J.Spin
New member
Larger versions of the pictures associated with the report can be accessed through the link at the end of the text.
Once again, we got a good heads up on an upcoming upslope snowfall event from Scott Braaten, our favorite forecaster for Northern Vermont ski weather. The upslope event delivered as expected, although I think we got a bit of a bonus in terms of snowfall for the valley towns along the spine of the Green Mountains and even beyond. Friday and Saturday were actually a couple of very active periods for weather in the area, and we had at least four pieces of weather that had the chance to deliver snowfall to the region. There was 1) a big nor?easter-style low pressure system bombing out off the coast, 2) a clipper system passing through the area, 3) lake effect snow coming off the Great Lakes, and then of course 4) the upslope snow event brought along by available moisture and persistent northwest winds. We actually missed out on the real big punch of snow from the nor?easter, as it was too far east to hit us. I think it smacked eastern Maine and the Maritimes. The clipper system was pretty moisture starved, so I?m not actually sure how much of our snow came from that, and of course the direct lake effect snows usually help out the mountains to our south a little more. But then of course there?s #4, the upslope. Upslope snowfall certainly seems to be a friend to the Northern Green Mountains, and we appreciate it very much.
The snow at our place in Waterbury started early on Friday morning, and by the time I took the first reading on the snowboard at around 8:30 A.M., we already had 0.5 inches of accumulation. It snowed lightly all the way to Burlington, and there we picked up a coupe of inches through the day from the various snow showers and squalls that passed by. Things began to get a little more interesting when E contacted me late in the afternoon and said that it has snowed steadily in Morrisville all day, and they were up to three inches of accumulation. By the time she got home to Waterbury, she said there were 4-5 inches in the driveway and she couldn?t even make it all the way up with the Mazda despite snow tires and front wheel drive. We spent the evening in Burlington, where snow accumulations were minimal outside of a squall around dinner time that temporarily slickened the roads. The snowfall had even shut off in Burlington by the time we headed back to Waterbury, but as often is the case, the snow picked up as we entered the Green Mountains and intensified the further east we went. In the last few miles before our house, Route 2 had several inches of snow on it and the driving was tricky. Our road hadn?t even been plowed yet, but both cars pushed through the snow on fairly well since road is relatively flat. While the Subaru (which only has all-season tires) blasted up our driveway like the snow wasn?t even there, the Mazda didn?t have a chance. It was like a perfect commercial for all-wheel drive. At that point we?d picked up another 6.5 inches of snow on the snowboard, so we were at 7.0 inches total on the event. We had fun shoveling the driveway and then got the Mazda into the garage and out of the snow, which was still coming down at an inch an hour. The Burlington NWS finally put out a winter storm warning at around 10:45 P.M. on Friday, which seemed a bit late since we had already picked up about 9 inches of snow in roughly 14 hours (that rate and amount of snowfall has GOT to meet warning criteria). I guess they initially underestimated the valley snowfall, but they did make a special point in their winter storm warning to say that towns along the spine of the Green Mountains would be getting hit the hardest in the valley. That certainly pertained to us in Waterbury.
I took the next snowboard reading on Saturday morning at 8:00 A.M., and we?d picked up another 4.9 inches, bringing our storm total to 11.9 inches. I checked the snowpack in the yard, and with the new batch on top of the old stuff from the weekend snow event, we had 16 inches of depth. That?s definitely our deepest valley snowpack of the season. Bolton was reporting 14-16 inches of new snow in their morning update, and although I knew it was going to be cold and windy up there, it was hard to resist heading up for at least a few morning runs. Ty had been up late on Friday night, and was still lazing around in bed, so I was able to sneak off without him knowing. With the potential for deep snow, wind hold of the lifts, and cold temperatures, I didn?t think it was really the best day for him to be up there? especially when he hadn?t had enough sleep. I also didn?t mind heading up alone, since I don?t think I?ve had any lift-served days by myself yet this season, and that would be a fun experience.
