J.Spin

When I left the mountain around midday yesterday, it was a bit tough to pull myself away because the ski conditions were really good both on and off piste. The Vista Peak terrain was skiing on 10-12” of dense powder that provided a solid resurfacing of even steep pitches, and all the way down to 1,500’ at the Timberline Base there was at least 9-10” of that snow with a lot of liquid equivalent in it. The precipitation at that point was snow that was a mixture of both regular flakes and more granular types, and it frequently switched back and forth favoring one over the other. As the day wore on and moved into the evening, precipitation at our place in the valley gradually transitioned to more mixed precipitation, but I wasn’t sure what had gone on up at Bolton Valley – it was possible that the mixed precipitation was minor, leaving just a skim atop the new snow, or it might have been a lot more substantial. I decided to head up for some turns today to find out where conditions stood, and without the Vista Quad, the Timberline Quad, or the Wilderness Chair in operation, I decided to do some touring. I had though about hitting the Nordic and Backcountry Network, but I decided that touring via the Wilderness Uphill Route was a better option – if the off piste and ungroomed snow was in bad shape I could catch a run down some groomed terrain instead. Well, I’m glad I gave myself the option of a groomed descent, because anything terrain had not been groomed was essentially unskiable. The combination of dense snow granules, sleet, freezing drizzle, rime, and whatever else had fallen, hadn’t left just a thin crust atop the snowpack, it was a substantial crust. I checked in various spots on my tour, and the crust was typically about a half inch thick, with probably close to a half inch of liquid equivalent in it. Thankfully, the groomed terrain was in excellent shape, since once that crust was pulverized into the rest of the new snow, it made a substantial covering of the old snowpack. I descended on groomed terrain via the Wilderness Liftline and Lower Fanny Hill, and that was really nice. In terms of the off piste skiing, it’s not going to be good again unless you hit an area that has been broken up by previous skiers. The snow below the crust is excellent, but you’ve got to break up the crust to get to it. Other than that, it will need to either need to warm up or we’ll have to get another resurfacing storm cycle before it will be fun to get back off piste again. Until that point, at least the groomed slopes are in great shape because of the resurfacing we’ve gone through. In the valley I’ve recorded 1.05” of new liquid equivalent in the snows from the past couple of systems, so the mountains must be up there around 1.5” of liquid or even more. As a testament to that, the snow depth at the Mt. Mansfield Stake has jumped a foot over the course of the past few days, so these recent March storms have been an excellent addition to the snowpack as we head toward spring.

