J.Spin

I didn’t have an opportunity to get out on the hill yesterday to ski the new snow from Winter Storm Olive, but my younger son and his friend were out at Bolton, so they filled me in and I got to see some of their GoPro footage. It was clear from their comments and videos that as of yesterday morning, the storm certainly hadn’t put down enough liquid equivalent for a full resurfacing of the slopes. Low to moderate-angle terrain was skiing quite well, and I saw some really nice footage of the potential for powder turns there, but it was obvious that on the steep stuff, you were quickly down to that hard subsurface, especially if there had been even a bit of preceding skier traffic. Our area has definitely picked up more snow since yesterday morning though. After the lull during the middle of the day yesterday, the snow picked back up in the evening and we had continuous snowfall to varying degrees right through much of today. There was little if any mixed precipitation that I saw at our site, although I think there was a bit of sleet in one of rounds of accumulation later in the day yesterday, because my wife said she heard some ticks on the window, and the snow was on the denser side when I ran the liquid analysis. Here at our site, we’ve picked up over ⅔” of liquid equivalent from the storm as of this evening, and I’d say Bolton must have picked up over an inch of liquid equivalent based on the amount of new snow they’ve reported and my experience from the mountain today. As of this morning, the Bolton Valley snow report was indicating 12” of new snow in the past 72 hours. When I headed up to the mountain for a tour this morning, it was snowing here at the house, but the intensity of the snowfall increased notably as I headed up in elevation. Although the flakes were fairly small, the snowfall rate up in the Bolton Valley Village at around 2,000’ was moderate to heavy. And, that snowfall was being driven by hefty winds. Winds were in the 30 to 50 MPH range, certainly hitting those upper numbers in gusts when I was up on the ridgeline above 3,000’. Temperatures were in the single digits F, so between the temperature, the winds, and the snowfall, it was downright nasty out there. I was quite comfortable while touring, but even with my hat, I kept my hood on for much of the tour ascent, so that speaks to the effects of those low temperatures and winds. Plenty of people were arriving in the morning to ride the lifts, but that must have been rough, and I was very happy to be down low to the ground out of the winds and generating plenty of extra heat. With its schedule, the Wilderness Chair hasn’t run since the storm started, so it was the obvious place to tour today for the best access to untracked snow. Throughout my tour, surface snow depths I measured were generally in the 8-10” range, with no big changes with respect to elevation. As of today, we’ve definitely moved beyond the level of resurfacing that my son experienced yesterday morning. We’re well past just the low angle terrain now, and with the cold temperatures today and the increasing snow depths, low angle terrain was actually a bit slow. Mid-angle terrain was probably the sweet spot today, and steep terrain was actually nice as well if it was untracked or had seen minimal skier traffic. You’re not going bottomless on steep terrain that’s seen substantial skier traffic yet; we’re going to need to get more liquid equivalent down atop the snowpack before that happens. But, the existing base is deep (depth is now 50” at the Mt. Mansfield Stake), there’s tons of terrain that was sufficiently resurfaced by this storm, and it looks like there are more potential storms in the pipeline that could affect the area as well.

I received another early morning text today, this time indicating that a Winter Storm Warning had been issue for our location. Much of the BTV NWS County Warning Area is under it according to the latest alerts map. This latest version of the Event Total Snowfall map has a bit wider section of the 12-18” shading along the spine and over in the Adirondacks, but I’d say thus far they have been pretty consistent around here. Our current point forecast suggests roughly 12-18” through Thursday night, which is consistent with the map shading, although the map actually indicates that it’s only covering through 1:00 P.M. Thursday.

I’ve added the updated BTV NWS maps from this afternoon below. The Event Total Snowfall map didn’t seem to undergo any drastic changes, although they did trim the snowfall numbers down south a bit. I assume that stems from the potential for mixed precipitation. Our point forecast here did get a bit of a bump to 11-17” through Thursday night, so it’s fairly synched with the 12-18” shading here along the spine. Reading the BTV NWS forecast discussion, that’s more in line with what they’re expecting for the high elevations, but the modeling sometimes puts those numbers in our area, being right along the spine.

Yeah, I saw that I got a text alert about the Winter Storm Watch early this morning, and it looks like it covers all the BTV NWS County Warning Area. Graphically, it looks like we’re in the 8-12” and 12-18” zones here along the spine, and the point forecast has us at 8-14” through Thursday. There’s more snow in the forecast for Thursday night and Friday, but they’re not putting numbers to that yet, and it’s outside the Event Total Snowfall map anyway because that ends at 4:00 P.M. Thursday. It sounds like there are still potential adjustments to be done though, so we’ll see how the accumulations forecast changes over the next couple of days.

The back side of this most recent storm cycle seemed to show some promising potential for upslope snow in the Northern Greens, so yesterday morning I made a quick survey of the snow reports from the resorts along the northern spine to see how things had worked out. With the Jay Peak snow report indicating 4 to 7 inches of new snow, and bwt’s measurement of 5.5 inches at 1,900’ from his place at Jay Peak, things were looking good there. Bolton, Smugg’s, and Stowe were reporting totals in the 2 to 4-inch range, so the Jay Peak area really seemed to be a cut above the other resorts. Temperatures rose above freezing in some areas during the middle of that storm though, so maximizing that resurfacing snow/liquid equivalent could make a substantial difference in the quality of the ski surfaces. My wife was heading up to Morrisville to deliver some food to a colleague and do some snowshoeing, so I decided to pop up to the Jay Peak area for a bit of touring, and we coordinated our trip. New accumulations of snow were present everywhere from Waterbury on northward, but they really started to pick up once I got to Eden and points father north. You could tell that the storm had hit harder up there. With road maintenance and some sun, I was generally dealing with slushy accumulations on road surfaces, but those usual spots on Route 118 along Belvidere Pond and through the notch areas into Montgomery were wall-to-wall winter snow and required some extra caution. My tour was in the Big Jay Basin area that I’ve visited various times before, since it’s got convenient parking and some decent lower to moderate angle slopes along with its steeper lines. It’s also got that leeward exposure from Jay Peak, Big Jay, and Little Jay, so it absolutely reels in the snow. The past couple of times we’ve visited the basin, we’ve toured the terrain more toward the north side below Big Jay, but for this tour I decided to favor a bit more toward Little Jay to the south. I’d heard good things from some of my students about the terrain there, so as skin tracks diverged on my ascent, I generally opted for those heading more southward toward Little Jay. As I approached Little Jay, I could see that the terrain was getting steeper than I was looking for with the most recent accumulations, and slightly less pitched terrain was more prevalent off to the north, so I followed a skin track that was heading right through the terrain that looked the best for my plans. That skin track brought me into that drainage below the col between Big Jay, and Little Jay, and the lower sections there do have some nice pitches that avoid the really steep stuff. My goal was to get in a moderate tour’s worth of skiing and exercise with about 1,000’ of vertical, so with the trailhead elevation a bit shy of 1,600’, I was shooting to stop my ascent around 2,500-2,600’. Once I’d hit that level, I contoured back toward the south a bit along the side of Little Jay to get into more untouched snow, and dropped in from there. In terms of the snow quality, it far exceeded my expectations. Accumulations of new snow were very much as expected – I measured about 5 inches of new snow around 1,600’ at the trailhead, and that matched up perfectly with what the resort and bwt had reported in the morning. Accumulations probably increased by another inch about 1,000’ higher, but this didn’t appear to be one of those storms with heavy snow accumulation gains as elevation increased. What impressed me most was when I encountered at least a couple feet of bottomless powder in the drainage below the col. In that area, there were no signs that there had been any sort of significant warmth or rain. It was great to watch all the skiers and riders out there taking advantage of the great snow, and their whoops and hollers could be all over the place throughout the basin, just as you’d expect with great conditions. Aspect mattered in terms of snow quality though. The farther I wrapped around Little Jay toward southern exposure, the more I was skiing on just the new snow, and there was actually a detectable layer atop the old snowpack. Seeing this, I moved back toward the north as I descended in order to get into the best snow. I just found it surprising that it was really only southern aspects where the snowpack had consolidated, because that would represent more effects from sun vs. general warmth. Whatever the case, non-southerly aspects held some excellent bottomless powder out there. Temperatures on the day were perfect, with mid to upper 20s F keeping the snowpack wintry. Skies were clear and sunny though, and you could tell that the mid-February sun was trying to work on that powder on southern exposures. Temperatures seemed just cold enough, and/or the air was just dry enough, to keep that from happening. It looks like we might have a system coming through the area tomorrow night that could do something similar to what the back side of this system did, so we’ll see if that adds another few inches to freshen things up again.

Since the snow surfaces will certainly tighten up with the way temperatures recently went above freezing, it seemed like this would be a weekend off the slopes, but the models suggest the Northern Greens have the potential to do their thing, so that could make a difference. I’m getting questions from students about the mountain forecasts they’re seeing from the resorts, so it prompted me to look. The BTV NWS isn’t seeing anything outrageous, although the discussion does mention how they flirted with the idea of a Winter Weather Advisory, but felt it wasn’t needed because the more substantial accumulations would be above 1,500’. …some spots could pick up over 4 inches, but given the 4 inch coverage is mainly confined to above 1500 ft and over a 12 to 24 hour period, opted against issuing a Winter Weather Advisory. I’m seeing 4-8” for some of the mountain point forecasts and a quick run through the models shows liquid equivalents from about 0.3” to as much as 1.0” on the CMC. It looks like the location of where that modeled streamer sets up will dictate who gets into the higher tier liquid. Even a third to half an inch of L.E. would set things up fine for low and moderate angle terrain, so it should be fun to see what the snow reports say. It’s intriguing enough that I’ll probably get the gear ready.

PF is right on with that one; yesterday was fantastic, both in terms of the temperatures and the snowpack/snow quality. Temperatures were in the 25-30 F range when I hit the mountain yesterday afternoon, which was perfect for comfortable skiing while retaining soft, midwinter snow surfaces. I hadn’t been out for any turns since last Sunday when I toured in the Nebraska Valley, so I was eager to see what the mountains had to offer yesterday once the arctic cold departed. At the end of my tour last weekend, temperatures had risen above freezing in the lower elevations, and then we had those potent winds with the arctic front, both of which could have been insults to the quality of the snow surfaces. Yesterday I was keeping it fairly simple and close to home and decided to tour on the Bolton Valley Nordic and Backcountry Network. I figured I’d tour up to Bryant Cabin, check out the snow quality, and decide from there if I was going to go any farther. I was brining minimal camera gear for this outing, so I borrowed my younger son’s backcountry ski pack instead of my larger one, and I opted for mid-fat Teles instead of going with full fats. I was definitely feeling light and fast with that setup, and hit Bryant Cabin in under 30 minutes, so I felt that I easily had time to extend my tour. In addition, the quality of the snow was far better than I’d expected. We haven’t had a major storm cycle since Winter Storm Kassandra about a week ago, so I didn’t really expect the powder to be all that fresh. Those concerns were sidelined right at the start of my tour though – I did numerous depth checks on my ascent, and even down at 2,000’, the surface snow was 15-20” deep above the base. Whatever warming had taken place last weekend was clearly below the 2,000’ elevation range. I’d heard secondhand that the freezing level was somewhere down around the Timberline Base (1,500’), and I guess it never rose much higher than that. The other concern about the snow had been the effects of the wind, but any drifting and wind crusts were few and far between on the terrain I covered up to Bryant Cabin and beyond. I ran into many areas where the trees were just caked and choked with upslope snow clinging to every branch at various crazy angles, and snow doesn’t stay like that when it’s been hit by heavy winds. Finding the snow quality so impressive, I actually decided to continue my tour all the way up to the top of the Catamount Trail Glades around 3,000’ and the powder just kept getting deeper. Estimates of surface snow depths that I found on my tour were as follows: 2,000’: 15-20” 2,500’: ~20” 3,000’: 20-25” Untracked areas up in the Catamount Trail Glades were two feet of bottomless powder, and you could easily be fooled into thinking we’d just had a major storm cycle in the past couple of days, not a week ago. For the rest of my descent I headed down past Bryant Cabin along Gardiner’s Lane and North Slope, and finished off with a connect onto Wilderness via Alchemist. The conditions on Alchemist were perhaps the biggest testament to the quality of the snow, because it’s got a hard core southerly exposure, and things have to be pretty prime to get real quality powder turns there. I’d say I encountered some of the best conditions I’ve ever seen on Alchemist, so the snow over the past week or so has been extremely well preserved. It was hard to get a sense for the total snowpack depth while I was out on my tour because it’s getting too deep to probe easily, but the Mansfield snowpack at the stake is at 42”, so the snowpack depth is probably just a bit less than that as you drop to around 3,000’. While that Mansfield snowpack is a foot below average, we’re getting to the point in the season where being below average is less and less relevant in terms of off piste coverage and skiing quality. We’re past that 40” mark at the stake, and all the terrain I encountered yesterday was game on, regardless of pitch or obstacles. I ran the snowpack liquid analysis this morning down at our site in the valley for CoCoRaHS, and there’s 3 inches of liquid equivalent in our snow. The local mountains probably have double that amount at elevation, so it’s easy to see why the off piste skiing is so good. If you’ve got 6 inches of liquid equivalent under your feet, that’s going to take care of a lot of terrain, even pretty steep terrain.

You’ve probably already seen it on the Bolton Valley website if you’ve been there, but with the parking, glade maintenance, patrol services, connection to the Nordic trails, etc., Bolton does require skiers on their backcountry network to have a Nordic/Backcountry/Uphill pass. The website indicates that those passes are $17 midweek/$25 weekend, and since they haven’t updated their pricing page since last season, it appears that their prices are the same this season: https://www.boltonvalley.com/winter/tickets-passes/nordic-backcountry-uphill-passes/ If it’s your first time exploring the area, a solid introduction to the network is to park in one of the lower parking lots down by the Nordic/Sports Center (most people want to park higher up closer to the lift access, so these areas are used less) and jump on the Broadway Trail. From there, connect to the Bryant Trail and head up toward Bryant Cabin. The Bryant Trail is also the Catamount Trail during that stretch, so it’s very well maintained, it’s wide, well packed, and has a nice pitch for very comfortable skinning. I’d say the Bryant/Catamount trail is the backbone for the area. Simply looping around Bryant Cabin onto Gardiner’s Lane/North Slope will give quick access to all the glades that descend from there (see the map I attached), and it makes for very convenient laps. The map I attached shows some of the most popular marked glades in yellow. There are of course many more glades that aren’t marked on the map, and beyond that you can simply explore and ski wherever you want and have fun turns where the forest is naturally open enough on its own. For more reference on the area, I’ve got dozens and dozens of trip reports with Google Earth maps on the backcountry page of our website: http://jandeproductions.com/backcountry/

With the strong snowpack in the area now, I decided to head out to the Nebraska Valley for some ski touring today. The last time I toured in the Nebraska Valley I was on the valley’s north side, but I’ve now heard from multiple students of mine that the south side of the valley offers some great skiing off the Catamount Trail. I didn’t have too much information beyond the fact that you can just use the Catamount Trail as a collector trail for the terrain in the area, but it sounded pretty straightforward, fun, and convenient. I was able to park right at the Catamount Trail parking area on the south side of Nebraska Valley Road, so the trail access was very easy. It had started snowing around midday, and there was steady snowfall through much of my tour in the afternoon. Following the Catamount Trail southward, the options for great backcountry skiing are indeed very obvious. From the trailhead at an elevation of ~1,000’, the trail rises at a moderate grade for about 400 feet of vertical over the course of perhaps ¾ of a mile, and then the terrain flattens out into a relatively broad valley with the main drainage on your left, and steep slopes rising up to your right. The slopes consist of very open hardwood forest throughout, with tree spacing in many areas as much as 20 or 30 feet. I couldn’t see all the way to the top of the terrain, but there must be hundreds of acres there with very obvious ski lines, and the fact that there were tracks coming down out of this terrain suggested that it held good potential. At around a mile from the trailhead I came to the first obvious skin track that headed up off the Catamount Trail into these slopes, so using that was a clear option for some great runs. I just happened to run into one of my students descending on the Catamount Trail as he and his group were finishing up their session for the day, and he said that if I had the time, I should head higher up because the snow was better. Being my first time in the area, I did want to take a long enough tour to get the lay of the land, so I continued another mile or so and toured up to around 2,400’. The snow was indeed even better higher up, but the tree lines weren’t as open as the beautiful looking terrain I’d seen lower down. The terrain higher up was plenty steep, and certainly offered decent skiing, but I’d say those initial slopes rising from the valley at around 1,500’ are the best bang for your buck as long as the snowpack and snow quality are good at those elevations. It was snowing quite hard up at 2,400’ when I began my descent, hard enough that I would have been worried about being out there in such weather if I didn’t know the forecast wasn’t calling for sustained accumulations. The snow had added another couple of inches to top off the snowpack, which certainly helped make the powder even a bit fresher. Temperatures had been cold much of the afternoon, but on my descent I quickly realized that the freezing level had risen. I descended out of the heavy snowfall down into mixed precipitation by ~1,500’, and just sprinklings of rain down at the trailhead elevations of ~1,000’. I was glad that I’d finished my tour by that point because the lower elevation snow was definitely getting sticky and more difficult to ski.

