was comprised of 0.24 inches of liquid, so it definitely had some substance to it. The snowfall had mostly tapered off in the valley as I was heading up the Bolton Valley Access Road in the ~8:00 A.M. range, but precipitation was still falling in the higher elevations. I was surprised to see that the precipitation was actually a bit mixed as I approached the Bolton Valley Village, but the temperature was in the mid 20s F.

I was encouraged as I stepped out of the car into about 4 inches of powder, but on the snowbank in front of me, I could see that there was just a dusting, so clearly the wind had been messing with the new snow. The weather was actually pretty nasty, with some wind, light snow/mixed precipitation, and fog, but there was definitely some new powder to be skied.

I skinned straight up Beech Seal, which was easy with the grooming and minimal accumulations. It quickly became apparent that I’d need to find sheltered places to hit the powder, because the wind had stripped the snow off exposed areas. With that in mind, I headed over toward the Cobrass area, and at around 9:00 A.M. when the Vista Quad was scheduled to open, I began my descent. The lower parts of Cobrass itself were looking somewhat windswept, but the Cobrass Run area had a fairly even coating of snow. The turns were pretty nice, although I was touching down to the hard base on about 50% of them, and once I was down below Cobrass Run, I was into the terrain that had been groomed after the new snowfall. That surface was not nearly as soft as the terrain that hadn’t seen a grooming. The couple new inches of dense snow was sort of lost as it was churned into the base snow.

Once down at the base area, I checked in with the lift operators at the bottom of Vista. With the combination of wind, some riming, and a bit of grooming still taking place, they weren’t quite ready to get underway. They did ask for the lowdown on the conditions, and I told them what I’d found on Cobrass Run. So, with the lift situation it was back to manpower for turns, but my initial foray had left me optimistic enough to search out some additional powder. I ascended by the same route, seeing some nice smooth coatings in the New Sherman’s Pass/Lower Vermont 200 area, but somehow the thought of Wilderness crept into my head, so I continued on up Sherman’s Pass to about the 2,800’ level. I hopped onto some of the low/moderate angle terrain that brought me over to Wilderness, and the skiing was OK, but nothing too fantastic as I did cross some windswept areas.

I’m not sure why it hadn’t occurred to me earlier, but as I saw the Wilderness Lift line showing signs of the wind’s effects, I just kept heading north to Lower Turnpike. That wound up being the pick of my morning. I started down, and there was initially a little scouring in spots due to wind, but as I headed lower and lower into more sheltered terrain, the coating of snow got smoother and smoother, and the skiing got better and better. It wasn’t long before there was only the occasional contact with the old subsurface snow, and as much fun as the corn skiing has been this March, it was very satisfying to fell that consistent powder float again. That definitely made the morning, and I was ready to catch a lift ride and do it all again, but the chairlifts still didn’t appear to be loading. All the skiers I saw seemed to be congregating around the handle tow, so based on the time I decided to call it a morning and head to Burlington.

The precipitation was very light snow as I left the mountain a bit after 10:00 A.M., and the temperature in the village was 26 F. Descending the Access Road offered up some of the snowier views of the day as I got down into elevations where the wind had been more minimal. The temperature at the bottom of the Access Road was 32 F, and mid 30s F when I got into Burlington.

When I was leaving Burlington later in the afternoon afternoon, it was sunny and the temperature was 50 F. Most of the valley snow had melted, but the last clouds were pulling away from Mt. Mansfield offering some nice views. I was surprised to see that we had retained much of the new snow at our house due to the shade, and it was neat to have the yard entirely white again, since our snow at the house had almost disappeared through the course of the month.

J.Spin

 

[J.Spin]

Stowe, VT 28MAR2010

Based on yesterday’s forecast of cloudy skies and temperatures in the 30-40 F range, there wasn’t a huge incentive to ski, but we did head up to Stowe for our afternoon session so I can provide an update. Skies were actually pretty bright with a few small breaks in the clouds when we arrived at Spruce a bit after noon. I’m not sure of the temperature at the base at that point, but it was probably around 40 F. Fortunately, along with some sun, that warmth was enough to get the corn snow on the Spruce terrain to soften up nicely, at least to the top of the Sunny Spruce Quad (~2,500’). I never got above that elevation on Spruce, but below that everything skied great. The areas like West Smuggler’s, Freddie’s Chute, and the upper parts of Meadows that seem most susceptible to snow loss, were closed or inaccessible due to coverage, but just about everything else off Sunny Spruce was in fine shape as far as we saw.

The kids wanted to head over to Mansfield, and the conditions had been so nice on Spruce that it seemed like it would be worth a trip to check it out. Conditions on the Mansfield side were definitely not the same as what we’d experienced over on Spruce; only the bottom few hundred vertical feet of Mansfield had softened up. The bumpy part of upper Perry Merrill was a nasty bulletproof moonscape, and most of Gondolier was hard except for the last couple of pitches. Cliff Trail felt like a mini half pipe of ice with the occasional crowds of skiers trying to squeeze through it. The saving grace on some trails was the strip of soft snow that had been pushed to the sides, but the somewhat concave nature and narrowness of Cliff Trail meant that it didn’t even really have those. Cliff Trail, which was probably my favorite Stowe run as a kid, has certainly become one of my least favorite runs this season. Lower Nosedive was bad enough that I actually switched my left and right skis to get some new edges for the first time this season. At around 3:00 P.M. the temperature written at the bottom of the Forerunner Quad was 36 F. Although I’m not exactly sure what time that was from, it seemed reasonable based on the elevation where the snow started to soften. With the sun heading west and the clouds coming in, it also seemed as though it had cooled a bit from earlier in the day.