Our next winter system in the current series moved into the area overnight, and by early this morning we’d picked up another couple of inches of snow in the valley. The mountains had picked up a few inches of new snow as well, and since it was expected to continue throughout the day, I was a bit torn on whether to head right up for a ski session in the morning or wait for later in the day when there might be more accumulation. I decided that early morning was the better option, and I’d say that was probably the right call because we started to get into more mixed precipitation as we approached midday. For convenience, I parked at the Timberline Base, but my real goal for the morning was to head right over to the Vista Quad and get up to the Vista Summit – the Vista Quad hasn’t really run since Thursday due to wind/mechanical issues. That meant that all the snow from these recent systems has been siting there without any skier traffic. Based on yesterday’s conditions, I brought out the alpine boards today; I wanted the extra stability to easily handle that hard layer of subsurface snow where the new snow hadn’t bonded well, or, if it turned out that there was enough new snow to start diving into the really steep terrain, I’d want to have the alpine boards for those adventures anyway. Thankfully, the latter of those two situations applied, and it was game on for a lot of very steep terrain. With the fresh opening today of the Vista Quad, the Vista Summit was definitely the place to be – my measurements typically revealed 10-12” of dense powder anywhere that hadn't seen skier traffic. Down in the valley we’ve had over an inch of liquid equivalent in the snow we’ve seen from these past couple of systems, so the mountains must be in the range of at least 1 to 1½ inches of liquid at this point, and that’s generally enough to get into resurfacing high-angle terrain. The snow that’s out there is dense and surfy, and I was typically getting bottomless powder turns on both single black and double black pitches like those in the Hard Luck, Vermont 200, and TNT area. The caveat to that was that vegetation mattered – in the trees, and especially evergreen areas, enough of the new snow was captured on branches that the lower depths on the ground were obvious. The open trails were the place to be, since all that new dense powder was just sitting there. When I was wrapping up my session and heading back to Timberline, the conditions were so good even in the lower elevations that I hung around there for a couple of extra runs. Even below 2,000’ I was finding 9-10” of that same dense powder in areas that had not yet seen any skier traffic. A testament to just how good all this dense snow has been with respect to resurfacing slopes is that fact that patrol was reopening trails all over the place on Timberline – even the steepest pitches like the Tattle Tale Headwall were skiing well. Like yesterday, groomed terrain was skiing very well with over an inch of new liquid equivalent tilled in because of the new snow. The weather today wasn’t quite as friendly as it was yesterday; today there were some periods of wind, and at times heavy snowfall and blowing snow. The early morning snowfall was generally regular flakes, but those became mixed with grainy flakes as the morning wore on, so your goggles were definitely needed. As PF mentioned, there was also a bit of freezing mist at times, so you had to keep that from obscuring your goggles. Relatively speaking, the freezing mist wasn’t too heavy though, and I only cleaned it off my goggles once when I stopped in at the Timberline Base for a late morning break. None of the precipitation seemed to hamper the snow surfaces, and thankfully the dense snow and grainy flakes only continued to help deepen the powder. In term of visitors, it was a surprisingly quite day on the mountain for a weekend storm day (not to mention the fresh opening of the Vista Quad). Perhaps the questionable weather kept a lot of people away. All the lifts were basically walk on, and it was especially quiet at Timberline – there were often several empty chairs between people when I was there around midday. That could be a bit of the late March slowdown taking place as people start to get busy with other things, but as I’ve often seen this season, there were a good number of Indy Pass holders making use of their two free days at Bolton Valley. That’s probably a good way to manage your passes though: use March and April to hit up some of those northern resorts that are still getting good snowstorms.

Thanks for the Mansfield snowpack updates PF – very informative and useful. Your last image in the series, which I copied above, is a great example of what I wrote about in my Bolton Valley report from yesterday. In your shot, you can see some spots where there are snow bridges across the gully, which are very easy to cross on skis. In contrast, if you run up against one of those sheer faces with multiple feet of snowpack like you see at the very front of your image, it’s a logistical nightmare to try to get across – both getting down into the gully and then trying to get back up out of would be incredibly difficult with a lot of wasted energy.