Excellent - so great to hear that you got out to BV for some exploration. Hopefully conditions stayed OK - I was ski touring in the Nebraska Valley today, and later in the afternoon the freezing levels came up. We were snow all the way down into the valleys, through about midafternoon, but they seemed to rise up to at least 1,000' -1,500' later.

Yesterday was the much anticipated season opening of Bolton’s Timberline area, and as announced, they livened things up a bit for the event with free coffee, and a visit from the El Gato Food Truck. Bolton fans were of course excited to get the last main pod of the resort open for the season, shifting the alpine trail network up to its full speed, but even more exciting was the fact that the snow has simply been sitting there and accumulating over the course of these last several storm cycles. There’s been some ski touring traffic in the area, but the Timberline Uphill Route hasn’t officially been open, so the visitation hasn’t been all that heavy. All this, combined with the fact that the back side of Winter Storm Kassandra finally put some of that classic Northern Greens upslope fluff in place to top off the snowpack, meant that some fantastic powder skiing awaited the visitors. My wife and I headed up for the anticipated 9:00 A.M. opening of the Timberline Quad, and when we got into the lineup around 8:45 A.M., there were only about a dozen of us there. The lift opening went off without a hitch, and from then on, Timberline was a lift-served powder playground. There was a mid-morning rush where the lift queue grew large, but before that point it was minimal to nonexistent. We had light to moderate snowfall for a good part of the morning when one of the small waves of low pressure in the area pushed through, and temperatures were about as perfect as you could want – they were on the mild side, but stayed below freeing to avoid any disruption to the quality of the powder. The conditions were certainly nothing in the realm of all-time by Northern Greens standards, but it was great, right-side-up bottomless powder everywhere we went, and even down to the 1,500’ elevation, the base depths are good for just about all the terrain. A couple more solid storm cycles would push it to that next level for hitting bigger features, but the snowpack is certainly in midwinter form.

I was too busy yesterday to hit the slopes and check out the new snow from Winter Storm Kassandra, but my younger son was out at Bolton and said the skiing was excellent. He told me that he and his friend got third tracks down Preacher, which must have been pretty amazing. The snowfall continued right through the day on Thursday though, and there was a decent signal for upslope snow on the back side of the storm cycle, so it seemed like Friday held some promise for great turns as well. My drive home from Burlington on Thursday evening went from partly cloudy conditions in the Champlain Valley, to gradually increasing snowfall as I pushed farther into the mountains, to a pounding of huge flakes by the time I got home. The roads were snowy, but the visibility was the tougher part of the drive. When I measured the snowfall rate at our house that evening, it was up in the 2 to 3-inch per hour range for a while, so the flakes were stacking up quickly. And not surprisingly, those huge flakes were stacking up with impressive loft. When I ran a snow analysis at midnight, the stack came in at 2.3% H2O. We haven’t really had a lot of upslope on the back side of storm cycles this season, but we got some this time, and it suggested good things for Friday morning. This morning I was on my way up to earn some morning turns at Wilderness, when I passed by Timberline and realized the timing was right for the Timberline Uphill Route to be open. The snowpack has thus far been thin down at those lower elevations, but Kassandra definitely seemed to push it over the top and I had my first Timberline outing of the season. We had some outstanding powder skiing around here in mid-December, but I think today’s turns might have just edged out that period to set the new bar for the season. The snowpack was surprisingly robust during that December stretch, but the fact that we’ve now had multiple winter storm cycles, multiple inches of liquid equivalent going into the snowpack, and a skiable snowpack that reaches down even to the Timberline elevations means a lot. The turns today were so very bottomless and effortless with all the new champagne on top, so it was certainly one of the top days of the season thus far. Bolton is planning to run the Timberline Quad tomorrow for the first time this season, so that’s a sign that the season is really moving into prime time. They’re also planning on some nice additions to celebrate the day like free coffee, and a visit from the El Gato Food Truck, so it should be a fun way to get Timberline rolling for the season.

I haven’t really seen much change in the projections for this system over the past few days; the models seemed to have been pretty locked in on the track, but maybe it has changed outside of our area. Yesterday morning I received a text alert that we’d been put under a Winter Storm Watch, and yesterday afternoon I got another one indicated that we were under a Winter Storm Warning, so that proceeded pretty quickly. Consistent with the lack of notable changes you noted, the Event Total Snowfall map doesn’t seem to have changed in the past couple of cycles. They’ve got that 12-18” shading along the spine in the Bolton through Smugg’s stretch, and while that initially didn’t seem to jive with the mountain point forecasts, it seems like it does now – the Mansfield point forecast tops out around 18” through Thursday night.

I headed up to the mountain yesterday morning to catch a quick ski tour and check out the snow we’d received from Winter Storm Jimenez up to that point. Bolton was indicating 4 to 5 inches of new snow as of the morning report, and that’s what I found fairly consistently in touring from 2,100’ up to around 2,700’ on terrain that had previously been packed. Turns were generally bottomless with 115 mm width skis on low and moderate angle terrain, but the quality of the turns was bolstered by the fact that the subsurface continues to improve with each storm. That dense mid-month storm really substantiated the base, and Winter Storm Izzy added some drier snow atop that, so the depth and quality of the snowpack is improving by leaps and bounds. There have been additional accumulations today from a strong cold front passing through the area, and the next synoptic system in the queue is expected to impact the area tomorrow night and has been named Winter Storm Kassandra. That system seems to have a bit more potential for some upslope snow on the back side, and I’ve seen storm total estimates as high as 12 to 18 inches for the local mountains, which would represent another great addition to the snowpack.