As bad as all the Mansfield skiing had been, by far the roughest run of the day was our last one on Mansfield. Luke, one of our students, wanted to ski Midway from National, which meant taking part of National/Liftline. I was actually most inclined to take him on it for the absurdity of it all: rock hard ice and hard pack bumps on steep pitches. Ty was also in our group, and was initially uninterested in going on such an escapade, but I talked him into it. I suspect he’d never skied anything quite so heinous in terms of the combination of pitch and firmness, so it would be a “good” experience. I had the boys look at Upper National as we passed by above it, just to see what they would say. It literally looked like a no-fall zone at the very top, as it must be an almost 40-degree pitch covered with pure ice in places. With no intention of actually subjecting them to that terrain, I asked them if they wanted to ski it, just to see what they’d say. I don’t think they quite understood the actual gravity of trying to ski that, but they definitely shied away. We traversed over to Liftline and I took them on the easiest possible line there. It was still nasty enough that Luke got stuck on a section of steep ice in the sort of way that you feel you can’t move or you’re going to start a slide for life. As I began hiking up to assist him, he managed to physically and mentally gain hold on the ice and was able to get back into some turns. That was nice to see. Ty did a nice job in general of taking on that part of Liftline, and while he didn’t enjoy it, I don’t blame him. Down below, things gradually got easier, and on Lower National I did show the boys that while I wouldn’t recommend it, it was possible to ski the porcelain bumps there. Doing a section of bumps there probably provided as much stress to my knees as the entire rest of the season. The boys gave an effort in those bumps as well, but quickly got themselves back on the groomed terrain. The actually goal of the run, Midway, was still all hard, but at least partially groomed. The only really pleasant part of the run was the very bottom of National, which had fairly soft corn covering moderate angle bumps. The boys had a lot more fun on that, although it was just a few hundred vertical feet. Coverage on Mt. Mansfield was great overall, with just some of the steeper natural snow trails having some open spots.

We did one more run over at Spruce before the end of the day, and the snow was still nice and soft. With the great conditions on Spruce Peak, it didn’t seem like there was much sense in going over to the Mansfield side, but the kids had some fun. I’d say there wasn’t much melting anywhere at Stowe yesterday, even on Spruce, and that Mansfield glacier should last quite a while into the spring. They even picked up 4 inches of snow up high last night. Thanks to Powderfreak’s link, I can see with the real time Mansfield temperature that the higher elevations are already down in the 20s F, and there’s still precipitation coming through. Similar to last night, it seems like there could be a bit more snow tonight.

J.Spin

 

[J.Spin]

Stowe, VT 03APR2010

Yesterday was a really gorgeous day, and we headed to Stowe with Stephen, Helena, and Johannes to get in on some spring… or perhaps even summer skiing with the way the temperatures went. We arrived at the Spruce Peak base at around 10:30 A.M. and the temperatures were in the 60s F. We spent the morning at Spruce, and as far as I could tell, I think it was just snowmaking terrain available over there. There was still a good amount of terrain to choose from though, with just one race taking place – it looked like there was a slalom running on slalom hill. A big treat was being able to ski the entirety of Main Street from the summit, since it often seems to be occupied by racing when we’re there. Everyone had fun blasting the corn on some of Main Street’s steeper pitches; it must be quite an experience to hit those at super G speeds during the races. Coverage was fine, with a few areas opening up to ground, but they were marked or obvious. The very bottom of the Spruce terrain was definitely getting slushy in the warming temperatures, and we found our skis sticking a bit in a few spots, but in general we found that the corn was skiing fine even without waxing.

By later in the noontime hour we broke for lunch at the Great Room Grill, and then headed over to Mansfield for the afternoon. We never made it over to the Quad area, but instead stuck to the Gondola. I suspect options over on the Chin Clip side were limited, since they had a rope right near the top of the gondola preventing access to that side. We skied parts of Perry Merrill, Gondolier, and Cliff Trail/Nosedive. That first steep pitch of Perry Merril actually had some nice bumps. Although I couldn’t see it, coverage must be getting thin on a section of Lower Gondolier, because they had it roped and everyone had to head back to Perry Merrill. Everyone seemed to enjoy Lower Nosedive, it had lots of soft bumps, and jumps off to the sides, and coverage was great. Off to the skier’s right of Nosedive, I even found some areas where the snow hadn’t quite softened. That was amazing considering the temperatures, and certainly speaks to the snow-preserving power of Nosedive.