Suspecting possible wind hold of the lifts as Scott has nicely reminded us in his weather update, I packed my skinning gear with me just in case. My drive up the Bolton Valley access road was slowed for about 10 minutes as a line of cars sat at the bottom of the big slope below the Timberline area. Resort personnel and ski patrollers were present along the road when I finally got moving, and a woman filled us in that there was a lot of slipping going on at the big pitch. I?m not sure which cars were slipping, but I doubt they were Subarus! Passing the Timberline lift, I noticed that there was a snow cat in action around the loading area and they seemed to be preparing to open the lift ? they had suggested that was their plan on the website. Up at the village area, I could see that the Vista Quad wasn?t running (presumably lift hold) but the Mid-Mountain and Snowflake lifts were in action. The temperature was 9 degrees F, just like when Ty and I had gone night skiing back on the 10th of the month, and just like that trip, it was windy. It wasn?t as windy as I thought it was going to be (with talk of 40 and 50 MPH winds) so that was nice. Actually, it even seemed a lot less windy than our night back on January 10th.
I wasn?t sure if the Timberline lift was open yet (or if it was even going to be open) so I grabbed my pack with my skinning gear, and hopped on the Mid-Mountain lift. I figured I?d at least do a run or two before hiking, and if the skiing was good enough, I might not even want to hike. My cell phone rang in my pack while I was riding the lift, but I knew there was no way I?d be able to get to it in time, so I happily sat there and listed to it ring. It was actually fun to get to listen to a good portion of the song for once, because normally I answer the thing and of course the music stops. I got off the lift and made my way in the direction of the Glades trail. I shuffled over into the trees to shelter myself from the wind, and checked the phone message. It was E. She said that Ty was ripped because I had gone skiing without him. Fortunately she informed him that I was going to be hiking (which was actually quite likely) and that?s why I didn?t take him. She said he calmed down a bit. I ended up not hiking, but hopefully by the time Ty is old enough to read this he?ll forgive me. I skied the Glades trail and while the terrain was great, the snow was pretty uninspiring. It had seen a lot of traffic (since with the wind hold it was probably the best lift-served terrain on the main mountain) and was down to firm snow in some spots. There were actually still some untracked lines along the skier?s right, which I gobbled up, but the bulk of the trail was nothing like the fluffy paradise we?d skied with Ty and Dylan back on December 30th. I think that when it opened back then, it was a bit of a surprise and few people went on it. I know I?m probably a spoiled Northern Vermont skier at this point, but Saturday?s conditions on Glades certainly weren?t going to keep me from hiking to get to something much fluffier. I knew how much snow had just fallen and it didn?t seem right to ski a worn out surface.
I headed over to the Snowflake lift with the anticipation of visiting Timberline. If it was open, it would be the Timberline area?s first official day, so the snow was likely to be quite good. Timberline was open, so off I headed down Timberline Run to get there. As I followed along the mellow Timberline Run, it eventually merged with the Sure Shot trail. However, instead of taking the right and continuing on the Timberline Trail at this junction, I did something a little different. Right in front of my face was a small trail cut through the woods that had a snowmobile track on it. It looked interesting so I just kept going straight. After a few moments of traversing, I came out on a huge, and relatively steep, untracked trail. The trail had a lot of brush still sticking out of the snow, but as I could tell there were easily a couple of feet of snow under my feet, I knew all that brush was cosmetic. I felt a little suspicious that I was the only one among this huge expanse of powder, but I hadn?t crossed any sorts of ropes or signs (or even traversed though thick woods), so it seemed fair game to me. Maybe I was just lucky and I was the first one to go that way. ?Yeah, that?s it!? I told myself. I turned ?em downhill and boy was I in it (powder, that is). There was even a nice open slot of terrain below me so that I didn?t even have to deal with any of the brush. I?m not sure of the exact depth of the powder, but it was certainly more than 12 inches. ?Now we?re getting somewhere?, I thought. Of course, I had no idea where I was, but it was certainly starting to feel like a powder day. On the next pitch, the brush disappeared and the trail was virtually wall-to-wall white. If that wasn?t enough, the powder got even deeper. It was probably close to 18 inches deep in that area, and the trail even had enough pitch to ski it.
