J.Spin

May Totals Accumulating Storms: 3 Snowfall: 5.7” Liquid Equivalent: 3.90” Total liquid for the month was more than an inch below average, but it was certainly an interesting May for winter weather. Some notable aspects in the data set thus far were: · First May with three accumulating snowstorms · Highest May snowfall total · First May with more snowfall that the preceding April That should be just about it for the active snow season, so I’ll start putting together some of those data now that we’re getting into the warm season. Despite the May liquid being a bit low, calendar year liquid through May was at 19.66”, which is pretty close to the mean value I have of 19.93” for this site.

I don’t typically expect any snow in June down at our elevation, so barring some strange occurrence, 142.1” of snow will be the total this season. That’s -0.34 σ, which puts it literally right on the D+/C- border. Being in that spot gives one a lot of flexibility to push it in either direction based on other snow parameters, but by the numbers, it looks like there are far fewer stats coming in above average than below. A notable example would be SDD, which came in at -0.60 σ, so that certainly has one leaning toward the D+.

It’s interesting to hear that perspective. People often come up to the mountains for the cool views, weather, relaxation, recreation, etc., but you can’t necessarily get a feel for the entire chill vibe in just a visit. We found it very interesting when we lived in Montana that from out there, many people’s perception of the lifestyle in the east was this sort of crowded, traffic-filled, megalopolis/suburbia, rat-race existence. I’m not sure if this is because in terms of raw population numbers, most people they’d met, or popular culture they’d seen, gave them that impression. We’d have to explain to them that we were from VT, which had essentially the same lifestyle/vibe as we encountered in MT. Pointing out to them that our entire state had a smaller population than many of the big eastern cities they’d heard of was one way of starting to get the point across.

This is nicely stated, and that’s the reality of the situation. It seems that most people appreciate the added comfort of some humidity when it comes to water sports, but few people are going to fanatically prioritize having excessively high dew points to deal with sticky discomfort for the remaining 99% of life just for that minor perk. When the HHH weather comes, that’s Mother Nature telling you it’s a good time to swim. As folks have mentioned, it’s those overnight lows that make or break it though, and if you live in an area that doesn’t cool down at night, you’re going to pay the price. Yeah the “install” thing is sort of thrown around as a gag, but people don’t typically put those things in their windows unless they have to… in order to get the temperature and humidity back to the levels they actually want.

Yes, a great contender. Mount Ascutney has some impressive vertical relief (2,270’ of clean prominence via Peakbagger), and indeed the 3,130’ peak looks quite imposing when you’re traveling in the immediate valleys around there. The most recent annual snowfall average I have for Ascutney on my Vermont ski areas page is 175”, which is pretty paltry for a 3,000’+ location in NNE. Actually, while I was there I saw a few other annual snowfall numbers from the southern part of the state that would certainly be contenders as well depending on the elevations these numbers are taken from: Bromley (145″) Magic Mountain (145″) Mount Snow (158″)

Yeah, when thinking in terms of elevation, there’s a phrase people use to describe the snowfall around here:

If this is it for snow we’ll be at 142.1” on the season, coming in about 10% below average, so roughly in line with your anecdotal thoughts for the area. I guess we were sort of “due” for something below average, because I just ran the numbers, and the previous three seasons prior to this one averaged 182.3”, which is a solid run. This season has been interesting for its late season events – this is the first time we’ve had three accumulating storms in May, and the first time we’ve ever recorded more snow in May than in April.

May isn’t typically a very warm month around here though, and the flora kind of support that in the way that the leaves aren’t fully out until we get to about June. We’re lucky in NNE in that we’ve got the latitude and elevations to pretty much keep the snow around until it actually gets warm. Aside from mud season, which depends on one’s immediate location, we get to skip over those March and April type periods in SNE that so many people seem to hate. I guess May here could be somewhat like April in SNE though.