I’ve heard that this is the last weekend for the Gondola and Spruce Peak before they become hike/traverse only. There’s enough snow to keep some trails open in both spots, but options would start to get pretty limited anyway. When we left around 4:00 P.M., the temperature was 80 F at the Spruce Peak base, and 84 F lower down in the valley toward Stowe. I’ve attached a few shots from the day below:

J.Spin

 

[Tony Crocker]

I would certainly think the quad would have been the place to be on a day that hot. That was the case on my March day at Stowe in 2003 and it was only in the low 50's then.

 

[J.Spin]

Stowe, VT 04APR2010

Yesterday was another nice one, so we were back at Stowe for a bit more of the spring weather and spring skiing. I think the temperatures were about 15-20 degrees cooler than Saturday, which was of course still quite warm with base temperatures around 60 F. Combined with a breeze that hadn’t been around on Saturday though, the cooler temperatures were enough to keep us wearing vests over shirts.

We hadn’t had a chance to get to the Quad terrain on Saturday, so we started off with a full run of Nosedive. The boys had a good time working on the steeper bumps in the upper sections, where Ty commented that he thought it was Dylan’s best bump skiing to date. Middle/Upper Nosedive had pretty good coverage, but it seemed like coverage in the lower half had changed a lot since the previous day. Apparently things just continued to melt with the day temperature of 70-80 F followed by a fairly warm overnight that didn’t get down to freezing. Also surprising was the way in which the bumps on the bottom half of the trail seemed to have disappeared. I didn’t think that the mountain was grooming with the warm temperatures, but something had changed from the previous day.

After some snowball fights when we waited at the gondola base, we next joined up with Fred and his family and did a Cliff Trail run over toward Lower Nosedive. Fred was on Telemark skis for the first time in many years, and it was his first time in plastic boots or cable bindings, so it was quite a change from his older stuff. He commented on all the differences that he could feel, and seemed to be having a lot of fun. On the next trip up to the Gondola, we stopped in at the Cliff House and Fred got us all drinks while we hung out on the deck. It was actually a little chilly up at that elevation with the breeze, but the sun was keeping us warm enough. Fred talked with one of his buddies from behind the bar about which big boulder far up on the cliffs above was going to come down and take out the Cliff House kitchen. Apparently they have been watching those teetering rocks for years.

We made our way back over to the quad and finished off the day with a late lunch on the deck of the Octagon. It was after 3:00 P.M. so there was nobody else around, and we got to take in the classic views of the Chin, Jay Peak, The White Mountains, etc. Ty at first couldn’t figure out what that building was that he could see underneath the Chin, but once we told him it was the Cliff House at the top of the gondola, he remarked that he could see the deck we’d been on earlier. When he said that I realized it was probably the first time I’d ever hit both of the Mansfield mountaintop decks in one day.

For our final run we stuck to the Lord area, and worked with the boys on riding the steep ridges along the edges of the trails. In some of the steepest shots the angle was just too extreme for the boys to hold an edge, so that was good practice to see if they could re-engage after losing hold, or end up sliding off in the trees. They ended up doing some of both. Personally, I noticed that when the pitch became too steep, it was almost as if there wasn’t enough room for my uphill leg and ski to remain in a Telemark stance, and I’d have to switch to an alpine configuration to keep both edges engaged.

There was definitely a change in snow coverage between Saturday and Sunday at Stowe. It was probably one of the more dramatic one-day changes I’ve seen, but of course Saturday had some of the highest temperatures I’ve witnessed in terms of spring skiing. Some spots that seemed perfectly fine on Saturday had become narrow passages by Sunday. There’s still a lot of snow on the upper parts of Mansfield, but it looks like they’ll need to continue working with the groomers to keep things connected at the bottom of the mountain.

A couple of shots from yesterday are attached below:

J.Spin

 

[J.Spin]

On Friday night it snowed a bit in the Greens (and even some of the lower valleys around here), so we headed up to Stowe on Saturday to check it out. We found about 2 to 3 inches of medium weight powder at the 3,600’ level, which was more than enough for really nice turns on the upper part of the Toll Road. We hadn’t expected it, but turns were actually good from top to bottom on Mansfield, as the subsurface softened right up and the new inch or two lower down was either groomed in or provided a dense layer on top for fresh turns. Pictures and full details are available in the Stowe trip report from Saturday.

-J

 

[J.Spin]

Bolton Valley, VT 11APR2010

Clouds built in on Saturday evening, and the forecast showed the potential for a repeat of the snow we’d seen Friday night into Saturday morning. I checked the temperatures atop Mt. Mansfield, and they were about 10 degrees warmer than when the previous day’s moisture had come through, but they were certainly still cold enough to support some snow:

Not expecting too much precipitation down at our location, I hadn’t even looked at the local radar during the evening, so I was rather astonished to find 0.44 inches of liquid in the gauge when I checked it Saturday morning. It seemed to have come out of nowhere. I did get a look at the recent frames of the BTV composite radar, which showed some moisture departing, but I didn’t look any further into it. The temperature was roughly 37 F at the house though, which suggested that accumulating snowfall was just a couple thousand feet up. I checked Stowe’s snow report, wondering if they had gotten in on the same moisture as my location, but all they were reporting was an inch of new snow. In the highest elevations, it had been below freezing all night, so Stowe had to have missed out on some of that moisture; even with temperatures just a bit below freezing, the amount of liquid we received at the house would have produced more than an inch of snow.