We are now a couple of storms deep into our current March series of what the weather modeling suggests will be about a half dozen systems. The resorts of the Northern Greens are generally reporting 6-12” of accumulation from the first couple of events, with the one that moved into the area yesterday being the most vigorous. Snowfall yesterday afternoon was in the 1-2”/hr. range even in the valleys, and for those out on the roads, driving was very difficult due to both the accumulations and the limited visibility in the intense snowfall. As of this morning, Bolton Valley was reporting 7 inches of new snow from the most recent storm, so I headed up to the hill for some turns. It was a beautiful late winter day out there at the resort, with temperatures in the 20s F, a mix of clouds and some sun, and occasional flurries as well. Compared to last weekend, the number of visitors wasn’t quite as high, since there weren’t as may events taking place at the resort; I arrived around opening time and parked in the upper backcountry lot, which was about half filled at that point. I started the first half of the morning with a lift-served ski session, and up at the main mountain neither the Vista Quad nor the Wilderness Double were running due to planned closures and mechanical work. I did take a couple of quick runs off the Mid Mountain Chair and the Snowflake Chair to get a feel for the snow. My snow analyses from the valley indicated that the storm had left about a half inch of liquid equivalent in the area, so it had the potential to be a moderate resurfacing of the slopes. Compared to what we picked up in the valley, the snow at elevation was notably drier, and it didn’t seem to bond as well to the subsurface as last weekend’s snow. At least up at Bolton’s elevations, it was cold throughout the storm, so there wasn’t any of that extra dense snow at the start to improve the interface with the old snow. Similar to last weekend, the storm made for a decent resurfacing of low and moderate-angle terrain, but it just didn’t hold up quite as well as last time. If you didn’t get first tracks, you were quickly down to the very firm subsurface, and the snow not bonding well meant that the skiing just wasn’t great with repeat traffic. Groomed surfaces were actually quite good though, so the snow being cold throughout the storm seemed to set it up for being tilled into the base extremely well. I ventured over to Timberline after those fist couple of runs, and that was definitely the place to be. Skier traffic was lighter and with the Timberline Quad in operation, there was just so much more terrain open that fresh tracks were plentiful. There was still the issue of the quality dropping off quickly on tracked terrain, but with the relatively low skier density, that took a while. I skied at Timberline until about midmorning when it became harder to find untracked snow on piste, and then I headed back to the main mountain for a tour on the Nordic and Backcountry Network. I spent the rest of the morning ski touring, and my route was in the 2,000 – 2,800’ elevation range from the lower Village area up past Bryant Cabin. There were a couple of water bars near the bottom of the Bryant Trail that had been blown out during last week’s thaw, but people have made bypass routes to quickly get around them. Even though the water bars have been filled in somewhat with new snow, with vertical gouges cut into 5 to 6 feet of snowpack, the physical dimension of the trenches make it just too awkward to try to climb down into them and then climb back out the other side. At least as of this morning, skier traffic on the Nordic and Backcountry Network had been very low, so you had access to untracked lines just about anywhere you went. To that point, I was breaking trail this morning as the first one out onto North Slope, so everything out past there was untracked. The powder skiing was great on low and moderate angle terrain. As PF mentioned, there wasn’t much elevation dependence with respect to new snow accumulations. I did find the very best depths with 7 to 8 inches of fresh powder up around 2,800’ above Bryant Cabin, but even down at the lower elevations of Timberline around 1,500’ there was a good 6 inches of new snow, and it was slightly denser so it may have had just about the same amount of liquid in it. All morning, people I talked to at the resort spoke about this next storm coming into the area tonight as being even bigger, so at least that’s the perception that the general skiing public seems to have. Some of the models do have twice as much liquid forecast for this next system, and there are projected accumulations through Monday morning to match, so we’ll see how this next one plays out.

I hadn’t really noticed it until I was watching TWC this morning and saw their model blend for the upcoming days, but it looks like there’s a bit of a bread and butter pattern setting up for the coming week, with 3 potential winter systems through the weekend, and 4 over the course of the next week. Modeling shows a system tomorrow night, one Friday night, another Sunday into Monday, and then another on Wednesday. Nothing jumps out immediately as having the potential of the one we had over the weekend, but the recent GFS depictions of the Sunday/Monday system would certainly be in that ballpark. None of the other models really have that setup, and temperatures would potentially be an issue depending on the track, but the GFS is typically pretty good with these patterns, so it’s certainly something to watch. The BTV NWS forecast discussion doesn’t highlight anything too notable at this point, and they mention the potential for warmer temperatures, but they definitely talk about the pattern setting up. We haven’t really seen a Northern Greens bread and butter pattern in a few weeks, so it’s good to see a possible return. It’s definitely worth watching to see if any of the systems or the cumulative accumulations set up any decent or partial resurfacing for the slopes like we saw this past Sunday. Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Burlington VT 706 AM EDT Wed Mar 18, 2026 A series of fast moving systems are favored Saturday into Sunday and again later next week as mid/upper level flow goes more near zonal in the base of a long wave trough.

It was a relatively slow second week of March for snowfall here in the Northern Greens – our last winter storm finished up on the 4th, and then we had multiple days of springtime warmth. That warm stretch brought some fun spring skiing, but by midweek, cooler weather had returned and we were back into wintry storms. Our most recent storm began yesterday, and while the lower valleys received snow with minimal accumulation, the mountain valleys and especially the mountains themselves stacked up several inches or more. After a modest start in the morning, the upslope snow kicked in for the afternoon into the evening and pounded the mountains. The snowfall was so intense that the road crews couldn’t keep up with it on the Bolton Valley Access Road, which had to be closed for a time to clear out cars that were stuck. Out of caution, the resort even closed its lifts during that period, since emergency vehicles wouldn’t have been able to get up to the resort if they’d been needed. We weren’t skiing yesterday, but Bolton’s snow report updates told the story, and it sounded like quite a challenge for resort operations. Ultimately, accumulations topped out around a foot along with spine, so it was just another example of what often happens when one of those minor clipper systems runs into the Northern Greens: 3:30 PM UPDATE: The good news is that it's nuking up here, the bad news is that Vista will be closed for the evening due to winds. Mid-Mountain, Mighty Mite, and Snowflake will run as scheduled. With all of the snow coming down hard and fast, please use extreme caution when traveling on the Access Road. Winter tires and four wheel drive is highly encouraged at this time. 4:15 PM UPDATE: The Access Road is currently closed to both uphill and downhill traffic. We're working to clear cars off of the road and then will have to wait for plow trucks to make their rounds. We'll keep you updated as soon as something changes. 4:45 PM UPDATE: The state police and plow trucks are currently working to untangle the Access Road below Timberline. We are making the call to temporarily close ALL LIFTS while the Access Road is closed due to it being inaccessible for emergency vehicles to reach the resort if needed. Stay tuned for updates, and thank you to our local officials, Bolton township, and Bolton team for working hard to get things moving again. 5:30 PM UPDATE: Traffic is now gradually moving on the Access Road. It's not completely clear just yet, but the teams are getting close. We will resume lift operations. Please continue to use caution when traveling. If any skier and rider needs to get back to Timberline but does not have a night ticket, our lift ops team will gladly let you on the lift to get back to Timberline while it's still light out. The storm wound down overnight, so my older son joined my wife and I today for a Bolton session to check out the new snow. I was surprised to see the Bolton Valley snow report only indicating 7 inches of new snow when we’d picked up 6 to 7 inches from the system down in the valley, but I’d say that report was on the conservative side – we did find some spots with only 7 inches, but even after overnight settling, depths of 8 to 10 inches seemed more common. In the valley at our site, the new snow contained close to a third of an inch of liquid equivalent, so I’m guessing the mountain picked up probably a half inch of liquid. It certainly wasn’t a full resurfacing storm, but it did reset the low-angle terrain and a decent percentage of the mid-angle terrain to bottomless or nearly bottomless turns. The average density of the powder down at our place in the valley was 4-5% H2O, but the settled powder we found out there today was still dense enough to slow you down somewhat in the lowest angle areas. The trick to dialing in some of the best powder turns today was finding that sweet spot of terrain pitch that was steep enough to give you good momentum in the available powder yet keep the turns mostly bottomless. We had a lot of fun using our knowledge of the mountain and seeking out those untracked areas with the right pitches to yield some excellent turns. On that note, temperatures in the 20s F today and minimal wind made it that much better. We were glad we started up right when the lifts were opening though, because even at that point it was clear that it was going to be a busy day at the resort – we were already parking in the 4th tier of the main Village lots right around opening bell. It was a big event day for the resort though, with the 5th Annual Blauvelt’s Banks competition taking place at Timberline, and some slalom racing and other events taking place at the main base. When we were leaving around midday, it looked like both the Timberline and main Village lots were basically full.

I’d seen in the BTV NWS forecast discussion that Winter Weather Advisories were going up in association with the next system moving into the area, but there wasn’t any specific mention of alerts here in Northern Vermont. Now that I look at the BTV NWS alerts map though, I see that the area is surrounded by Winter Weather Advisories and Winter Storm Warnings, and some of the projected snow accumulations are substantial, so there’s certainly a lot going on. The Event Total Snow Accumulation map shows some areas of 6-8” shading here in the Northern Greens, and some of the mountain point forecasts are coming in with 12”+ of snow through Sunday. The BTV NWS forecast discussion does highlight the QPF only topping out around 0.4” with shadowing in many areas due to the track, but they also point out the locally higher amounts possible along the western slopes, and the accumulations map certainly highlights that. Some models show >0.5” of liquid along the spine, and we’ll see how things evolve with the next update ahead of the system. With the spring cycling and refreeze that the snowpack has seen over the past few days, it’s going to take a decent amount of liquid equivalent for resurfacing of the slopes, but every bit of liquid that comes with this system will increase the angle of terrain that comes into play and enhance the potential for decent turns.

Our warm spring temperatures continued today, and the morning was starting off with crystal clear skies, so it was another good one to get out. My colleague Mark was in town for one more day of his work/ski trip, and in terms of our schedules, we both had enough time for a longer session on the mountain. He’s been wanting to get in a longer tour to learn the route that would bring him from Bolton Valley’s Nordic & Backcountry Network right up to the top of the Wilderness lift-served terrain, so that was the goal of today’s outing. We started off fairly early, around 8:30 A.M., so the snow was hard in many areas from the overnight freeze. But with the timing of the tour, we didn’t expect to be starting out first descent until mid-morning, and by that point the snow should have softened. Indeed, another round of temperature cycling has helped consolidate the snowpack further, and compared to yesterday, snow travel was easier to manage with the areas off the packed trails not quite as soft and bottomless. Our tour today took us up the Bryant Trail, past the Bryant Cabin and onto Birch Loop and Heavenly Highway. Since we were so close during part of our route, we took a few extra minutes and looped out onto Stowe View so that Mark could take in the scenery from that local apex of the trail network. We then connected to Paradise Pass to get us back to Heavenly Highway and reach the Wilderness lift-served terrain. We finished our ascent at the Wilderness Summit, then made a descent on Wilderness and finished off the day with a few Vista lift-served runs since Mark wanted to use up the free lift rides that came with his Bolton NBU season pass. With another round of consolidation, I’d say today’s on piste snow conditions were the best I’ve encountered this week at Bolton. We were also making our descents earlier today, so that played into getting firmer snow as well. There were still sticky areas of snow out there, and the usual springtime ski rules applied, with high-angle terrain and terrain with manmade snow offering some of the best turns. We skied runs on the steep slopes of Spillway and Hard Luck, and those offered far and way the best conditions – steep turns with great spring snow and nothing sticky to worry about. Even moderate angle terrain like Beech Seal was excellent as well though, so the spring conditions are clearly settling in better each day with consolidation and grooming. I did also spend about 45 minutes prepping my bases yesterday evening with multiple rounds of cleaning to get off the spring gunk that had accumulated from my previous sessions, then a coat of regular wax and a finishing coat of Zardos Base Boost™. That certainly helped on any stickier areas of snow, but on those steeper areas of good spring snow, you’d be all set with whatever condition your base was in.

My colleague Mark is still in town for work and wanted to get in another ski tour when I had some time in the afternoon, so we headed up to Bolton Valley today in the mid-afternoon period. Temperatures were up into the 50s F at the mountain, but it was mostly cloudy all day, and I was hoping that would reduce the solar impacts and minimize any stickiness in the snow. In addition, temperatures around here did get down below freezing last night, so hopefully that would promote a start to the temperature cycling for some corn snow formation. Since Mark really liked the tour we took back on December 17th with my older son, we essentially repeated that today – it’s a route up the Bryant Trail to the Bryant Cabin, followed by a traverse out on North Slope toward the lift-served alpine terrain. In this case we modified it with a final ascent up to the top of Snow Hole to finish off with a slightly longer descent on the groomed terrain. When touring, off piste descents are often the goal when powder is in play, descending via the groomed alpine terrain was definitely the call today. The off piste snow is still deep, unconsolidated mush in areas that aren’t packed by skier traffic, and descents in that snow really aren’t an option. Thankfully, skier-packed routes like the Bryant Trail and North Slope are fine for travel because they are packed. We had to watch out in today’s travels though; if you plant your weight too far off the beaten path your boot will drop out two feet down into the bottomless mush – and that’s with your ski on. Plant your pole to far out into the unconsolidated snow and it will simply go down and disappear. Anyway, there’s a lot of consolidation that still needs to be done in the snowpack, and that’s probably due to the huge extended period of many weeks or even multiple months we had around here without a substantial thaw. In terms of the on piste conditions, they were dramatically better than what I’d experienced yesterday down at Timberline. Indeed, we were 1,000’ higher today, we had those clouds to minimize solar impacts, and there was a round of freeze thaw to help set up the snow. There was still some stickiness to the snow, but gliding was decent. I’d still recommend prepping your bases with spring wax to minimize that sticking of the skis until temperatures come back down however.

I got out this afternoon for a bit of skiing at Bolton’s Timberline area, and with the warm temperatures, it was my first real spring skiing of the season. The weather was fantastic – blue skies, and temperatures well up into the 40s F, but down low at the Timberline Base elevations (~1,500’) it was actually too warm by the afternoon. On piste, snow was getting sticky because we haven’t really had enough spring temperature cycling to consolidate it into quality corn snow. Off piste snow at those elevations and aspects is not really skiable – it’s both sticky and unconsolidated, so you’re tromping through deep mush at this point. The snow won’t be good in those areas until temperatures come down a bit. It was definitely a day to go for the higher and more northerly facing aspects as the afternoon warmed, but overall it was a fantastic early spring day – tailgating was beginning in the parking lots with people out with grills and chairs and coolers and all the usual springtime stuff!

One of my colleagues arrived in town this afternoon for a skiing/work visit and wanted to get in a quick tour up at Bolton Valley to start off his trip, so I joined him for the outing. With the late afternoon/evening timing, I suggested that a tour via the Wilderness Uphill Route would be the easiest option; we were unsure of how things would play out with respect to the availability of daylight. I also wasn’t sure about what to expect in terms of the quality of the off piste skiing based on recent spring temperature cycling. It looks like temperatures stayed relatively cool on the mountain today, since they had certainly stayed cool in the valley relative to yesterday, but I suspect it was yesterday’s temperatures that cycled the snow surfaces. On our ascent, we could feel that the on piste snow had seen at least a mild refreeze – it was crunchy and all the contours were locked in place. My colleague had his headlamp, but we weren’t really prepared for a full descent in the dark, so we decided to design our tour to head toward the Vista terrain for a descent under the night skiing lights. We did start the initial part of the descent on the unlit Wilderness terrain, and it skied much like the ascent suggested it would – the groomed snow was OK, but it was still crunchy and existing contours were locked in place. What we quickly discovered though was that snow areas that were protected from southerly exposure were far better – the snow there had not seen much temperature cycling at all, so the skiing surface was typically soft and quite pleasant. Once we joined onto the groomed night skiing terrain we got into areas where skier traffic and grooming had done a lot to push around the snow and soften it up. With the temperatures well below freezing, that snow had a good winter consistency and skied well, but it was still variable from spot to spot depending on sun exposure and levels of skier traffic, so you had to make sure you skied in the right spots for the best snow quality.

Last night’s system delivered 3-4” of new snow here in the valley, so I headed up to the mountain this morning to get in a tour and check out the conditions. There really wasn’t much difference in accumulations with respect to elevation – Bolton Valley was also reporting 3-4” new, and that’s what I measured throughout my tour in the 2,000’ to 2,700’ elevation range via the Wilderness Uphill Route. The 3-4” of snow contained about ¼” of liquid equivalent, so the snow was certainly powdery (~7% H2O), but not ultra-light, so it had enough substance to be supportive on low and moderate-angle terrain. Turns weren’t 100% bottomless on that amount of liquid equivalent, but many turns were off the bottom, and the subsurface was surprisingly soft as well, so the turns were excellent all around. While the new snow was great, the weather itself was also quite impressive – there was bright sunshine, no wind, and temperatures in the upper 20s F. That March sun warmed you instantly, and it was the type of weather you wish you could get on every outing, perhaps only falling short of those days with 1-2”/hr. snows that literally freshen your tracks every run.

