sankaty

1.5" in Reading, VT

2 hours ago, powderfreak said:

The bolded is a tough miss by a ski area’s contracted plow service.  A huge miss.  Contracts would be in jeopardy at most areas if you aren’t dug out and plowed by arrival time in the morning.  Especially late season when early plowing bids may start coming in not long afterward following the season.

You need those parking lots dialed on busy post-storm days to maximize parking and efficiency.  Front end loaders, dump trucks with plows, the tractors with 7 foot wheels… every tool needs to be out on those days.

Killington also had a plowing mess on Sunday. The Skyeship parking lot was still a partially plowed mess at 10AM causing traffic on Rt 4 to back up all the way to Bridgewater Corners (about a 20 minute backup). I've never seen anything like that even on the busiest holiday weekends. I skied Pico but had to wait in the backup to get there. Parking was a challenge at Pico, too, but that was mostly just because of the limited space.

What a run we've had, though. Between this past weekend and the weekend of the 9th, it's been a 10 out of 10 March.

25" so far in Reading VT. Pico was off the hook today.

It would be interesting to see a correlation of snowfall at the Mansfield stake relative to temp departures. I bet this season would stand out as one of the snowiest with a strong positive departure.

9 hours ago, LaGrangewx said:

 A-basin is generally my favorite on nice sunny days in April when coverage is the best. Vertigo can be a real issue there on bad visibility days since most lifts go above tree-line.

No kidding about the vertigo above tree-line at a-basin! For the last run of the day we had to ski from the top of Beavers down the front side to the base in snow and fog. It wasn't just that the light was flat, we literally couldn't tell up from down. All the expert skiers looked like we'd never been on skis before until reaching the trees.

Looks like another epic weekend for the northeast! Will be at Killington/Pico Friday-Monday. Pretty amazing how great this season has been considering the positive temperature departures.

Killington was very crowded yesterday for a Tuesday, though still very manageable. This week is spring break for Toronto folks, so lots of Canadians to chat with on the lifts. I remember that Toronto spring break was also an epic snow week last year, so I'm developing a Pavlovian fondness for people from Toronto.

Pico was phenomenal today. Boot-deep fluffy powder all day with falling and windblown snow constantly filling in the tracks. The soft, dense snow underneath it all from yesterday made it seem bottomless. Maybe the second best snow conditions I can remember in VT.

I don't usually put much stock in the 3K NAM, but it's a thing of beauty for the mountains

17 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Not going to lie, I like what I'm seeing for the elevations.  This could go fairly big (12"+ above 2,000ft).  Some of these model runs have 2"+ total QPF so it it holds snow at the elevations it's going to dump.

The transition from dense frontside snow to fluffier upslope could be perfect for resurfacing. As a Pico skier, also liking how far down the spine the upslope seems to go. I have a good feeling about this.

I have very fond memories of learning to ski at Butternut. Haven't been there since the late 80s. I'd love to go back someday.

4 hours ago, Brian5671 said:

Going to be alot of early closings this year.    With DST starting people move on to other things anyway and who is going to pay to ski on garbage (other than maybe season pass holders)

OTOH, there are a lot more pass holders than there used to be with Epic and Ikon, and spring is when they are doing their main sales drive. If things get bad enough, they might not have a choice, but wouldn't be a good look from a sales perspective for them to electively close early.

I think there's going to be a fair amount of good skiing left, at least from Killington north.

From the latest BTV discussion:

Overall, thermal profiles continue to support snow being very
elevationally dependent with elevations below 2000 feet mainly rain
through Sunday, ending with a light accumulation of snow Sunday
night into Monday. Across the higher elevations though, snow remains
the dominant ptype, very wet and heavy Saturday night through Sunday
night, before decreasing in density on Monday. A first guess at
storm total snowfall would support a winter weather advisory Sunday
night through Monday across the western slopes of the Adirondacks
and northern Greens for 3-6" of snow, while elevations above 2000
feet could see accumulations of 12-18" from Saturday night through
Monday night.

Amidst the general gloom, the Sunday-Tuesday period could be a pretty special stretch if the models pan out. Some much needed high-density resurfacing snow followed by a pretty significant upslope event stretching pretty far down the spine.

