powderfreak

Just had our trash raided by a black bear and he took a big ol’ shit in the driveway. Guess they are awake now. Shoveling trash with a snow shovel is always fun in the rain, ha.

You guys down south certainly stop traveling northward and move on to other things… Even the locals start looking to the warm season. This amount of snow and skiable terrain in November would be a gong-show of crowds. But people want seasons-in-seasons with the sun/solar calendar. Long daylight in April, they are looking at warm season. Short daylight like October and November, they want to rush cold season activities. The other day with sun coming through at times, there were a total of 8 people riding the FourRunner Quad here. The flagship lift. Only 8 people on the line at 12pm. The general public has moved on completely and these rainy days show why ski areas lose money this time of year operating. Midweek operations after like April 1st are brutal.

That was the vibe today for sure, ha. This was the first day that was like, yeah the spring melt is happening and it won’t recover like it has every other time this winter.

Rivers and creeks are raging this evening with 1”+ rain and heavy heavy snowmelt. Rivers look like it rained 3+ inches and SWE melt must’ve been pretty high out of the upper elevation basins.

BTV hit 76F and now under a Severe Warning. Wild day.

Up here the ASOS has hit 57F for a dew so far. It feels like a 70F dew lol. The snow doesn’t like it either.

The sun came out briefly yesterday to reveal a total of 8 people on the Quad at noon. Midweek in April. This is why ski areas close this time of year. Imagine the demand on this look in November? People will swarm one icy route down. This time of year, nope.

The longer the totality, the better. But 4+ min vs 6+ min are both solidly long. The key is totality. Other factors like cost, ease of access, accommodations/flights would play into that decision… both are solid totality sites. Tying an event like that into a bonafide vacation/exploration trip would be wild.

Never over until it’s over. That’s awesome.

It sometimes seems true that late season snow is natures fertilizer. That stuff melting into a warming ground… get a few sunny days and things can green up fast. Unfortunately we’ve got more soggy ground coming for New England.

Life has its ups and downs... you win some and lose some. However, the factors that lined up to make this possible were pretty incredible. This has been the wettest year, winter, whatever on record for some spots in New England. It has precipitated a lot, it's been murky, we are back into it for a few days right now up here. Its cloudy and damp right now, changing to cloudy and wet high elevation snow and valley rain showers over the weekend. It has been so wet. For so long. However for this rare cosmic event the universe gave us euphoric weather. Even without the eclipse, that sunshine and warmth (even in snow covered areas) would've been a banner day. Throw in totality during the peak awesomeness of the weather/afternoon. Mind-blowing. How did we get so lucky? It could've been 35F with dense fog and/or thick stratus with ease. The fact that it wasn't raining and instead was perfect weather during this unstoppable event, damn.

Very hard to tell… not a fat rabbit? Ha.

Moose would’ve knocked that post over if it walked past it that close. Definitely not moose by the snow in the middle of the print.

Ha, you’ve seemed to be finding reasons to meh this for a while, odd given how stoked you get for certain things. I am sure you can find people who had a rough time in traffic but read the thread, everyone is saying the same thing. I’m definitely traveling for another one.

Yeah thats a good point. Being mentally prepared for it is half the battle with traffic. I can't think of any other event where people are like "I just saw it and then waited in traffic for 10 hours... and I'd do it all over again in a heartbeat."

Yeah stay the next day is the best move but it’s funny to see the largest traffic jam in NNE history and the lack of people complaining about it. The only ones really struck by it were the people not in it .

It is interesting that so many people were just so awestruck that it didn’t matter. Love that. People like, yeah so what, that was the coolest thing I’ll ever see, etc.

Busted out the shorts for first time this year with the dog this evening. 68F felt glorious.

Windows and doors open.

We've been talking about it a lot today (obviously) but for me it was this cool vibe that nothing else in the world seemed to matter yesterday. Politics, money, worries, how much you hate your neighbor, etc... the entire lead up throughout the day was this universal knowledge that something wild was about to happen and the anticipation of it. Then when it happened, to have every single person and humanity as a larger collective just get their mind-blown, led to this feeling of togetherness that we don't often get these days. Everyone is so divided on every topic but this was one thing that humanity agreed upon for a day. I said it yesterday and I'll say it again, I really did not understand the profound awesomeness of it.

Great shot!

Love that lower left flare has been visible in photos no matter where they’ve been taken in totality.

I think for me it was that our relationship with the sun changed for a brief time. From the day we are born to when we die, the sun rises and stays there until it sets. It’s baked into our evolution and minds. This disrupted that cycle, with a shadow being cast during the peak heating time of day. Something about it got me.

This is what I wrote on social. I completely get why Gene was harping on totality for the past couple weeks. There was something about it that was a profound experience. Natural, no control over it, we as humans are just microscopic dust in a large universe. And collectively we just had our minds blown. "Totality. I now know that I did not appreciate exactly what that meant. Sure, I knew it would get dark, but the experience was so much more profound than that. I now understand why people travel for this and why totality is different than even 99%. This was an incredible day. The excitement, the anticipation and togetherness of humanity, knowing that a once-in-a-lifetime event was going to happen. Sharing that with fellow humans, on my favorite snow covered mountain with flawless weather. This will stay with me for life." We tried to describe it as such in the snow report opening lines... A momentous convergence of three cosmic titans, Earth and Sun split by the Moon. Today we were all on a cosmic odyssey in the path of totality and what a scene it was.

It’s happen by exactly as it was thought it would, ha. Two interstates in VT, both jacked up.