I was totally grinning after those deep turns so I paused to get a quick snapshot of the tracks. Just as I was putting my camera away, a Telemark skier came over the rise following my tracks. He made some nice turns, and when he reached me we started to chat. Down below us we could see the Timberline Run trail, and as a ski patroller was passing by there, he stopped and looked up at us. For a few moments, we though we were going to end up getting a lecture about being on a closed trail, but the patroller soon moved on. We were relieved to know that we were at least on something fairly legit. The Telemarker that I met was named Ian, and I got a chance to hang with him for the rest of the morning.
Ian and I hopped on the Timberline Lift, and we could soon see that the patrol had opened up Twice as Nice on all natural snow. We figured we?d get there while the getting was good. Several people had already been down the trail, but there was a lot of untracked snow left. Actually, the pitch of Twice as Nice wasn?t quite as steep as the trail I?d just skied (which turned out to be lower Tattle Tale) so you couldn?t just pound out the powder turns in the deep snow. In some places it was steep enough to allow you to make some turns (especially since I was on the fats) but in others I had to either straight line it through the powder or pick up some speed in the chopped up areas. Still, the skiing was pretty sweet so we decided to hit it again. The chowder areas on Twice as Nice was actually great skiing, because with powder of that density and depth, the cut up snow was better suited to the pitch of trail.
We then headed to the Timberline summit to check out what options were available. The only real option was Sure Shot, which was groomed but still fairly soft. We found out from the patrol that Lower Brandywine and Lost Boys were open off the mid station, so we went that way next. We rode the lift with another skier who was relatively new to Bolton, and he joined us for the run. We skied part of Lower Brandywine and then part of Lost Boys, and were some of the first people in there. The snow was great, except for a spot on the skier?s left of Lower Brandywine where the powder had been blown away and the crust was exposed. My legs found that to be a harsh transition. I did a random powder depth check somewhere on that run and mentally marked the spot on my ski pole. I just measured it now with a ruler and it comes out to 18 inches. That total is made up of everything that fell on top of last weekend?s crust, but that was at an elevation of around 2,000?, so that?s not too shabby.
Back at the Timberline Lift, Ian and I met up with Kurt, who?s a member of SkiVT-L and lives up at Bolton. We all enjoyed a run together on Twice as Nice, which was getting packed down a bit more and it skied great. Ian was having trouble with one of his bindings, and he went into the Timberline Lodge to see if he could tighten it up. I wanted to get home to spend some time with the boys in afternoon, so Kurt joined me for a trip down Villager so he could search out some batteries in the village. When I left, the temperature was 8 degrees F and the snowfall seemed to be slowing down. It had definitely been a fun morning, and I?d even managed some powder face shots in places, although I can?t recall where at this point. The Vista Quad was running by the time I left, so I?m sure some people got some nice turns up there. The Avocet recorded 8 runs for 6,205 feet of descent and the Suunto recorded 8 runs for 6,115 feet of descent, a difference of 1.5%.
I got home to find E and the boys outside in the snow. It had just about stopped snowing, and as of the 2:45 P.M. check I did on he snowboard, we?d picked up only 0.9 inches of additional snow. That still allowed us to break the 1-foot barrier on a snowfall event for the first time this season, giving us 12.8 inches from this snowfall and a total of 46.3 inches of valley snowfall on the season. Bolton is now reporting 18 inches of new snow from this event, and 103 inches of snowfall for the season. The Mt. Mansfield stake recorded 14.5 inches of new snow, and 1.19 inches of liquid equivalent from this event, giving an average snow density of 8.2%. That?s not really very dry snow (more in the average range) so although it wasn?t blower ?in your face? powder, it will help out some with building the base. In the afternoon, we played outside in the snow around the house, and now that we have some substantial snow in the valley, I was able to work on our sledding track in the yard and get some banks built. It sounds like the track is going to get some good use tomorrow. The forecast says that tomorrow is going to be sunny with a high near 20 F in the valley and winds becoming calm even in the mountains, so it looks to be a fantastic day for whatever winter activities people want to do (except maybe some iceboat sailing I guess). I heard that tomorrow, Bolton is going to open the Wilderness Chair for the first time this season, so now I?m a bit torn between heading up there or into the backcountry. We?ll see what happens, but Mother Nature sure looks to be giving us a great day to enjoy the new snow.