My sense is the largest share of the AN temp departures have been driven by AN lows (but still below freezing) and a lack of arctic outbreaks. It's been just cold enough to snow and retain cover much of the winter in NNE (unlike most of SNE).

Last winter was kinda similar. I've been splitting my time between CT and the Killington area the past few winters, and the VT time has soothed the winter loving soul. If I had been only in CT the past couple of seasons, I'd be losing my mind.

17 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

I think one element I have largely neglected that needs to become a point of focus is the WPO. That is what killed me this year. It used to be the AO/NAO, but I have been decent there past few years.

Any good links to track the current and forecasted states of the WPO/EPO?

Thanks!

Great spring snow with pronounced undercast at Pico today as well.

Upper mountain:

Lower mountain:

Oh, one last thing about the terrain under the Sierra lift at Copper. There's a huge, popular jump called the "Bush Jump" right under the chair near the top. It's a fun place to rest nearby and watch the young people make questionable life choices.

18 hours ago, bwt3650 said:

Hitting both of those and winter park next week. Out of copper and a-basin, which do you think has better trees and what areas to hit? I’m only at each for a couple days.


.

With the major caveat that both resorts are so big that we barely scratched the surface (and we only had one day at a-basin), we found better trees at a-basin. That second photo is taken in the trees around the Beavers lift. They are spectacular and not to be missed. They get pretty steep in sections, but the trees are nicely spaced and the snow was perfect. Kinda reminded me of Anarchy at Killington but with slightly greater max steepness and ideal conditions. Yeager was my favorite in that section, but they're all good. If you go too far to skiers left in that area near Bighorn/TInker Toy, there's a somewhat sketchy runout you need to navigate, but that's probably also where powder turns last longest. Honestly, I could have skied all day just in the Beavers and been ecstatic.

Also fun was the Zuma Bowl, though we didn't have much time to explore it. Just be careful; I almost got carried away in those trees and missed the base of the lift and skied down into the hike-back terrain. That would have sucked with sea-level lungs :).

We didn't even get to the Palli lift, which seems crazy, but we loved Beavers so much and just ran out of time.

We had more time to explore Copper and had better snow there. Also a little easier to find more accessible (i.e. less technical) advanced/expert terrain at Copper (a lot of the stuff at a-basin looked like I'd want a parachute). The above tree line terrain around the Sierra lift is so fun. We had great powder turns on Coleman's retreat and fun trees below Union Meadow. 17 Glade was also fun (get's pretty steep). There were many glades I didn't get a chance to try (between the Rendezvous and Storm King chairs, between Suber B and Alpine chairs, and all the stuff in Resolution bowl). Copper also has super fun blue mogul slopes (would easily be blacks in VT) including I-Dropper and lots of stuff around the Timberline chair. Timberline is a great place for mixed groups because it has lots of groomed stuff but also lots of fun, consequence-free bumps (Little Burn is a fun place to but on a show under the lift).

Have fun! Looks like you'll have great snow!

Powder under the Sierra lift:

Consequence-free bumps near Timberline:

We were at Copper/A Basin last week. Skiing was fantastic.

41 minutes ago, psuhoffman said:

@powderfreak or anyone else.... I'm pushing hard in rehap from a knee injury to try to get back out by Easter this season...but is there enough base at Subarbush, Stowe, and Sugarloaf for there to be a decent April ski season this year?  

I can speak to the Killington area. Snowmaking trains are fine and north-facing naturals are still in decent shape. The mid-winter cutters were mostly snow-to-rain deals that actually netted a positive snowpack and impregnated the base with a lot of water that froze into the coral reef.

As long as there isn't unrelenting heat for March, there should be a decent amount of April terrain. At the very least, the Superstar glacier is deep and will last easily through April assuming nothing extraordinary happens.

Heading up to Pico this weekend. I'll report back if I need to amend the above.

5 minutes ago, MJO812 said:

A miracle

Is a miracle a long-wave phenomenon?

I've been seeing that the NWS teleconnections page has been showing a decreasing NAO and increasing PNA moving forward, but the models still want to constantly reload the western trough and pump up the eastern ridge. What long wave changes would we need to see in order for a more winterlike pattern to return to the east?

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/pna/nao.shtml

8" OTG in Middletown

Back to snow in Middletown. Doesn't look like it will last long.

Just flipped to sleet in Middletown. 1.5-2" before the changeover.