Once the other morning CoCoRaHS reports came in, I could see that my station appeared to be in a bit of a hot spot for the overnight precipitation. A couple of the other Waterbury stations reported liquid totals at around a third of an inch, but the totals seemed to fall off among the western slope stations to the north:

Perhaps Mt. Mansfield just hadn’t gotten in on the best moisture, but Bolton Valley was much closer to our location, so maybe they’d done better. We had other obligations to take care of in the morning, but maybe an afternoon trip up to Bolton was in order.

When afternoon came around, Ty was the only one game for a little exercise, so he and I headed up to Bolton to check things out. There were only a few patches of leftover snow down at Timberline, and no sign of any new accumulations, but the main mountain was looking pretty good. It was obvious that there had been some new snow up there. Even though it was mid afternoon, about a half inch to an inch of new snow remained on the snowpack down at the base elevations (~2,100’). The lower flat part of Beech Seal didn’t provide continuous snow cover, and although the upper sections had good coverage for skinning, we still opted to hike to mid mountain (~2,500’). Up there, we found roughly an inch or two of new snow, and residual accumulations even in some shaded places where the old snowpack was absent.

We took a snack break, and I asked Ty if he wanted to keep hiking or switch to skins; he opted to go with skins. As we worked our way up Sherman’s Pass, we met a couple of Telemark skiers that said if we were looking for powder, the lightest stuff was up near the summit. It would have been nice to head up there, but I let Ty make the call based on his energy level. Ultimately, we skinned up to around 2,800’ on Hard Luck, to a point where Ty wanted to start skiing. We found a couple inches of new snow there, which was by that point fairly wet due to rising temperatures and the afternoon sunshine. I would have liked to know the depth of the new snow accumulations in the morning before the temperatures began to rise, as they were presumably more than what we saw.

Still, like we’d found at Stowe on Saturday, the new snow skied well over the softened base. We took a route over toward Spillway, since it seemed to have the smoothest snow, and then below mid mountain we took the Bear Run route because the snow on Beech Seal hadn’t been all that smooth. We were able to ski right back down to the base of the Mid Mountain Chair at around 2,150’. I got some pictures as usual, and Ty had E’s point and shoot camera and got a few of his own. He even got a decent action shot of me skiing, and I was impressed because that can be tough with the delay on E’s camera. I had contemplated skiing down via the big terrain park, but Ty’s choice of Bear Run was the way to go, since some areas between the terrain park features looked to be melted out.

We didn’t ski Spillway above the smooth bottom pitch, but above that point it was bumpy and seemed to be continuous as Matt indicated in his report from Monday. This week’s temperatures have only been slightly above average, and the lows have been well below freezing each night so the snow shouldn’t be disappearing too fast. If we end up getting more snow this weekend, there should be some more fun skiing up at Bolton.

J.Spin

 

[J.Spin]

Bolton Valley, VT 16APR2010

Snowfall came into the area last night, and accumulating snow reached down even into the Winooski Valley. The ground was whitened in the yard this morning, and as of my 6:00 A.M. report we’d picked up 0.3 inches of snow and 0.52 inches of liquid at the house (495’). Reports coming in from the higher elevations were indicating more substantial accumulations as expected.

With the appearance of the new snow, I headed up to Bolton for a few turns this morning. Leaving the house (495’) at around 7:30 A.M. or so, the temperature was in the upper 30s F. As I drove west from the house, the coating of snow that we’d received quickly vanished, and there wasn’t really anything on the ground from the Chittenden County line westward to the bottom of the Bolton Valley Access Road (340’). Climbing the road, there wasn’t even a hint of snow until right around elevation 1,200’ near the Catamount Trail access below the big S curve. From that point up, the accumulations started to build with elevation. At around 1,500’ at the base of Timberline there was roughly an inch. Accumulations on the road began at around 2,000’, and up around 2,100’ at the main base I found 1 to 2 inches of new snow and a temperature a bit above freezing. There was some wind, mixed precipitation, and nobody around.

I skinned up Beech Seal to mid mountain (2,500’) where new snow accumulations had increased to a couple of inches, and it was hard to tell with the new accumulations, but some of the old base snow had certainly been lost since Ty and I were up there on Sunday. There is still a really nice line along much of the skier’s left of Beech Seal, with a good base under this new snow. Above mid mountain, I skinned up Cobrass, and by around 3,100’ near the Vista Summit, I found about 3 to 4 inches of new snow. As I’d heard in some of the forecasts, snow levels were expected to rise pretty high today, and the precipitation I encountered was mixed at best all the way up to the Vista Summit.

I descended via Sherman’s Pass from the summit, since many of the steeper trails seemed dicey, and with the dense snow and my longer skinny Telemark skis, there was plenty of excitement on just low and moderate angle terrain. Below mid mountain, I opted for the Bear Run route because I knew the coverage had been good on Sunday. Over the course of the entire run from the Vista Summit, there were a few areas of survival turns where I was avoiding underlying obstacles below the new snow, but in general the turns were really nice on the old base. The snow was dense enough to make things bottomless, and while it certainly wasn’t flying up like Champlain Power™, it was sweet enough that I would have contemplated another run if I’d had the time. I was surprised that I didn’t see a single other person or even and skin/ski tracks while I was up there. I did see plenty of deer tracks though.