Thanks for the update CF, it was great to get the detailed Gilpin Mountain BC report with images and maps. These trips can be a bit of a challenge and not as enjoyable under less than optimal snow conditions, but getting out for the exploration is still a huge chunk of the fun. Checking my reports, I guess my last trip to Gilpin was back in 2001, and we were actually using snowshoes as well back then because we didn’t yet have skins. Looking back at my trip report, I see we generally topped out at ~2,600’ where we were because the terrain seemed to be getting a bit flatter. Note that if you have multiple vehicles you can get a partial assist on laps by parking the 2nd vehicle lower on the pass, which is what we did on our visit. You can also hitch a ride if there’s enough activity, such as on weekends. That’s kind of a nice addition, but certainly not necessary. At some point I’d also like to visit Domey’s Dome, which is another peak there that is supposedly fun for backcountry touring. The access there isn’t quite as slick because it’s back a bit farther from Route 242, but it would be fun to check it out during a longer session.

I hadn’t really been thinking about the stake depths much yet this season, so thanks for the reminder. We haven’t quite hit that 24” threshold yet, peaking at 23” about a week or so ago, but this next event could certainly push it there. If we do hit it with this next round of snow, it would be later than the mean, but still well within 1 S.D., which stretches out to roughly the end of the month: Mean 12/12 Median 12/9 Mode 12/16 S.D. 18.8 days Last season it was hit was fairly early, with a date of 11/27 as indicated by the red star in the Mansfield Stake 24” data plot:

It won’t be long now, but can we get things rolling like last November?

Yeah, either way you phrase it, you nailed it. There’s really not another lift-served area anywhere in the Eastern U.S. with its combination of such high annual snowfall and low skier traffic. Weekend powder mornings where you can spend the first couple of hours simply walking right onto the Timberline Quad are something you’re just not going to get at similarly snowy resorts along the spine. In the big leagues of Northern Greens snowfall, Smugg’s is probably the next closest contender, and indeed Smugg’s has got the low-speed lifts to preserve the power like Bolton, but they’ve just got a lot more overall skier traffic. Normally, when a ski area has a good thing going with respect to great powder and low skier traffic, it’s only a matter of time before it gets “discovered” and that changes, unless there are other factors in play. When it comes to Bolton, I think there are a couple of key things helping to keep it so low key: 1) The neighborhood: Bolton Valley is literally surrounded by the ski giants of the Central/Northern Greens. We’re talking about being within about an hour of the likes of Stowe, Smugg’s, Jay Peak, Sugarbush, and Mad River Glen. When you look at these neighbors, you’ve got five ski areas that in terms of snowfall, terrain, and various other factors are perennial contenders for top ten in the entire Eastern U.S. In general, people are going to have a hard time passing up all those places to hit Bolton Valley. 2) Terrain: Bolton indeed has some classic steep terrain in line with those surrounding resorts, but it’s not going to be as long and continuous. Most advanced and expert skiers really like those long, continuous fall lines that go on and on, and that’s just not Bolton’s terrain. On every main lift at the resort you’re going to find that the terrain rolls and/or flattens out in one spot or another, and that just doesn’t appeal to a lot of skiers. As a Tele skier I absolutely love that setup because just as my quads are cooked, I can rest them while making a traverse to the next line, and by the time I get there I’m ready to dive in. If I was on my snowboard though, that would be hell. A fantastic run I love at BV is the full descent of almost 1,700’ vertical from the Vista Summit down to the Timberline Base. That’s hardly what folks would call a “fall line” run, but I love it. When making that run I’m typically going to do 3 or 4 substantial traverses (or in some cases even short ascents) to piece together a combination of untracked trails and off piste areas with appropriate pitches and powder the whole way. All told the run might take close to an hour after meandering among all the nooks and crannies of the resort, and one needs a very strong knowledge of the topography and off piste areas to do it, but that’s the kind of skiing I really enjoy. Even more fun is mixing in combinations of hybrid runs that are both lift-served and backcountry with powder that seems to go on forever. That sort of stuff is certainly not going to be everyone’s cup of tea though, and in my opinion that’s part of what really helps to keep the resort so low key despite the top tier snowfall and powder skiing.