Larger versions of the pictures associated with the report are at:
http://www.jandeproductions.com/2007/20JAN07.html
J.Spin
Once again, we got a good heads up on an upcoming upslope snowfall event from Scott Braaten, our favorite forecaster for Northern Vermont ski weather. The upslope event delivered as expected, although I think we got a bit of a bonus in terms of snowfall for the valley towns along the spine of the Green Mountains and even beyond. Friday and Saturday were actually a couple of very active periods for weather in the area, and we had at least four pieces of weather that had the chance to deliver snowfall to the region. There was 1) a big nor?easter-style low pressure system bombing out off the coast, 2) a clipper system passing through the area, 3) lake effect snow coming off the Great Lakes, and then of course 4) the upslope snow event brought along by available moisture and persistent northwest winds. We actually missed out on the real big punch of snow from the nor?easter, as it was too far east to hit us. I think it smacked eastern Maine and the Maritimes. The clipper system was pretty moisture starved, so I?m not actually sure how much of our snow came from that, and of course the direct lake effect snows usually help out the mountains to our south a little more. But then of course there?s #4, the upslope. Upslope snowfall certainly seems to be a friend to the Northern Green Mountains, and we appreciate it very much.
The snow at our place in Waterbury started early on Friday morning, and by the time I took the first reading on the snowboard at around 8:30 A.M., we already had 0.5 inches of accumulation. It snowed lightly all the way to Burlington, and there we picked up a coupe of inches through the day from the various snow showers and squalls that passed by. Things began to get a little more interesting when E contacted me late in the afternoon and said that it has snowed steadily in Morrisville all day, and they were up to three inches of accumulation. By the time she got home to Waterbury, she said there were 4-5 inches in the driveway and she couldn?t even make it all the way up with the Mazda despite snow tires and front wheel drive. We spent the evening in Burlington, where snow accumulations were minimal outside of a squall around dinner time that temporarily slickened the roads. The snowfall had even shut off in Burlington by the time we headed back to Waterbury, but as often is the case, the snow picked up as we entered the Green Mountains and intensified the further east we went. In the last few miles before our house, Route 2 had several inches of snow on it and the driving was tricky. Our road hadn?t even been plowed yet, but both cars pushed through the snow on fairly well since road is relatively flat. While the Subaru (which only has all-season tires) blasted up our driveway like the snow wasn?t even there, the Mazda didn?t have a chance. It was like a perfect commercial for all-wheel drive. At that point we?d picked up another 6.5 inches of snow on the snowboard, so we were at 7.0 inches total on the event. We had fun shoveling the driveway and then got the Mazda into the garage and out of the snow, which was still coming down at an inch an hour. The Burlington NWS finally put out a winter storm warning at around 10:45 P.M. on Friday, which seemed a bit late since we had already picked up about 9 inches of snow in roughly 14 hours (that rate and amount of snowfall has GOT to meet warning criteria). I guess they initially underestimated the valley snowfall, but they did make a special point in their winter storm warning to say that towns along the spine of the Green Mountains would be getting hit the hardest in the valley. That certainly pertained to us in Waterbury.
I took the next snowboard reading on Saturday morning at 8:00 A.M., and we?d picked up another 4.9 inches, bringing our storm total to 11.9 inches. I checked the snowpack in the yard, and with the new batch on top of the old stuff from the weekend snow event, we had 16 inches of depth. That?s definitely our deepest valley snowpack of the season. Bolton was reporting 14-16 inches of new snow in their morning update, and although I knew it was going to be cold and windy up there, it was hard to resist heading up for at least a few morning runs. Ty had been up late on Friday night, and was still lazing around in bed, so I was able to sneak off without him knowing. With the potential for deep snow, wind hold of the lifts, and cold temperatures, I didn?t think it was really the best day for him to be up there? especially when he hadn?t had enough sleep. I also didn?t mind heading up alone, since I don?t think I?ve had any lift-served days by myself yet this season, and that would be a fun experience.