The precipitation remained mixed the entire time I was there in the 8:00 to 9:00 A.M. range at all elevations, and when I was leaving, it seemed to have cooled, and any liquid precipitation was starting to create a glaze on parts of my vehicle. Back down that the base of the road (340’), and all the way into Burlington, the temperature was around 40 F, and the valley temperatures were similar when I came home in the evening.

We got more precipitation today, and it looks like there’s roughly an additional half inch in the rain gauge since I emptied it this morning. I’ll get the 24-hour total tomorrow morning. The upper atmosphere warmed and was providing the mixed precipitation today, but the NWS says the 850 mb temperatures are going to come back down and change things back to snow – I’m just not sure at what point that happened, or is going to happen, but it looks like tonight based on the NWS point forecasts.

The new snow that I skied this morning was pretty dense, but based on the snow depths I saw, I’d still recommend junkboards for any runs without notable sections of previous base at this point. However, reading Scott’s Bolton report from this evening, it sounds like the mixed precipitation may have really locked things up and that may change how well the new snow serves as a base. There’s more moisture to come with this system, so if this first round can serve as some extra base in places that didn’t have it, that will expand the options for turns in the coming days.

J.Spin

 

[J.Spin]

Bolton Valley, VT 17APR2010

This morning I found another 0.80 inches of liquid in the rain gauge, which represents the 24-hour total since yesterday morning and brings the event totals at this location (elevation 495’) to 0.3” snow/1.32” liquid. It did snow here for a bit in the morning, but there was no additional accumulation down at this elevation. Watching the radar and forecast trends, I decided that I’d head out for an afternoon session of skiing today. There was a lot of moisture pushing in from the west, and I was hoping that it would add some additional accumulation in the mountains. Looking out across the valley during the day, I could see that the hills had accumulations of snow down to somewhere in the 1,000’ to 1,500’ range. It continued to rain in the valley, and the temperatures were sitting around the 40 F mark for quite a while before things warmed up a bit later in the day.

I headed up to Bolton Valley in the 3:00 to 4:00 P.M. range this afternoon, and at that point the temperatures in this part of the Winooski Valley (elevations 300’ – 500’) were in the mid 40s F. Ascending the access road, I could see that more snow had fallen since yesterday, and the higher elevations were coated in another round of bright white. The temperatures were warmer and the distribution of snowfall at elevation was different than what I had encountered yesterday morning; whereas yesterday morning I saw the first traces of new snowfall at around 1,200’ on the access road, this afternoon they didn’t appear until roughly 1,800’. The temperature at the main base area (2,100’) was around 37 F when I arrived there, and there was about an inch of new snow on the ground. There was a little precipitation in the air, which was just a few spits of rain. I could see that the freezing line had crept upward from where it probably had been earlier, and it looked like it was somewhere around mid mountain (2,500’).

I ascended using the same skin track I’d created yesterday, which in the lower elevations was still mostly visible under the new coating of snow. There was a crusty layer under this round of snow, which was presumably derived from yesterday’s mixed precipitation. I could tell that the overall accumulations of snow on the ground have been growing however; it looks like most of what was there yesterday was still around, sealed under a crusty layer, and now there’s another round of snow on top of it. Up at mid mountain (~2,500’) I found about two inches of new snow, and although I hadn’t seen any other skiers, the scene was far from quiet. The ascent of the freezing line was causing the frozen coatings on the trees to come crashing down all around me.

Above mid mountain, the precipitation switched over to snow, and the snowfall gradually picked up in intensity as I ascended Cobrass. While the overall coverage on the top steep pitch of Cobrass is much better than it was yesterday, the ascent was actually a bit trickier due to the crusty layer under the new snow. Once I’d reached the lower part of the Vista Summit at around 3,100’, I checked out a protected area that I’d wiped clean yesterday to get a final number on the new snow at that elevation. I found between 2 and 3 inches of new snow, and again the measurement was made easy by the solid layer from the mixed precipitation. I wiped it clean, and I’ll use it again to see what fell at the Vista Summit if I go up tomorrow. With that thought in mind, the snowfall had ramped up in intensity while I was up there, and at around 5:00 P.M. when I was beginning my descent, it was coming down with the greatest intensity I’d seen. I’d say that it was still below the level of moderate snowfall, but it was very steady and certainly accumulating.

I descended via Sherman’s Pass again, which still seems the most practical option, and there were a couple of tracks on it from other skiers that had taken it earlier in the day. I was worried about that crusty layer underneath, but the 2 to 3 new inches up there were more than dense enough to keep me off the base in untracked areas. The skiing was very nice down to about the 2,700’ level, just below the Sherman’s Pass hairpin, at which point the snow quickly got sticky. For quality turns, I’d say lapping the top 400 to 500 feet of vertical would have been the best bet, since below that level I was just letting the skis run to keep up speed in the sticky snow. So, while those upper-elevation turns were almost on par with what I skied up there yesterday, yesterday morning wins for overall turns because they were nice almost right back down to the base area.