Yeah, it was a bit of a blast from the past as soon as I clicked on that link. I actually saw it this morning but only had a chance to respond about the Freedom Pass and the Indy Pass this afternoon.

I saw the link and immediately though of Bolton Valley, since our season passes there come with multiple free lift days at various other independent mountains around the country. We tend to spend most of our ski days in NVT, but we used our passes to pop down to Magic a couple seasons back and it was great. It’s interesting to note that the pass that comes built in with our BV season passes is called the Freedom Pass, and it’s different from the Indy Pass mentioned in the article, but naturally some of the resorts (like Magic Mountain) overlap. I also found it hilarious that right at the top of the article mreaves posted is a picture of our family at Bolton Valley – it’s from a photo shoot we did with them a few years back so the boys are noticeably younger.

So on that inspirational note, let’s take a look at where last season sits with regard the start of the natural snow/off piste skiing around here. As usual, I use the date of hitting 24” depth at the Mansfield stake as an approximation of that and for comparative purposes. The updated plot is below, with last season represented by the red star: Before I add a bit of context to last season’s start, here are the stats for the data set: n: 64 Mean: Dec 12th Median: Dec 9th Mode: Dec 16th S.D.: 18.8 days Entry of this year’s data point had no effect on the mean, mode, or S.D. (within a tenth of a day), but it did drop the median by one day from Dec 10th to Dec 9th. The plot would suggest a reasonably good start, but nothing insane: last year’s 24” date was Nov 27th, which is only 0.78 S.D. ahead of the mean, so well within 1 S.D. That puts it in roughly the top 22% of seasons, so about 1 in 5 seasons will have a similar or earlier 24” date. While the 24” date is a nice snapshot for the start of the natural/off piste season, there are of course a number of other factors to take into account that made last November more impressive than that number alone: 1) Near miss: If you look at the raw November stake depth data (posted below), you can see that the snow depth at the stake reached 23” on Nov 21st. That’s as close of a miss as you can get to hitting 24”, so even as of the 21st of the month, the snowpack had essentially hit that two-foot level. Getting to that level by the 21st brings a season past 1 S.D. and into that top ~15% of seasons. That’s not a huge bump in this regard, but having nearly an extra week of borderline two-foot snowpack at that part of the season could easily mean an entire additional weekend of natural snow skiing potential. 2) No going back: This is a much bigger feather in last season’s cap. Even from about mid-month, the snowpack never really took a major hit, and once it did hit that 24” mark on Nov 27th, there was really no going back. It sailed past 24” and just kept climbing as you can see in the numbers at the end of the month. I haven’t added the December numbers below, but even with the lackluster December we had, the snowpack never dropped below ~40”. That can’t be said for all of the seasons on the left side of the plot (certainly not Mr. October out there in front, which was the 2006-2007 season – he was back to 0” at the stake by mid-November). 3) Snow-depth days: I haven’t calculated this for any November with the stake data, but it will obviously be a good integrative measure of how much snow was on the ground for the start of the season. I’m sure last November would have a solid ranking if I put those data together. So, if we look into that left side of the plot, do we have any other recent seasons in there that we can use for comparison to last season? Actually, that lone star (Nov 25th) just to the left of the red star for last season is for 2007-2008. We know that was a solid season around here. The snowpack began building in the first week of November, and there was really no going back there either. Unlike this past season, that solid November was followed up by a stellar December (almost 70” of snow here at the house) and the Mansfield snowpack was hitting five feet by the holidays. With a solid December, last season certainly would have given 2007-2008 a run, but instead it was languishing at around 40” at the stake during the holiday period. With regard to some of the other stars up at that end of the plot: The two compatriots of last season on the plot, those other two stars on Nov 27th, are 1997-1998 and 1977-1978. 