As expected, Winter Storm Iggy came through and transformed the ski conditions in the local mountains this weekend. A survey of the Vermont ski area snow reports revealed surprisingly consistent storm totals running around 10 inches up and down the spine of the Central and Northern Greens, with lower amounts down at the southern resorts due to an influx of some mixed precipitation. My older son was coming home from NVU Lyndon for the weekend, and with Iggy starting up Thursday evening, my wife was able to pick him up late that afternoon because he didn’t have any Friday classes. The timing was perfect because they got home just ahead of when the flakes started falling, and it was a great example of the utility of accurate winter weather forecasting. My younger son and his friend only have one early class on Fridays, so after they were done with class, my older son joined them and the three of them headed up to Bolton for some turns. They scored quite a day with the fresh snow and minimal midweek visitors on the slopes. They had such a blast that after coming home, eating dinner, and watching some GoPro videos from the day, they switched up to some different gear and went back out for night skiing until last chair. I didn’t have a chance to head out earlier in the day on Friday, but I did get up to the mountain with about an hour of light left, so went for a tour on Wilderness to check out all the new snow. The storm was still ongoing, but at that point I found the following surface snow depths: 2,000’: 6” 2,500’: 7-8” 2,800’: 8-9” I decided not to tour all the way to the Wilderness Summit because I was losing daylight, but the quality of the powder I encountered was excellent. I was surprised to find that I could feel a difference in snow density below about 2,500’, but it was fairly subtle and the turns were really great from top to bottom. All in all I’d describe the turns as mostly bottomless, quite surfy, and that powder was all atop that bomber base that was present from the previous storm cycle, so you could really have confidence in what was below the new snow. In a discussion with one of my colleagues at work on Friday, I learned that plans were in place to open the Wilderness Chair for the first time this season on Saturday, so my older son and I headed up Saturday morning for a session. We didn’t really rush out to the mountain, arriving at about 9:30 A.M. for the scheduled 10:00 A.M. opening of the Wilderness Chair, but it turns out that was a bit too late. People were already having to park at Timberline and since the Timberline Quad isn’t running yet, you had to take the shuttle up to the main mountain. With the first notable weekend day with fresh snow in at least a couple of weeks, it seemed like everyone in the state was excited to get out. I learned that the Wilderness Chair actually had actually halted operations for a bit due to a mechanical issue, but that timing worked out pretty well for us – by the time we took one run on Vista to get us over toward Wilderness, the lift was running. We spent much of our time on Wilderness, exploring various tree skiing lines between Snow Hole and the Nordic/backcountry network, and the powder skiing was great. We could use a couple more feet of base to cover up some of the usual obstacles and really get the off piste skiing into prime time, but everywhere we went it was pretty much good to go. We wrapped up the session in the midafternoon with a run back to our car at the base of Timberline, and while having to shuttle up to the main mountain at the start of the day wasn’t our first choice, the run back to the car through endless powder was more than worth it. It doesn’t look like the Timberline Uphill Route is officially open yet, but we saw a number of skiers ascending there when we were waiting for the shuttle. Practically speaking, the snow at Timberline is good to go with respect to ski touring, so it will be interesting to see if the resort officially opens that uphill route soon. They resort is making snow down at Timberline to presumably open it up for lift-served skiing before long, and if these next couple of winter storms deliver like Winter Storm Iggy did, they’ll probably be able to open it up even before all the snowmaking is done. This next system has earned the name Winter Storm Jimenez due to its anticipated impacts, so we’ll see what it delivers over the next couple of days.

I received a text message this afternoon that we’d been put under a Winter Weather Advisory for this next potential winter storm, so I’ve added the latest BTV NWS maps below. Our point forecast here at our site suggests accumulations in the 4-6” range, which seems right in line with the Event Total Snowfall map.

I got a text alert yesterday afternoon that we’d been put under a Winter Weather Advisory for Winter Storm Iggy that is expected to affect the area in the coming days. I’ve got the progression of the BTV NWS maps over the past couple of update cycles, and as noted in the recent forecast discussions, some areas that weren’t initially under advisories have now been incorporated. The projected accumulations have been bumped a bit as is often the case as the potential event draws close and confidence increases. The current BTV NWS point forecast for our site suggests accumulations in the 6 to 12-inch range through Friday night, and the current projected Event Total Snowfall map has us in the 6 to 10-inch range though midday Friday, so those sources both seem quite consistent. Snow ratios can sometimes be lower with these types of events, so the lower end of that range may be more appropriate, but it will also depend on how much falls in the later portion of the storm cycle when ratios will likely increase. I’m seeing about 0.70” of liquid projected in our point forecast, which would be 7” of snow if the ratio averages out at a 10:1 SLR for the storm as a whole.

After getting out to the hill on Saturday, to check out the snow conditions, I hadn’t really planned to ski any other days over the weekend – the conditions on the groomed terrain were fine, but definitely on the firm side. And the off piste just isn’t very viable at the moment, because while the snow from this most recent storm contributed a fantastic addition to the base snowpack, it needs another good round of snow on top of it or else you’re just skiing on a dense, crusty moonscape. But, a couple of my students alerted me that they’d be up at Bolton Valley yesterday morning and asked if I wanted to join them, so I said I catch up with them for some turns. My wife had the holiday off and joined me, and we met up with them in the late morning period and had a great time catching up after the holiday break. Light snow fell much of the time from the system off the coast, and it certainly made the mood even more wintry, even if it didn’t add much in terms of accumulation. We’d had a little light snow from that coastal system over the previous day or so, but ski conditions weren’t really all that different from what I’d experienced on Saturday. Groomed terrain with manmade snow had some bright spots (like Alta Vista again), but most was fairly firm as it had been before. One very notable positive change that took place over the course of the weekend was that the resort had opened a lot more terrain. A little (like Hard Luck I believe) was due to snowmaking, but the vast majority was simply natural snow terrain that patrol had been able to check and mark. They opened all the lower Wilderness terrain that is accessible from the Vista Quad, as one would expect, but I couldn’t believe that even Cobrass was open. It’s quite steep in spots, has a decent amount of southern exposure, and seemed to be mostly operating on natural snow. All the natural snow terrain they opened is just a testament to how durable a resurfacing this most recent winter storm was. The only thing holding back the off piste skiing (although some folks were jumping into the woods in areas) is just the crusty, dense nature of the snow. It’s simply not all that much fun right now because it’s a bit upside down and crunchy, but boy are both the on piste and off piste areas going to be ready to go with just one decent storm. With three possible winter storms in the queue over the next six days, ski conditions are really set to take a quantum leap if the accumulations come through as the modeling currently suggests. The snowpack is there. At least based on what I saw at Bolton over the weekend, if these storms deliver even half of the snow that’s currently modeled, lift and trail counts are likely to explode over the course of the next week.