The snow line seemed to have dropped by the time I was finishing my descent, and it was almost back down to the base area around 5:30 P.M, although it was still mostly rain right in the village. Based on what I saw in terms of how the snowpack is building up and the way that first round of snow is now locked with a solid layer on top, there shouldn’t be much concern about rocks on the Sherman’s Pass/Bear Run route anymore. Even routes that had little base prior to this event are starting to look good as long as the underlying ground is smooth and grassy. Depending on how much snow falls tonight, things could be very nice tomorrow. Although the NWS isn’t suggesting much in terms of accumulation tonight, the BTV composite radar (below) still shows quite a bit of moisture around, and the snow line may even drop back down to the lower valleys tonight. We’ve probably had about a third of an inch of additional precipitation here today, and it’s still raining out there. E just came back from Morrisville and said it was raining the entire time, so it’s certainly snowing in the mountains. We’ll just have to see what tomorrow brings.

J.Spin

 

[J.Spin]

Bolton Valley, VT 18APR2010

Today I headed back for a morning session at Bolton to check out last night’s new snow. I’d say the snow level only dropped down to somewhere in the 1,500’ range last night, but it was enough to whiten up everything in the valley from 2,000’ on up with a new round of snow. I saw the first traces of new snow at around 1,700’ on the drive up the access road, just a touch below where I’d first seen the snow yesterday afternoon. Snow accumulations on the road itself didn’t appear until about 2,100’, right as I approached the village, and the temperature there was right around freezing.

There was about an inch of new snow in the village area, and the sun was actually peeking out of the clouds when I first arrived at the mountain. My skin track on Beech Seal was buried, but still visible. Accumulations at mid mountain were 1 to 2 inches, and up at the Vista summit there was 3 inches of new snow. That puts the event snow totals at around 3 to 4 inches at 2,100’, and 8 to 10 inches at 3,100’ based on what I’ve seen over the past three days.

This latest round of snow was dense as the others have been, and up at the Vista Summit there’s now about 4 to 5 inches on top of the crusty layer from Friday, although at the top of this latest batch of snow there is a weaker crust that may have developed from rime or wet snow freezing up. The snow accumulations are really starting to build up now, and there are a lot of terrain options that weren’t there a couple of days ago – especially on the upper mountain. Although there was no precipitation during my ascent, when I started my descent from the Vista Summit at around 10:15 A.M., it had just started to snow, and even as I dropped in elevation, the snowfall intensified.

Hard Luck clearly had enough snow for turns, so I made a descent on part of it. It’s steep enough that even with the good accumulation of dense snow I was still touching down to that crusty layer, so I only did a partial descent and then hiked back up so I could get in a run down Sherman’s Pass. I actually found that the best turns this morning were not at the very highest elevations, because that new weak crust was thickest there and made the skiing a bit tricky. However, after a couple hundred feet of descent that crust got thinner and the skiing got better and better. The very bottom elevations of the mountain are still a bit thin on coverage, but turns were good essentially all the way back to the base. I’ve been watching that skier’s left section of Beech Seal over the past few days, and finally felt that the snow was right to hit it today. The turns were so good that I quickly made another run at it and put some figure eights on my tracks. The fun part about that run was that I was actually able to skin right up Beech Seal without putting my skins back on. The consistency of the snow was such that I could stick if I wasn’t sliding, so that made for a very quick lap. It took about a turn or two to convince my skis to get back into sliding mode after ascending, but once they did it was very smooth. It almost felt like going the wax route on cross country skis.

By the time I was leaving, steady snowfall was coming down in the village, and the precipitation was snow all the way down to 1,100’ before it changed over fully to rain. We’ve had on and off rain down here at the house all day from this latest round of precipitation, so there should be yet another accumulation of snow up in the higher elevations. The mountain was pretty quiet while I was there, but I did see one person ascending with his dog at mid mountain on my way down.

J.Spin

 

[J.Spin]

Bolton Valley, VT 19APR2010

Yesterday I headed up to the mountain for the final round of snow from the weekend system. The first traces of snow on the ground were again around the 1,800’ level along the access road, and the temperature was near freezing in the village (2,100’). It was hard to tell with some of the older accumulations of snow still hanging around, but I don’t think there had been much new snow accumulation at the base elevations since I’d last been there on Sunday morning. There had definitely been some precipitation since that time, but I suspect the temperatures kept new snow from sticking in the village.

Thanks to what had fallen before, there was at least some snow coverage all the way to the base elevations, but my first encounter with the snow revealed a surface that wasn’t that inspiring. The freezing line had gone up on Sunday, and now that it had come back down, those areas with wet snow were crunchy and any impressions in the snow were locked up like hardened plaster. I was confident that temperatures had stayed low enough in the higher elevations though, so I suspected there were going to be some good turns up there somewhere.