1997-1998 looks pretty solid with a snowpack start in the first week of November, and snowpack at about that five-foot mark by the holiday period. There’s also a nice-looking bonus stretch of snow at the end of October, with snow at the stake for almost the last third of the month, and the depth peaking at 16”. Checking my archives, I actually went for some lift-served skiing at Sugarbush on Oct 28th, so that speaks to that period snow being a bit of something special. 1977-1978 was before my time around here, but it looks a bit tamer. There was nothing in October, then snowpack began to build around mid-November and was getting around the four-foot mark by the holidays. The two stars right at Nov 20th are interestingly, back-to-back seasons of 1967-1968 and 1968-1969. Both had a little October snow, and then a snowpack start in the first week of November. Both had pretty steady climbs right through November and December, with 1967-1968 getting to around 40” for the holiday period, and 1968-1969 hitting a very robust 6+ feet of snowpack for the holidays. I guess that shouldn’t be too surprising, as that was just the start of a season that would become legend. The star at Nov 18th is 1965-1966, and the progression looks sort of like 1967-1968. Boy, that’s quite a 4-year stretch of good early seasons from ’65-’66 to ’68-’69 with those three solid starts. The star at Nov 16th is 1980-1981. That season is interesting in that the snowpack started building on Oct 20th and sailed right into November without ever going back to zero. Snowpack was 4+ feet for the holidays, but the rest of the season looks modest (relatively speaking) with the snowpack depth never getting above 6 feet. The star on Nov 14th is for something more recent: 2003-2004. I was out in Montana for that one, but snowpack started building in the second week of November, it was 4+ feet at the holidays, and hit the 100” mark in March. The star on Nov 13th is for 1976-1977. That looks like an impressive start, with snowpack taking hold in the second half of October, climbing right through November, and hitting roughly the 4-foot mark for the holidays. The stake didn’t quite top out at 100” that season, but it did pretty well topping out at 94”. The final early star I haven’t mentioned yet is the one on Nov 11th, that’s for the 1990-1991 season. It seems like the only other boom and bust start to go with Mr. October (2006-2007). There was a little inkling of snow at the end of October and start of November, but snowpack started building at the end of the first week of the month and topped out at a very impressive 45” on Nov 14th! It was a downhill slide after that though. The snowpack never went lower than 9” but there were only 12-18” on the ground for the holiday period, and on Dec 30th it dropped from 18” to 13”, so that must have been quite a dagger in the holiday week (I guess that depends on whether it was a nice spring skiing day or a nasty rainstorm). The rest of that season seemed pretty blasé because the snowpack never even hit 5 feet. I don’t recall much about that season, but I’m assuming there was nothing too remarkable. Date Depth 11/1/2018 2 11/2/2018 1 11/3/2018 4 11/4/2018 4 11/5/2018 4 11/6/2018 3 11/7/2018 0 11/8/2018 3 11/9/2018 1 11/10/2018 7 11/11/2018 8 11/12/2018 8 11/13/2018 11/14/2018 14 11/15/2018 11/16/2018 19 11/17/2018 11/18/2018 11/19/2018 20 11/20/2018 21 11/21/2018 23 11/22/2018 23 11/23/2018 23 11/24/2018 20 11/25/2018 19 11/26/2018 19 11/27/2018 32 11/28/2018 43 11/29/2018 46 11/30/2018 44

Indeed, I find that the August-September-October stretch is definitely one of the best chunks of the year. I had that list of things I like about that period the other day in my post in the NNE thread, but I didn’t even talk about the fun build up to the ski season (ski swaps, snowmaking, resorts opening, etc.). I don’t include November in that favorite stretch, at least with respect to weather, just because it’s typically stick season around here and it feels like we’re in a holding pattern for a bit before the snow hits the valleys or the snowpack starts to get deep in the mountains. Sometimes we’ll get some great early season powder days (November is sort of like October on steroids in that regard), but it can also be a tiresome stretch of only manmade surfaces. Now of course if every November could be like last season’s…

Gorgeous – you can get a great sense for the quality of that powder by the track on the left.

Fantastic!