As folks noted in the thread, with the return of some arctic air, the past couple of days have been a bit too cold to easily entice one out onto the slopes after Saturday gave us that taste of spring warmth. I was last out on the mountain on Saturday, and I finished up my ski tour around noon. On that descent, the freezing line had risen to 2,400’ in the Bolton Valley area, and from that point down the surface of the powder had become sticky and essentially unskiable. I was curious to know just how far the freezing levels had gone, and with temperatures rising into the upper 40s F in the lower valleys on Saturday once the sun came out, I figured the freezing level must have risen even further. I had some time today, so I decided to head out for a tour on the Bolton Valley Nordic & Backcountry Network to assess the quality of the unconsolidated snow. With the way the powder had become wetted from at least 2,400’ and below, I wasn’t too optimistic about what I was going to find with respect to the quality of the powder skiing, but I figured worst case I’d get a workout in anyway, and I could always make a quick descent via the Bryant Trail if the powder was a crusty mess. Today I headed up in the midafternoon timeframe, and temperatures were around 35 F in the valley in the 200’-500’ elevation range, I hit the freezing line around 1,000’ on the Bolton Valley Access Road, and up in the Bolton Valley Village at 2,000’ the temperature was around 30 F. Right from the start of my tour, I could immediately tell that we were still in business with respect to the quality of the powder. There was a light melt crust on the surface, but it was nearly insignificant and the overall snowpack surface was really still holding onto that same consolidated powder that I’d encountered out there on Saturday. So, while those cold temperatures of the past couple of day may not have been appealing for getting outside, it turns out that they were beneficial with respect to the quality of the snow. The dry arctic air let any wetting of the snow dry out, and the powder really recovered quite nicely. For today’s tour I headed up past Bryant Cabin and onto Heavenly Highway, topping out around 2,900’. I focused my descent on low and moderate angle terrain based on what I’d learned from my tour on Saturday, and those pitches definitely delivered. You still wanted to avoid any terrain that had been hit by sun or wind, because those effects has certainly degraded the powder surface, but as long as you did that and avoided southerly aspects, there were plenty of surfy powder turns. The melt crust did get a bit more noticeable below the 2,400’-2,500’ level, so below those elevations you had to be a bit more diligent about avoiding areas exposed to any sun. Ironically, as I thought I might be descending on packed terrain today if the powder had been shot, packed terrain was to be avoided if possible. Terrain that had seen traffic during the warmth was too packed to recover its winter character below a certain elevation. It was slick and hard, and it was simply best to just ski in snow off to the side. On my ascent, I had noticed that people had made separate skin tracks off to the side of the packed areas, and I didn’t know why at first, but on the descent it became more obvious – it was just a much better ski surface. I had actually even used those sidetracks on my ascent a bit as well because the main traffic areas with packed snow were somewhat slick and my skins even lost grip at times. Our next snowstorm is currently ongoing, so we’ll have to see how much snow we pick up and how things shape up with respect to this next layer. This storm may deliver snow on the denser side, but I’m actually not too worried about the powder gradient getting noticeably upside down because there’s already decent density in the surface snow at this point.