I hopped on my usual skin track at the bottom of Beech Seal, but eventually diverged to set a new track up Sprig O’ Pine and Cobrass Run to get to Cobrass itself. After a few days of skinning across Cobrass Lane, I was feeling like this new route might be a more direct way to get to Cobrass. As I was first skinning through the crusty snow at the base, I wondered how that stuff was going to transform into the quality snow that I suspected to find up high. Watching the transformations in snow quality or depth as one ascends is always interesting to me, and yesterday revealed quite a diverse snow/elevation profile in just a thousand feet of elevation gain. For the first couple hundred feet of the ascent, I didn’t notice much of a change in the snow consistency, and then with each plant of my pole I had the feeling that the crust was getting thinner. Soon, with flicks of my pole I found what appeared to be powder sitting on top of the crust, almost unperceivable at first, but it was soon obvious. It was eventually hard to say if the crusty snow was getting softer, or the powder on top was getting deeper, but by the time I’d reached mid mountain (-2,500’) I was skinning through some decent fresh snow. The crustiness was gone, and the transformation from that point was just an increase in lighter powder atop a gradient of denser snow below. It looked like the skiing was going to be very nice on the top half of the mountain.

As I ascended Cobrass, I encountered powdery drifts in the range of 6 to 12 inches on top of the previous rounds of snow, and with a bit of wind and temperatures below freezing, it was actually starting to feel a lot like winter again. By the Cobrass picnic table at roughly 2,900’ I took the opportunity to get a settled snow measurement for the whole event, since it looked we’d seen our final round of snowfall. I measured just shy of 8 inches of depth on the seat of the table, and the top of the stack actually featured some pretty dry snow. I finished my ascent and checked on the snow plot I’d been monitoring to find that the depth of the overnight snowfall was right at three inches. With that in the bank, it put the event snow totals at around 3 to 4 inches at 2,100’, and 11 to 13 inches at 3,100’ based on what I’ve seen over the four days of snowfall. Down at the house in the morning, I’d recorded my final precipitation from the system: 0.23 inches of liquid for the previous 24 hours. That brought my valley precipitation total to 2.06 inches, so presumably the mountain picked up at least that much liquid, and in the higher elevations, most of that is still locked up in the snowpack. For reference, measurements at the Mt. Mansfield stake recorded 11 inches of snow and 3.17 inches of liquid equivalent for the period, and on Mt. Washington, 15.2 inches of snow and 1.72 inches of liquid were recorded. In any case, this event certainly gave a boost to the snowpack in the higher elevations; the snowpack at the Mt. Mansfield stake went from 43 inches on 4/15 to 54 inches on 4/18.

The sun started to come out while I was putting away my skins, so I grabbed a few more photos and then it was time to ski. I could say that yesterday was the crème de la crème in terms of skiing with this system, but it may not have been, and each day had its strengths. Yesterday won hands down in terms of snowpack of course. The continued accumulations of dense snow really made skiing practical on all but the steepest/ledgy runs or those with substantial underlying debris. Also, yesterday the upper mountain was topped off with some of the driest snow accumulations that I’ve seen over these past few days. But, wind definitely did some work up high, packing the powder down in some areas, and the skiing was crusty and not too fun below mid mountain. After checking out Spillway and Hard Luck, I could see that the wind had worked them a little. I didn’t have the time for multiple runs, so I opted to go with some turns down Sherman’s Pass because I could see it was a sure thing. The turns on the upper half of Sherman’s were really nice. While skiing, I still only sunk down into those first few inches of light powder, but below that layer was a gradient of denser snow that was really smooth and soft. Turns were decent down to about 2,400’, a bit below mid mountain, and below there it was still crusty and I just skied it out. Certainly lapping the upper half of the mountain was the way to go if one had the time.

Just as I was approaching the base, I ran into Nile starting his ascent, and we chatted for a minute while I gave him the lowdown on the conditions I’d seen. He said I’d be heading into more sun as I went into Burlington, and he was right. The clouds gradually dissipated as I headed out of the mountains, and in Burlington it was getting really nice, even though there was still a bit of breeze. The mountain has certainly been transformed with this event, brining nearly wall to wall coverage to most places above 2,000’. I would expect the lower mountain areas to improve with the warming (although the lowest elevations will probably melt out quickly) and on the upper mountain, the quality of turns will probably drop a bit from where they were until the snow can be cycled into corn.

J.Spin

 

[J.Spin]

It sounds like Killington has stopped running their lifts, but there’s certainly plenty of snow on the usual late-season trails. They’ll probably even get some additional snow out of the upcoming system, but it looks like the jackpot area is more in the northern part of the state near Jay Peak along with some of the other upslope areas in the Northern Greens. Jay Peak is supposed to be offering lift service through the weekend, and they should have no problem providing decent skiing with potentially a foot or more of additional snow on the way. I haven’t been up to Bolton since the last rounds of snow wound down a week ago, but the trails are still clearly white from Burlington. Based on the reports I hear from Stowe, I’m sure the snow has crept upward this week, but there should be a good covering again if this next storm pans out with some upslope as Powderfreak suggests.

I’ve added a few shots of the snow from Killington on Saturday, but additional pictures and details can be found in my Killington 4/24/2010 trip report.

J.Spin

 

[J.Spin]

Snow has been accumulating all the way down here in Burlington this morning, and in general the anticipated snow totals with this event are up from yesterday, with snow levels forecast to be all the way down to some of the lower valleys as we've been seeing. Some pictures from Powderfreak and discussion can be found in the NNE thread at Eastern.

 

[J.Spin]

Event Totals: 3.0” snow/0.69” L.E.

It snowed steadily all day today at the UVM campus in Burlington, but whether due to the air temperature or some solar energy still getting through the thick clouds, the accumulations never really pushed past an inch or two on the elevated/grassy surfaces, and the roads just remained wet. There are some trees with leaves out, but I didn’t see much cause for concern about downed limbs today because the snow wasn’t really accumulating much in the trees – perhaps the wind played a factor in that as well. If anything, the accumulations on the grass were actually melting back a bit in the afternoon, but there was still a fairly consistent coating of white when I left around 5:00 P.M.

Heading eastward, I did notice some road accumulations just starting to take hold on I-89 in the Williston area, and the accumulations of snow that I saw in the Richmond area were a bit more substantial than what I’d seen in Burlington. Accumulations seemed to trend downward a bit in the Bolton area, and accumulations were definitely less in the Waterbury area than they were in Richmond/Burlington. All roads were simply wet. Accumulations were highly variable in Waterbury, with some spots showing zero accumulation if they were exposed to sun and/or were near an elevated object catching the snowfall. An object being elevated also made a big difference in terms of accumulation.

At the house, our accumulation was definitely more substantial than what I’d seen right in the center of Waterbury – the grass was well coated and there were 3.0 inches of dense snow on the snowboard comprised of 0.69 inches of liquid. My wife said that the accumulations she’d seen up north a bit in Morrisville were somewhat higher than what she’d seen here, generally a good 3 to 4 inch coating as of roughly 5:00 P.M. She said accumulations taped off some as she headed south through Stowe and Waterbury.

Steady snow continues here in Waterbury, and it will be interesting to see what happens tonight as the temperatures cool a bit more. We’re at roughly 33 F right now, so it won’t require much of a drop to get to freezing, and there’s been about another ¾ inch of accumulation on the boards since the 6:00 P.M. clearing. Winter storm warnings and advisories from the Burlington NWS have crept southward yet again, and the numbers on the storm total snow forecast graphic have been increased. Our location is now under a winter storm warning for 8 to 14 inches of snow, although the point forecast for our elevation has us down for 4 to 8 inches of additional snow. The winter storm warning for this area suggests accumulations greater than 16 inches above 2,000’, and the NWS discussion now mentions about two feet for Jay Peak:

LOOKS LIKE 04Z-12Z WILL BE THE BEST TIME FOR THESE INGREDIENTS TO COME TOGETHER. WITH LACK OF INSOLATION...SUSPECT THIS IS WHEN WE WILL SEE THE FASTEST ACCUMULATIONS...PERHAPS SEVERAL SLUSHY INCHES ON ROADS AS WELL. HAVE TWEAKED SNOWFALL TOTALS SOMEWHAT...BUT STILL FOCUSSING IN ON THE HIGHER TERRAIN REGIONS FOR THE JACKPOT LOCATIONS. EASILY OVER A FOOT OF SNOW ABOVE 1500FT...AND HAVE GONE NEARLY 2 FEET OF SNOW FOR THE JAY PEAK AREA. LOWER ELEVATIONS WILL NOT ESCAPE...EVEN IN THE FLOOR OF THE CHAMPLAIN VALLEY WE`LL SEE UPWARDS OF 6 TO 7 INCHES.

Some of the latest BTV graphics have been added below:

 

[Admin]

Looking at those maps I have to laugh at those who still disbelieve the Jay snow advantage.

 

[J.Spin]

I headed up to Bolton this morning, and it was quite a show up there in terms of snowfall. I only had time to skin up to 2,600’, but here’s a rough elevation profile for the snow accumulations I saw:

340’: 3”-4”
1,000’: ~8”
2,100’: 12”-15”
2,600: 18”

Those numbers are from the 6:30 A.M. to 7:30 A.M. range, and it was pounding 1 to 2 inch an hour snow up there for most of my tour. Based on the way the depths were increasing during my ascent, I suspect the Vista Summit (~3,100’) was over 20 inches by that point, but presumably they’ll get past that with the additional snowfall today. On the access road, I did see a few fallen limbs in the lower elevations where the trees have a lot of leaves, and there were a couple of utility trucks out to presumably take care of issues with power lines.

In terms of the skiing, the snow is actually reasonably light up above 2,000’ where I made turns, certainly nothing blower by Northern Vermont standards, but maybe 8% H2O. My recommendation would be to go waxed, fat, and reverse if you’ve got ‘em, and head to something steep, because the snow is very bottomless. I didn’t have any concerns about touching down on anything because the snow seemed substantial enough to prevent that, but there’s not really a density gradient in the snow, so the skiing is deep. I skied Upper Glades/Glades, and the steeper sections were barely steep enough to get in some nice turns. I was only on midfats though, so something that would plane more easily might be a better bet.

 

[J.Spin]

I headed up to Bolton this morning...

I've added a couple of pictures from Wednesday below, but the rest can be found in the Bolton Valley 4/28/2010 Trip Report.

-J