Suspecting possible wind hold of the lifts as Scott has nicely reminded us in his weather update, I packed my skinning gear with me just in case. My drive up the Bolton Valley access road was slowed for about 10 minutes as a line of cars sat at the bottom of the big slope below the Timberline area. Resort personnel and ski patrollers were present along the road when I finally got moving, and a woman filled us in that there was a lot of slipping going on at the big pitch. I?m not sure which cars were slipping, but I doubt they were Subarus! Passing the Timberline lift, I noticed that there was a snow cat in action around the loading area and they seemed to be preparing to open the lift ? they had suggested that was their plan on the website. Up at the village area, I could see that the Vista Quad wasn?t running (presumably lift hold) but the Mid-Mountain and Snowflake lifts were in action. The temperature was 9 degrees F, just like when Ty and I had gone night skiing back on the 10th of the month, and just like that trip, it was windy. It wasn?t as windy as I thought it was going to be (with talk of 40 and 50 MPH winds) so that was nice. Actually, it even seemed a lot less windy than our night back on January 10th.
I wasn?t sure if the Timberline lift was open yet (or if it was even going to be open) so I grabbed my pack with my skinning gear, and hopped on the Mid-Mountain lift. I figured I?d at least do a run or two before hiking, and if the skiing was good enough, I might not even want to hike. My cell phone rang in my pack while I was riding the lift, but I knew there was no way I?d be able to get to it in time, so I happily sat there and listed to it ring. It was actually fun to get to listen to a good portion of the song for once, because normally I answer the thing and of course the music stops. I got off the lift and made my way in the direction of the Glades trail. I shuffled over into the trees to shelter myself from the wind, and checked the phone message. It was E. She said that Ty was ripped because I had gone skiing without him. Fortunately she informed him that I was going to be hiking (which was actually quite likely) and that?s why I didn?t take him. She said he calmed down a bit. I ended up not hiking, but hopefully by the time Ty is old enough to read this he?ll forgive me. I skied the Glades trail and while the terrain was great, the snow was pretty uninspiring. It had seen a lot of traffic (since with the wind hold it was probably the best lift-served terrain on the main mountain) and was down to firm snow in some spots. There were actually still some untracked lines along the skier?s right, which I gobbled up, but the bulk of the trail was nothing like the fluffy paradise we?d skied with Ty and Dylan back on December 30th. I think that when it opened back then, it was a bit of a surprise and few people went on it. I know I?m probably a spoiled Northern Vermont skier at this point, but Saturday?s conditions on Glades certainly weren?t going to keep me from hiking to get to something much fluffier. I knew how much snow had just fallen and it didn?t seem right to ski a worn out surface.
I headed over to the Snowflake lift with the anticipation of visiting Timberline. If it was open, it would be the Timberline area?s first official day, so the snow was likely to be quite good. Timberline was open, so off I headed down Timberline Run to get there. As I followed along the mellow Timberline Run, it eventually merged with the Sure Shot trail. However, instead of taking the right and continuing on the Timberline Trail at this junction, I did something a little different. Right in front of my face was a small trail cut through the woods that had a snowmobile track on it. It looked interesting so I just kept going straight. After a few moments of traversing, I came out on a huge, and relatively steep, untracked trail. The trail had a lot of brush still sticking out of the snow, but as I could tell there were easily a couple of feet of snow under my feet, I knew all that brush was cosmetic. I felt a little suspicious that I was the only one among this huge expanse of powder, but I hadn?t crossed any sorts of ropes or signs (or even traversed though thick woods), so it seemed fair game to me. Maybe I was just lucky and I was the first one to go that way. ?Yeah, that?s it!? I told myself. I turned ?em downhill and boy was I in it (powder, that is). There was even a nice open slot of terrain below me so that I didn?t even have to deal with any of the brush. I?m not sure of the exact depth of the powder, but it was certainly more than 12 inches. ?Now we?re getting somewhere?, I thought. Of course, I had no idea where I was, but it was certainly starting to feel like a powder day. On the next pitch, the brush disappeared and the trail was virtually wall-to-wall white. If that wasn?t enough, the powder got even deeper. It was probably close to 18 inches deep in that area, and the trail even had enough pitch to ski it.