I hadn’t been up to the mountain since that fantastic period of skiing from mid-December through the holidays; no major winter storms had come through the area since Winter Storm Elliot, and the skiing just hadn’t seemed good enough to pull me away from other things. That changed with this most recent storm though – Bolton’s snow report from yesterday morning indicated that they’d picked up half foot of new snow in the past couple of days. Although the storm did contain mixed precipitation, it delivered 1.33” of liquid equivalent down here at our site in the valley, with most of that as snow/frozen. Assuming the local mountains exceeded that as they usually do, that’s a storm cycle that has all the makings of a solid resurfacing/base building event. With this latest storm, Bolton Valley indicated that the Wilderness Uphill Route was officially open again, which is a good sign that there had been a substantial addition to the snowpack. My observations from yesterday while I was out touring definitely reinforced that notion. With the effects of this most recent storm, the base snow is actually so dense that I couldn’t do any depth checks, but I’d say you’re looking at probably a foot of base depth at the 2,000’ level. If the snow density is that same as what I’ve cored down here at our site in the valley, that would have about 2 inches of liquid equivalent in it. Since the snowpack is just too dense to do any easy depth readings, I don’t have an estimate for the increases of snowpack depth with elevation. The Mt. Mansfield Stake up at 3,700’ is indicating a snowpack depth of 20 inches as of today though, so I’d assume you’re looking at something in that range once you’re up at the local summit elevations above 3,000’. In terms of the skiing, I wasn’t really expecting much real powder with how dense the snowfall was from this past storm; my tour was really a chance to get out for some exercise and see how the off piste snowpack and snow surfaces were looking. I only found about an inch or so of lighter snow above the base, and that was pretty consistent at all elevations in the 2,000’ to 3,000’ range. Snow coverage of the natural terrain is actually quite good though with that impressively dense base, and Lower Turnpike with a good amount of skier-packed areas has great wall-to-wall coverage. Steeper terrain with ledges, obstacles, and wind scouring/drifting is not as consistent in its coverage, but the base snow is just so dense that most of the natural terrain is going to be good to go with the next decent storm. The best snow quality I found was actually natural snow areas that had been skier packed, since areas of undisturbed snow still held the potential to punch through the uppermost layers of the base. On my descent I definitely employed a mix of alpine and Telemark turns, and the safety of alpine turns with that full width of surface area for both skis in the center was the way to go when navigating snow that hadn’t been packed by skiers. I stuck around for some lift-served skiing since I’d seen that Alta Vista had been opened, and I think it had seen some of the more recent snowmaking, because it had some of the best conditions I found. The best snow by far was what people had pushed to the side, but the main surface was better than elsewhere. Most of the on piste surfaces were typical of what you’d expect for manmade snow that had seen lift-served skier traffic, so really nothing to note in terms of quality. When I got home and my son asked me about the conditions, I gave the typical on piste conditions a rating of 2 on a 0 to 10 scale, but I have pretty high snow quality standards, so he knows where a value of 2 would stand. Even without any big storms over the past couple of weeks, the resort has been expanding their terrain with runs like Spillway, and they were blowing snow on Hard Luck as well. The recent snow was substantial enough that even some natural snow terrain had been opened. Surprisingly, they don’t have to lower areas of Wilderness open yet to lift-served access, which is pretty typical under these conditions, but they would need to groom it first, so that may take some extra time. Even if the snow quality isn’t there yet in terms of typical Northern Greens surfaces, it was definitely nice to get back on the slopes after the break. We had light snow falling during the morning with some blue skies, and some nice snow/rime on the trees. With that base in place, terrain is likely to expand heavily if these next couple of potential systems in the coming week deliver any substantial snow.

A few days back I saw that the depth at the Mt. Mansfield Stake hit the two-foot mark, so I’ve added this year’s data to my plot of dates for snowpack hitting 24” each season. I find this data useful because reaching that depth at the stake is decent estimate for when the initial off piste/tree/backcountry skiing begins in the Northern Greens on appropriately maintained slopes. It’s not a perfect metric because the composition of the snowpack plays into it as well; a snowpack that is 24” of fluff isn’t quite going to cut it, whereas a super dense pack will allow you to get by with less. I wouldn’t say this season’s mid-December snowpack was super dense, but it certainly beat out the need to reach the 24” mark at the stake. Winter Storm Diaz was the clear tipping point, with even some fairly steep off piste terrain getting into play as of December 17th, and the local snowpack had only hit about 20” at that point The mean date for hitting 24” at the stake is December 14th based on the current data set, so having the off piste skiing get going on the 17th isn’t actually too far off from that, even if the actual 24” depth wasn’t hit until the 27th. While reaching that 24” snowpack depth on the 27th of December is certainly later than average, it’s a bit more notable this season because it’s the earliest it’s been in four seasons. I’ve highlighted this in the plot by coloring the data points for the past three seasons in red, while the data point for this season is labeled and in green. We’ve definitely had a run of slow Decembers in the past few seasons with respect to getting the local mountain snowpack going, and the plot clearly shows this. So if anecdotally it’s felt like getting off the manmade snow has taken forever the past few seasons, that’s actually been the case. We weren’t just on the later side of average in recent years - the dates for the past two seasons were well past 1 S.D. beyond the mean, and even 2019-2020, the best of the bunch, was right at 1 S.D beyond the mean. Here are the dates for reaching 24” at the stake for the past four seasons, and what the stats say about their relative occurrence: 2019-2020: January 2nd (bottom 16% of seasons) 2020-2021: January 17th (bottom 4% of seasons) 2021-2022: January 7th (bottom 11% of seasons) 2022-2023: December 27th (bottom 25% of seasons) In any event, it was nice to get a break from that infamous trend this season, even if things were still later than average. Getting that date back into December and into the holiday week was a substantial change (and the off piste skiing actually took off ahead of the holiday week due to its composition as I noted earlier, so that made the change in date even more evident). This was definitely one of the best holiday ski weeks in a while, with some really good skiing through just about all of the period. That’s pretty impressive considering that there wasn’t much snow at all during the first half of December. The snow data here at our site tell a similar story to what the mountains experienced. December snowfall at our side was 30.6 inches, which is definitely below average, but a bit of a highlight because it was the most snow we’ve seen in December in five seasons. That again speaks to just how slow Decembers have been with respect to snowfall in recent years. It’s pretty remarkable that we got to even that level of snowfall, because almost all of it happened in the second half of the month; the first half of December brought only 3.3 inches of that total.