We’ve finished up February now, so it’s a good time for an update on seasonal snowfall progress here at our site in Waterbury. February snowfall was 36.0”, so below the average of up around 40”, but it was within 1 S.D. and not too far off of an average month. More notable was that February was the first below average snowfall month we’ve had all season – November, December, and January were all above. Technically, October was also below average on snowfall, but it’s quite variable to begin with, and a below average performance is not uncommon. Also notable was that February was lean on storms – there were only 8 snowstorms for the month. That’s tied for the lowest number of February storms I’ve recorded here, and those other seasons in which it happened were 2008-2009 and 2011-2012. November, December, and January all had between 11 and 16 storms as detailed in the winter storm table below, so it’s clear that the pace of storms has fallen off as of late. We haven’t really been in any of those Northern Greens bread and butter patterns recently, which can obviously knock down the pace of storms and snowfall relative to the earlier months when the storms were just queued up and running into the spine. The updated seasonal snowfall progression plot is below, and a couple of new comparative seasons (2010-2011 and 2024-2025) have made the plot now that we’re this far into the winter. Those seasons hadn’t made it onto the plot before because they were late bloomers, but once they turned it on they were formidable. As you can see, by this point, both of those newly added seasons were right up there at the top of the pack, setting the pace among some very solid winters. This season (shown in the red line) has recently fallen off the pace a bit, but it’s still right in there among the group. We’ll have to see what the next 2 to 3 months of winter bring, but the projections for the likelihood of this season hitting certain snowfall thresholds are show below: ≥150”: 100.0% ≥160”: 96.6% ≥170”: 89.3% ≥180”: 74.5% ≥190”: 46.9% ≥200”: 30.7% Obviously hitting 150” is a lock now, but the odds are also quite strong for surpassing that 160” threshold to reach a roughly average season. Hitting 200” is certainly still possible based on the numbers, and we really only need ~40” or so of snow to do it, but it will depend on how March and April go. These later months of winter have far more snowfall variability and are a lot more “Jekyll & Hyde” in character. We’ve had numerous March-April combos deliver 60-70” inches in strong late seasons, but some late winter periods can act very benign and spring-like. We’ll just have to see how March progresses, but aside from a system in the coming midweek period, there’s not much modeled for the next several days. Looking back, we’d already reached 120” of snowfall by the midpoint of this season, so it was intriguing to check on what the odds were of matching that first half total in the second half of the season, but the odds of hitting 240” have dropped below 1% at this point. So, I didn’t add those higher numbers to the list of odds calculations above. Obviously the odds of stacking together two 120” halves of the season are quite tough, and at this point it would take a record March-April-May stretch to do it. Sometimes we can get those monster March events though, so we’ll see where things stand if something like that happens. On a final note, I did a quick check on where the Vermont ski areas stand for season snowfall thus far, and the north to south listing of totals is below. The pace of snowfall has obviously fallen off here in the mountains as well, but similar to our site in the valley, the resorts along the spine of the Northern Greens are already closing in on their seasonal snowfall averages with a couple of months still to go. Aside from Jay Peak, which now looks to be mirroring our pace here in the valley with respect to average snowfall pace, the other areas at elevation in the Northern Greens are a bit more off that pace with about 30-40” to go to hit that 300” mark. Jay Peak: 353” Burke: 148” Smuggler’s Notch: 264” Stowe: 254” Bolton Valley: 261” Mad River Glen: 171” Sugarbush: 199” Saskadena Six: 71” Pico: 174” Killington: 174” Okemo: 112” Bromley: 160” Magic Mountain: 98” Stratton: 142” Mount Snow: 117”

It was getting late before I had a chance to post, so here’s yesterday’s report from Bolton Valley: I hadn’t been up to the mountain since Sunday, and I hadn’t followed the temperatures too closely over the past week, but in terms of powder preservation, it looked like temperatures had remained below freezing through the period. Our highest temperature here in the valley had been 36 F, which meant that 2,000’ should have remained safely above the freezing line. In terms of new snow, it hasn’t been a particularly snowy week – there was a decent storm with about a foot of snow at the beginning of last weekend, and then a clipper system with a few inches midweek, but that was about it. Driving up in the early to midmorning period, it was already approaching 40 F in the valley and in the Bolton Valley Village at 2,000’ it was just above the freezing mark. As I was gearing up for a ski tour, the winds picked up and light snow moved into the area, and the snow continued for roughly the next hour. My ascent was via the Bryant Trail, and on the ascent it was tough to tell exactly where the freezing line was, but by 2,500’ I was definitely above it. I continued on the Catamount Trail and up to the Catamount Trail Glades, topping out around 3,200’. The higher elevations had definitely remained below freezing all week, because there was some excellent dry powder out there, but you had to pay attention to aspect and wind exposure. Even up above 3,000’, areas with southern exposure or areas touched by winds had seen some notable degradation to the quality of the powder in the form of wind and/or sun crusts. They were relatively minor, but definitely enough to change the surface snow texture and make the turns more challenging. Outside of those areas though, the powder was dry and the turns were great. Without much new snow in the past several days though, the powder had settled, so that did play into terrain options. Although the settled powder wasn’t as good for tight lines on steep pitches as we’d seen last week, it was definitely an improvement with respect to its utility for moderate and lower-angle pitches. I caught some fantastic lines through the trees in spots I hadn’t visited before, including a new glade route into Gotham City that was quite fun. I can’t say that it was a perfect descent all the way back down to 2,000’ however, because the freezing level had begun to rise. Like a light switch, as soon as I hit the 2,400’ elevation on my descent, I reached the freezing line and the powder changed and became wet and sticky. It was essentially unskiable at that point, so I returned to the Bryant Trail and finished my descent there. That was at midday, so I’m not sure if the freezing level moved any higher than that, but any snow that did stay above the freezing level should be in good shape heading into next week with temperatures staying below freezing for the next few days.