I was totally grinning after those deep turns so I paused to get a quick snapshot of the tracks. Just as I was putting my camera away, a Telemark skier came over the rise following my tracks. He made some nice turns, and when he reached me we started to chat. Down below us we could see the Timberline Run trail, and as a ski patroller was passing by there, he stopped and looked up at us. For a few moments, we though we were going to end up getting a lecture about being on a closed trail, but the patroller soon moved on. We were relieved to know that we were at least on something fairly legit. The Telemarker that I met was named Ian, and I got a chance to hang with him for the rest of the morning.
Ian and I hopped on the Timberline Lift, and we could soon see that the patrol had opened up Twice as Nice on all natural snow. We figured we?d get there while the getting was good. Several people had already been down the trail, but there was a lot of untracked snow left. Actually, the pitch of Twice as Nice wasn?t quite as steep as the trail I?d just skied (which turned out to be lower Tattle Tale) so you couldn?t just pound out the powder turns in the deep snow. In some places it was steep enough to allow you to make some turns (especially since I was on the fats) but in others I had to either straight line it through the powder or pick up some speed in the chopped up areas. Still, the skiing was pretty sweet so we decided to hit it again. The chowder areas on Twice as Nice was actually great skiing, because with powder of that density and depth, the cut up snow was better suited to the pitch of trail.
We then headed to the Timberline summit to check out what options were available. The only real option was Sure Shot, which was groomed but still fairly soft. We found out from the patrol that Lower Brandywine and Lost Boys were open off the mid station, so we went that way next. We rode the lift with another skier who was relatively new to Bolton, and he joined us for the run. We skied part of Lower Brandywine and then part of Lost Boys, and were some of the first people in there. The snow was great, except for a spot on the skier?s left of Lower Brandywine where the powder had been blown away and the crust was exposed. My legs found that to be a harsh transition. I did a random powder depth check somewhere on that run and mentally marked the spot on my ski pole. I just measured it now with a ruler and it comes out to 18 inches. That total is made up of everything that fell on top of last weekend?s crust, but that was at an elevation of around 2,000?, so that?s not too shabby.
Back at the Timberline Lift, Ian and I met up with Kurt, who?s a member of SkiVT-L and lives up at Bolton. We all enjoyed a run together on Twice as Nice, which was getting packed down a bit more and it skied great. Ian was having trouble with one of his bindings, and he went into the Timberline Lodge to see if he could tighten it up. I wanted to get home to spend some time with the boys in afternoon, so Kurt joined me for a trip down Villager so he could search out some batteries in the village. When I left, the temperature was 8 degrees F and the snowfall seemed to be slowing down. It had definitely been a fun morning, and I?d even managed some powder face shots in places, although I can?t recall where at this point. The Vista Quad was running by the time I left, so I?m sure some people got some nice turns up there. The Avocet recorded 8 runs for 6,205 feet of descent and the Suunto recorded 8 runs for 6,115 feet of descent, a difference of 1.5%.
I got home to find E and the boys outside in the snow. It had just about stopped snowing, and as of the 2:45 P.M. check I did on he snowboard, we?d picked up only 0.9 inches of additional snow. That still allowed us to break the 1-foot barrier on a snowfall event for the first time this season, giving us 12.8 inches from this snowfall and a total of 46.3 inches of valley snowfall on the season. Bolton is now reporting 18 inches of new snow from this event, and 103 inches of snowfall for the season. The Mt. Mansfield stake recorded 14.5 inches of new snow, and 1.19 inches of liquid equivalent from this event, giving an average snow density of 8.2%. That?s not really very dry snow (more in the average range) so although it wasn?t blower ?in your face? powder, it will help out some with building the base. In the afternoon, we played outside in the snow around the house, and now that we have some substantial snow in the valley, I was able to work on our sledding track in the yard and get some banks built. It sounds like the track is going to get some good use tomorrow. The forecast says that tomorrow is going to be sunny with a high near 20 F in the valley and winds becoming calm even in the mountains, so it looks to be a fantastic day for whatever winter activities people want to do (except maybe some iceboat sailing I guess). I heard that tomorrow, Bolton is going to open the Wilderness Chair for the first time this season, so now I?m a bit torn between heading up there or into the backcountry. We?ll see what happens, but Mother Nature sure looks to be giving us a great day to enjoy the new snow.
Larger versions of the pictures associated with the report are at:
http://www.jandeproductions.com/2007/20JAN07.html
J.Spin