I wasn’t exactly sure where on Bolton’s network today’s backcountry ski tour was going to take me, but my plan was to start with an ascent up to the start of the C Bear Woods, and then go from there. I haven’t toured in that part of the network yet this season, but the ridgeline there tops out around 2,400’, so starting in the lower Village, it would give me a good sampling of the snowpack in the 2,000’ to 2,400’ elevation range. For my tour back on Monday on some of the lower sections of the Network I topped out around 1,800’ and generally found 6 to 12 inches of powder, and the tenor of the powder skiing was that something with a bit more pitch would be appropriate for the snow depth. With continued rounds of accumulations over the past couple of days (and an additional 2 to 3 inches reported in the past 24 hours at Bolton as of this morning’s update), I figured the powder might even be a notch up from where it was. It was midmorning by the time I arrived at the Village, and temperatures were very comfortable in the lower 30s F. Being the big holiday week, the resort was really humming, and they were already parking folks in the lower Nordic Center parking lot. That worked out well for me though, since it’s right on the Broadway Trail that links in nicely with the heart of the Backcountry Network. Around 2,000’ in the open areas of the Village, the depth of the surface snow was quite variable between the effects of the wind and sun, but in general I found 5 to 6 inches of powder over a consolidated base. There wasn’t any obvious rain crust, but there was a denser layer below the powder. That layer generally wasn’t present in the trees, so I assume it was from wind and sun. Up at 2,400’ I’d say powder depths were about the same as what I found in the 1,500’ to 1,800’ elevation range on Monday, so between additional accumulations and settling, I guess things roughly held pat at that level. The pitches near the top of the ridge there are up in the black diamond range, and I think the uppermost parts of the ridgeline were a bit windswept because the snowpack wasn’t sufficient for confident turns in that area. Noticing that, I headed southward to the right of the main C Bear Woods entrance into some other areas of glades to shallow out my overall run. Intermediate pitches offered nice turns, and the snowpack easily supported that type of skiing. The best turns of that descent were in the lower slopes among the moderate and lower angle pitches as I got back toward Brook Run. I’d left the option open to extend my tour up toward some of the Bryant Trail terrain, but it was approaching midday and the powder was already started to get denser and a bit sticky as the temperatures pushed above freezing. As I headed to the main base area, it was turning into a fantastic day with breaks of sun and temperatures moving into the 30s F. That’s a pretty nice combination for the holiday visitors to have comfortable temperatures and some decent snowpack, and it will be interesting to see how this holiday week plays out overall for visitation at the local resorts. It’s been pretty sweet to have some daily refresher snowfalls recently to bolster the snowpack, and the snow reports I’ve seen from the resorts around here have indicated that it’s been allowing them to continue to open new terrain and expand the trail count. Visitors to the slopes should generally be treated to some comfortable temperatures for the remained of the holiday week, which I think many would take over the subzero spells that can often occur around the start of the new year. It looks like anyone going out on Sunday might have to dodge a bit of rain though based on the current forecast. This may be one of the nicer holiday week’s we’ve had recently in terms of the quality of the skiing. Looking at my notes, I’ve had a half dozen backcountry ski tours in about the past ten days, and that’s pretty decent because sometimes the backcountry doesn’t even get rolling until January or February. On average, it should get going (at least on low and moderate angle terrain) in mid-December here in the Northern Greens, but the past three seasons haven’t hit 24 inches at the Mt. Mansfield Stake until January. Technically, the stake only hit the 24-inch mark for the first time this season on Tuesday, but it’s been hovering in the 20-inch range since mid-month when Winter Storm Diaz hit, and the snowpack came together in such a way that those 20-ish inches were sufficient to put a lot of the local backcountry terrain in play for quality turns.

