J.Spin

I just checked my CoCoRaHS numbers, and our site is at 2.96” of liquid for the month, so just on the low end of that 3-4” range. I think you guys had a bit more in the Stowe area with at least one of those May events. Checking my data, that puts us roughly 2” below average liquid for May though, so it has been on the dry side. Liquid this month has been more akin to a local site outside the mountains like BTV (May mean liquid = 3.21”), but it’s given me some dry windows of time and I was able to get in a first cut of the lawn this weekend for the parts that needed it. I took advantage of the dew this morning and the dry forecast for the next couple of days put down some weed and feed on the lawn, but true to form, some light showers moved in during the process. I’d even checked the forecast and radar thoroughly, and there was no precipitation visible in the area even on composite, but the mountains had other things to say about that I guess. The rain seemed light enough that it wouldn’t be too detrimental to the process though, so I’m hopeful.

I was out for ski tours on Mt. Mansfield on Friday and Saturday, so I can pass along a few pictures and snow updates. I actually got to chat with PF on the slopes on Friday, and I see he’s posted some recent shots in the ski thread. There was still a pretty good bang for your buck over the weekend in terms of % snow top to bottom on Liftline, but the % decreases every day, so folks will have to decide when it hits their own point of diminishing return. That upper section of Liftline offered up some of the best turns though, and should still offer some decent skiing this week. A few shots from those outings:

I was out for a Mansfield ski tour on Thursday, and can pass along some snowpack info and a few pictures. Coverage on Nosedive was top to bottom down to the level of Crossover, and Perry Merrill is close, with just a couple of breaks. The snowpack on the south side of the Cliff House has really been thrown around by the plowing for summer activities, but the north side is in good shape for connection to the lower trails. PF’s picnic tables are still going to require a bit of thawing before they’re ready for use. A few shots from tour:

Ugh, yellow coloring on the advisories map? Something tells me that’s a sketchy situation, and, it’s probably not going to get us any snow. Actually, I just got a text alert that there was a Tornado Watch in the area, and I guess that’s it. I don’t know if I’ve ever been in one of those before or see that color on our advisory maps, but it’s possible I just missed it before the text alerts were around.

I don’t see any snow at our site today, so this is the first time in 143 days that there isn’t snow on the ground. This is more than a week on the late side relative mean date of melt out for us, and we don’t typically hold snowpack into May down at our elevation, so that really speaks to the great April we had with respect to snow preservation. Despite the relatively late melt out, that length for the continuous snowpack season was actually about average because the start of the snowpack (Dec 10th) was on the late side this past fall.

Thanks eyewall, and it was great having your firsthand observations from Sunday. Your report and the other reports of the lower snow levels on the western slopes are the kinds of info that really help when one is planning to head out for a ski tour. Among the practical touring locations on any given day, it’s always nice to optimize snow amounts, snow quality, etc. to try to get the best conditions possible for skiing. As I mentioned in my earlier post, the snow reports at elevation start getting sparse this time of year as the resorts close down, so any info from the elevations is useful. Those Sugarbush webcams were definitely helpful in strategizing for this latest event, but I don’t know if they still run them once the lifts shut down. When I saw your first picture from the base of Bolton Valley on Sunday, I was about to ask what link you were using to get the feed from the Bolton Valley Web Cam – all my links suggest they’ve shut it off for the season. It wasn’t until I saw your other pictures that I assumed it was an actual photo you’d taken from behind the Bolton Valley Base Lodge? Or was it? If you do have an active link for their webcam though, let me know because I’d definitely add it to my bookmarks.

LOL, no problem Ginx – I’m not actually sure who’s vehicle that is, but obviously someone up there in the Bolton Valley Village that loves snow. I’d say they’re in the right place!

Thanks, I especially like getting up on the hill during these early and late season storms because the resort’s not giving out daily snow reports, and it’s really hard to know what’s going on at the summit elevations unless you get yourself up there. Getting the photos and other beta is sort of an ancillary benefit from getting out there for the workout and turns anyway. I try to focus on the weather aspects with what I write here in the NNE thread, but it often serves as a good chunk of text for the reports on our website. On that note, here are a few more shots from yesterday’s tour, starting out just above the snow line at the Bolton Valley Sugarhouse:

The Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM had actually been on my wish list for a while, since my everyday workhorse lens is the Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM, and the 10-22 mm fits just about perfectly below that range. Since my bias in most of my work is a bit more toward the telephoto end though, the 10-22 was a little bit down there on the purchase list behind a couple of other lenses. But, my next door neighbor was selling his copy off last year all tricked out with the hood, and a slim high end B+W filter. I can’t remember the exact price, but it was in the $200 range for everything, which is ridiculous for all of that. I know my neighbor is meticulous with his gear, and he was giving me the insane next door neighbor first-refusal discount, so it really was a no-brainer to jump at that opportunity. The 10-22 opens up some great options for unique shots, so depending on the time of year and available light, it’s often the second lens I’ll have in pack when the 24-105 is on the body. The main issue I have with the 10-22 is that it’s not an L series lens, so it’s not fully weather sealed, which can be important for the type of environments I’m often shooting in. I was about to say that there’s really nothing else in Canon-branded SLR lenses that will get you that perspective in APS-C, but as I look at the Canon Ultra-Wide Zoom Lenses page, I see that there are some lenses on there that I haven’t noticed before. That Canon EF 11-24 f/4L USM looks great, but it’s pricey. Take a look at that Canon Ultra-Wide Zoom Lenses page though and see if anything else is a better fit for your preferences, there are a number of options. There are also other brands like Tamron, Sigma, etc. out there, but I’ve been very happy with my Canon lenses and haven’t really looked at their options.

I stopped in at Bolton for a ski tour this morning, so I can pass along the accumulations I found at that point from this latest storm for various elevations: 500’: 0” 1,000’: Trace 1,500’: 1-2” 2,000’: 3-7” 2,500’: 8-9” 3,000’: ~9” Low clouds were obscuring the mountains by our house, but it seemed like the snow line this morning was down around 1,000’. We did have some pretty good rounds of snow at our place yesterday, but nothing that I saw accumulate with temperatures still in the mid-30s F. On my drive, the first signs of fresh snow accumulations this morning were indeed right around the 1,000’ elevation on the Bolton Valley Access Road, and then the world just got whiter and whiter as I headed up. The larger range I’m reporting at the 2,000’ level was simply because I had time to get a sense for accumulations atop the different surfaces, with the low end being on paved or gravel surfaces, and the high end being on the existing snowpack, elevated surfaces, etc. In terms of what was out there on the trails for new snow, you can see that there really wasn’t a huge bump in accumulations above 2,000’, so I’d say those elevations did fairly well in terms of maximizing whatever snow they were going to get out of the available moisture. We had ~¾” of liquid in the gauge at the house this morning, so presumably the mountains are somewhere north of that. I started my tour at the Bolton Valley Village, which is a bit above 2,000’, so with the way this storm accumulated that meant decent coverage from there on up to the summits. At the base elevations this morning the temperature was just edging above freezing in the 7:30 -8:00 A.M. timeframe, and the snow was definitely dense. The fresh snow was wet, but not slushy or sopping at that point. It was gradually falling of the trees on my ascent as the temperatures rose. I headed up into cooler temperatures, but it was still warming all the way to the summit and I bet temperatures in the mid-30s F tracked with me as I ascended. Although it can’t compare to the drier snow we had with last weekend’s storm, the turns were actually pretty sweet today. I could tell right away as I began my descent that the density and consistency of the snow called for steep terrain, so I dove right down Spillway and that really hit the spot. Even with 115 mm fat skis I was still touching the subsurface at times, but this snow was definitely dense enough to hold up pretty well on steep, aggressive turns. A couple of shots from today’s tour:

I grabbed a copy of the Mansfield point forecast at elevation earlier – aside from being a bit leery about the warm up during the day tomorrow, that would have me thinking turns just about any time of year.

Ahh, that would explain the apparent snowfall discrepancy with the 3,125’ board at Sugarbush; even as darkness hit it didn’t seem like it had really accumulated much more than a trace of new snow.

Nice, I like integrating iPhone pics into my stuff as well – I should try the panoramic mode more often though because it’s pretty useful. The biggest issue I find with our iPhones is action photography of course; even with their burst modes they’re still light years behind DSLRs in that area at this point.

PF, I love that shot, is it from your Canon? If so, what focal length? It’s got a wide look that provides some neat perspective. It’s funny because one of the lenses I had along yesterday on my Bolton outing was the Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM and I was having a lot of fun shooting wide-angle shots with it. I was actually going to pass along a photo update from yesterday in response to your west slope comment. There’s actually still top-to-bottom snow at Timberline. It’s assisted somewhat by snowmaking of course, but it’s still pretty impressive for this time of year for west slope terrain down at that elevation. A shot from the Timberline Mid Station looking down toward the Timberline Base: