powderfreak
New member
Ha. Haha. Its not even Halloween. Some trees are still green in
Burlington. Last year, Mammoth Mountain recieved several feet of snow in
late October...but that was at 9-11,000ft in the Sierras, not 2-4,000ft in
the northeast.
DB and I didn't have to drive far to see snow as nothing stuck in
Burlington, but it appeared as though they had a couple inches at the rest
area in Williston 6 miles away on I89 but no real difference in
elevation. If anything, you look down on that area from the UVM campus.
Lake Champlain's warm dome did some dirty work with this storm if you were
within a couple miles of the lake front.
Drove to Bolton and still only 2" or so at the bottom of the access road.
As we drove up that snow doubled, then that tripled and snow depth seemed
to deepen exponentially with elevation. Still lots of foliage and trees
down in the woods...but oh was it gorgeous:
Halfway up the road...
By the time we got to the base, it was full on winter...still snowing
moderately at times. Around a foot or so at the base; scenes that would
be appreciated in January, much less October.
DB hiked and I quasi-skinned...I got my skis wet at the bottom, snow stuck
to those things like glue and it allowed me to AT it up to the top. Wiped
off the snow and water at the top and skied down with no friction at all.
I really need to get some real skins, though.
Words really can't describe the scenes up there. It cannot be October.
While the snow isn't "fluffy", it certainly wasn't as wet as I was
expecting. Just dense, with lots of small flakes adding up. Here are
scenes from the way up:
If they were to open, they could probably open every trail...water bars
were not an issue except at the very bottom. There was just so much snow
that water bars turned into drifts; Dave found hiking hard sometimes as
the snow was usually knee deep and sometimes waist deep:
Meanwhile, I was able to rather effortlessly "skin" on top:
We made the top in around an hour or a little more; we took our time and
tried to actually let all of this sink in. The old top of Vista was our
turn around point. Fog, wind, and continued heavy snow keep visibility
rather low but who could complain?
The ski down was all I dreamed it would be. A little wind blown in areas,
but it was easy to find the side of the trail that was left deep and
soft. I don't think I hit bottom once and the snow was often billowing
around my thighs. Lower down, the snow got a little heavier but still
easily turnable. Oh the joys of making downhill turns in powder. We
wanted to savor it but the fields of fresh urged big GS powder turns.
This would've been a big storm at any time of the winter. 12-24" with
drifts much higher...plus, we found that what fell during this even was on
top of the 6-12 that fell a few days earlier. There's actually a pretty
decent base up there and only in the most extreme wind blown areas do you
need to worry about hitting anything.
Absolutely unreal. October 26 and already the first powder day is in the
bag. And it was still snowing when we left...had to clean the windows and
brush off the car. If it keeps up tonight, there'll be another 6" by
morning. Go out and get it. You won't believe it till you see and ski it.
-Scott
Burlington. Last year, Mammoth Mountain recieved several feet of snow in
late October...but that was at 9-11,000ft in the Sierras, not 2-4,000ft in
the northeast.
DB and I didn't have to drive far to see snow as nothing stuck in
Burlington, but it appeared as though they had a couple inches at the rest
area in Williston 6 miles away on I89 but no real difference in
elevation. If anything, you look down on that area from the UVM campus.
Lake Champlain's warm dome did some dirty work with this storm if you were
within a couple miles of the lake front.
Drove to Bolton and still only 2" or so at the bottom of the access road.
As we drove up that snow doubled, then that tripled and snow depth seemed
to deepen exponentially with elevation. Still lots of foliage and trees
down in the woods...but oh was it gorgeous:
Halfway up the road...
By the time we got to the base, it was full on winter...still snowing
moderately at times. Around a foot or so at the base; scenes that would
be appreciated in January, much less October.
DB hiked and I quasi-skinned...I got my skis wet at the bottom, snow stuck
to those things like glue and it allowed me to AT it up to the top. Wiped
off the snow and water at the top and skied down with no friction at all.
I really need to get some real skins, though.
Words really can't describe the scenes up there. It cannot be October.
While the snow isn't "fluffy", it certainly wasn't as wet as I was
expecting. Just dense, with lots of small flakes adding up. Here are
scenes from the way up:
If they were to open, they could probably open every trail...water bars
were not an issue except at the very bottom. There was just so much snow
that water bars turned into drifts; Dave found hiking hard sometimes as
the snow was usually knee deep and sometimes waist deep:
Meanwhile, I was able to rather effortlessly "skin" on top:
We made the top in around an hour or a little more; we took our time and
tried to actually let all of this sink in. The old top of Vista was our
turn around point. Fog, wind, and continued heavy snow keep visibility
rather low but who could complain?
The ski down was all I dreamed it would be. A little wind blown in areas,
but it was easy to find the side of the trail that was left deep and
soft. I don't think I hit bottom once and the snow was often billowing
around my thighs. Lower down, the snow got a little heavier but still
easily turnable. Oh the joys of making downhill turns in powder. We
wanted to savor it but the fields of fresh urged big GS powder turns.
This would've been a big storm at any time of the winter. 12-24" with
drifts much higher...plus, we found that what fell during this even was on
top of the 6-12 that fell a few days earlier. There's actually a pretty
decent base up there and only in the most extreme wind blown areas do you
need to worry about hitting anything.
Absolutely unreal. October 26 and already the first powder day is in the
bag. And it was still snowing when we left...had to clean the windows and
brush off the car. If it keeps up tonight, there'll be another 6" by
morning. Go out and get it. You won't believe it till you see and ski it.
-Scott
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