I hadn’t been out to the mountain since Winter Storm Elliot finished up, and although it was a mixed system in terms of precipitation, I was encouraged by how it played out for the local snowpack. The storm brought roughly 8 inches of snow to our place down in the valley, and represented a net gain in both snowpack depth and snowpack liquid equivalent. Bolton Valley was reporting 12 inches of new snow from the system, so the mountains must have fared at least as well as the valleys. With some rain during the middle part of the system, I was wondering about the condition of the snow surfaces, so yesterday I decided on a relatively low angle tour on the Bolton Valley Backcountry Network to get a feel for how the new snow had settled in. I started at the Catamount Trail access point on the Bolton Valley Access Road, which is down around 1,200’, and toured up to around the 1,800’ elevation a bit above Caribou Corner. Those are relatively low elevations overall, and 1,200’ is below even the Timberline Base, so it would certainly be a challenging stress test to speak to the quality and utility of the snowpack. At 1,200’ at the parking area I found about 4 to 5 inches of powder above the base snow, and most notably, I couldn’t really find a rain crust. There was a clear demarcation between the consolidated base and the surface snow, at least around the parking area where the snowpack is a bit more exposed to snow maintenance and sunshine. The depth of the powder quickly increased as I ascended, and by about 1,500’ I was easily finding 6 to 12 inches of powder. It became hard to judge the depth of the surface snow though, because I typically couldn’t even find an interface between the new snow and the underlying snowpack; the wetter precipitation from the storm must have either drained well or transitioned smoothly to snow. I’d say total snowpack depth was probably around 10 to 12 inches at 1,200’ and 12 to 16 inches at 1,800’, but there’s plenty of substance to it, so it’s quite skiable up to moderate angles in maintained areas, and obviously it’s going to be notably deeper up above 2,000’. In terms of the skiing, the powder was actually too deep for the lowest angle sections on the tour, and I’d have to use existing skin tracks or other skier tracks to maintain or pick up speed. The next tier of pitches skied great with the snow though. I typically like that tour up to Caribou Corner when there’s about 4 to 6 inches of powder over a consolidated base, so this really was a bit deeper than that, and I’d say folks should move on up to moderate angle terrain for the best backcountry turns, especially with additional snow falling over the next couple of days. There was light snow falling during my tour in the form of those big fluffy flakes, and I see that the resort reported an inch of new this morning. Despite the usual doom and gloom in the main threads (sort of the typical SNE winter situation unless a big storm hits there I guess), the season seems roughly on track in our area as of Christmas. Snowfall to date on the 25th was 40.1” vs. a mean of 40.4”, and snowpack depth at 10.5” was a few inches above average. The SDD for the season were a little behind average pace at 146.5 SDD vs. the 162.2 SDD average. I can see in the data that the SDD deficiency is largely due to that slow first half of December, because we were still ahead of average SDD as of the end of November, and then the pace started to fall off before picking up again in the second half of the month.

On Wednesday I went for another solo tour on the Bolton Valley Backcountry Network, and I decided to check out the Gotham City area since I hadn’t been there yet this season. Prior to that point we’d been pretty spoiled with fresh snow every day since the start of Winter Storm Diaz, so you could detect just the subtlest bit of settling/aging to the powder and snowpack in general. That’s splitting hairs of course because the powder was still deep and bottomless, and you’d probably only notice if you’d been paying very close attention to the feel of the snowpack over the preceding days. There were also a few more tracks around since there hadn’t been that fresh dose of powder to cover them up. Yesterday we decided to do some lift served skiing for a change of pace, and my wife joined my older son and I for some Tele runs in the afternoon. Bolton has opened a number of additional trails due to all the recent snow, but the main route off the Vista Summit is still Sherman’s Pass, and we started with that since we wanted to warm up with some mellow terrain. The manmade snow on Sherman’s was pretty typical and firm, but we did venture over toward the lower slopes of Wilderness to check out the natural snow options. There was plenty of coverage since those lower slopes of Wilderness are only up to moderate angle, and the quality difference in the snow was night and day. At Wilderness you had nice chalky snow were it was skier packed, and powder off to the edges – it was soft and quiet snow, and unlike the terrain with manmade snow, you could really sink your edges in easily. That was unquestionably what kept us coming back for more, and if we could have gotten to that terrain more easily by just riding the Mid Mountain Chair instead of the Vista Quad, we certainly would have done it. Today we had Winter Storm Elliot come through, and it’s going to be interesting to see how the skiing changes with this one. There was rain during the middle of the system, so we can’t expect that perfect unblemished snowpack that was present before the storm, but this system has likely substantiated the base to a new level. We’ve already had 7 to 8 inches from the storm down here at the house, and the snowpack in the yard is now deeper than it was before it began. The snowpack must contain more liquid as well, with almost 2 inches of L.E. from the storm here at our site. The temperatures we’ve had over the past week or so have been another feather in the cap for this stretch, with highs just getting up to near 30 F to give you comfortable conditions without deteriorating the snow. Tomorrow’s forecast suggests a change of pace though, with highs only in the teens F.

Thanks PF, that’s right where I was going with those. We’ve obviously had numerous great Decembers and great December periods of skiing in the past, but this stretch has been really fun in the way it sort of went from zero to sixty in just one storm – and it was timed really well to put down a fairly substantial valley snowpack heading into the holidays. The current snowpack at our site as of this morning’s CoCoRaHS report is 11 inches, and while that may not seem like a lot for the winter solstice, it actually is at our site. The mean snowpack depth for December 21st here is only about 7 inches, so the current depth is definitely above average, and in fact it’s close to 1 S.D. above the mean. It’s been 14 seasons since the snowpack has been this deep at our site on this date, and you have to go all the way back to those La Niña seasons of 2007-2008 and 2008-2009: 2022: 11.0” 2021: 6.5” 2020: 4.5” 2019: 3.0” 2018: 9.0” 2017: 6.0” 2016: 5.0” 2015: 1.5” 2014: 7.0” 2013: 7.5” 2012: 3.0” 2011: 0.0” 2010: 7.0” 2009: 8.0” 2008: 13.0” 2007: 20.0” It reminded me of bwt’s comment from Thursday, which I quoted above. I don’t think this December is really going to compete with the top contenders because it didn’t turn into something notable until mid-month, and there aren’t any obvious storms in the forecast over the next week or so that would push it into the upper echelon of Decembers (that would probably require another 30 to 40 inches of snow in the next 10 days), but this has definitely been a solid week in terms of snowy vibe and ski quality. The thing that’s added that little extra notch of excellence to the skiing on natural snow terrain is that the base that was in place before this last storm was really not that hard, yet it was somehow substantial enough to do the job – so it’s got that feeling of skiing with a snowpack that’s never seen a thaw/freeze. In any event, it’s been a quality week for skiing, and this has got to be way up there on the quality scale for some of the SVT resorts that don’t typically see this much natural snow at this stage of the season. Another factor that I think helps is that this December is on track to have more snow than the past two, so it’s feeling like a notch up after a couple of slow Decembers.