NNE Cold Season Thread 2025-2026

[powderfreak]

54 minutes ago, J.Spin said:

PF, am I seeing the recent snowpack depth report numbers correctly to suggest that the current snowpack (74”) at your High Road Plot at 3,040’ is coming in deeper than the snowpack (70”) at the Mt. Mansfield Stake at 3,700’? Those two spots aren’t all that far away from each other, they aren’t too disparate with respect to elevation, and they both represent similar leeward aspects of the mountain, but is that true and does the lower elevation depth outpace the higher elevation depth frequently?

I’ve never routinely followed the snowpack depths at your snow study plots because I typically only see them when you bring them up in a forum post, but now that Matt Parrilla appears to have them on his Mt. Mansfield Stake page, I’m seeing them all the time (he also monitors some lower elevation CoCoRaHS sites around here in the Northern Greens like ours in Waterbury). I didn’t know your daily depths from the plots were even available – where does he get them from? Or (it’s hard to imagine) are his 3,040’ and 1,550’ numbers coming from somewhere else other than your High Road and Barnes Camp plots?

We've started reporting them to Parrilla to increase his data sets.  We sometimes put them on the report and also started an IG account mtmansfield_snowobservations where we only post photos of the readings as a way to archive them.  We have been taking photos of the readings and keeping data for over a decade and honestly, its a shame we didn't start archiving it more in the past.

We are just looking to keep things transparent and to preserve the idea of measuring snowfall and depth in the same locations as often as possible.

Regarding High Road depth... this is the first season I've seen that site stay with the fabled stake and even slightly exceed it at times.  In all other seasons, that spot can run even a foot or two below the stake.  However, we have done snow survey analysis there with the 60" Adirondack Snow Sampler (when the snowpack was a bit lower) and the numbers checked out.  It appears to be legit.

I have a few hypothesis, primarily going back to the November upslope snows that really built the base up... and that is that the Gondola terrain for whatever reason seemed noticeably deeper than the Quad side after a few of those storms.  It has generally felt a lot snowier from like the FourRunner Quad northward towards the Notch, and I think that's normal, but it has felt exaggerated at times this year.

Its definitely interesting, but man, there is still some areas of open water in there and that whole High Road zone from Rim Rock across to Cliff Trail and Perry just has a ton of snow on the ground.  When you see the open water spots, its a legit like 6 feet down.  Its sort of creepy at times, ha.  We were skiing the Strawberry Fields below Upper Perry/Cliff intersection and there's a drainage in there with holes that look like they are 8 feet deep wells.  It's impressive but certainly not something you want to fall into head first.

The depth stake was stuck in the mid/upper 60s for what felt like two weeks, but finally have movement upward after this last cycle.

Ticked from 68” to 70” and then 74”.

One skier from MLK weekend found there way in here and left a track just behind the depth stake… not a fan of it but it’s filling in again.

[backedgeapproaching]

1 hour ago, WxWatcher007 said:

As a non skier, I can’t imagine a 70” pack.

You can probably get some really healthy packs up your way in the right year with good retention that area has. Heck maybe even this year could get pretty decent.

March 18 was prob high water mark for this area in general since I've moved here.

This was at Mitchs, so 2k, but pretty impressive since alot of folks live in the 1500-2000ft zone. I think there was more added after this too IIRC.

 

[WxWatcher007]

This is the highest pack I've seen yet. We're down to around 16" now, but it was 18" a few days ago. 

[qg_omega]

-29 This morning SLK

[mreaves]

BTV has been pretty steady with their map for a while now.