J.Spin

With yesterday’s new snow, my plan had always been to head up to the mountain for some turns as soon as I’d taken care of a scheduled meeting in the morning. Unsure of how the temperatures were going to affect the powder later in the day though, I’d gone out for an early morning ski tour via the Wilderness Uphill Route. A colleague of mine is in town for a couple of weeks working on a project, and he was eager to get up to the mountain for some Nordic skiing when he heard about all the new snow, so the two of us headed back to Bolton Valley for a midday session. For the afternoon session, I was thinking of either going for another tour, or doing some lift-served skiing, but I first wanted to see how the quality of the powder was faring as we approached midday. While swinging through the Village Circle to let my colleague pick up his Nordic pass, the temperature was just below freezing at the 2,000’ elevation, so I figured riding the lifts was the safer bet in case the snow started to get wet. We parked right along the Broadway Trail in the backcountry lot, and it provided perfect access for my colleague to jump onto the trail network for his Nordic session, while I headed up to the Vista Quad. Though the temperature may have been approaching the freezing mark at 2,000’, it was well down into the 20s F once you got up around 3,000’. I’d wondered if there was going to be some warmer air at elevation, but that question had been quickly answered. The powder I found was just as good as what I’d experienced in the morning, and there had obviously been some lift-served skier traffic, but being a midweek day, there was still plenty of untracked snow to ski. I started off on Spillway Lane, and the typically snow areas off to the left were providing excellent powder turns. When I dropped into Hard Luck though, I quickly realized that it was too steep for the available snow – it was tracked up enough that I was hitting the subsurface constantly, and that subsurface is fairly firm. As soon as I discovered this, I cut to the right into some trees and made my way onto Vermont 200. What I found was that at those black diamond pitches, you really needed first tracks to get soft, bottomless turns. Once a few tracks were in place, you started to hit the subsurface. Thankfully, the bottom sections of Vermont 200 where the terrain spreads out provided plenty of untouched snow for excellent turns. After that first run though, I spent the rest of my session focused on more moderate angle terrain, and that provided consistently great turns. With time, the snow started to get a bit denser down toward the Village, and the powder was still skiing well, but you could tell the freezing level was rising. When I’d finished my session and was waiting at the car for my colleague to finish up, I was able to soak up some sun really appreciate the weather that we were getting. After what’s been a long, consistently cold winter season, it was finally starting to feel like March!

Since Winter Storm Lola last week, we’ve had sort of a miniature Northern Greens bread-and-butter pattern of storms. We’ve had five winter systems affect the area in the past five days, bringing a foot of snow to our site in the valley, and substantially more to the local mountains. The two most recent weather events affected the area within hours of each other, with an area of upper-level vorticity affecting the area during the midday period yesterday, and quick moving Alberta Clipper system hitting the area during the overnight period. When I looked outside last night around midnight and saw heavy snow falling with flakes up to 20 mm in diameter, it was a sign that I should get the ski gear ready. As of this morning we’d picked up 4.8 inches of new snow at the house, and the Bolton Valley snow report was indicating 6 to 8 inches of snow in the past 24 hours, so a trip up to the hill was definitely in order. My time was somewhat limited in the early morning, but with the potential for temperatures to rise above freezing later in the day, I still wanted to get in a quick ski tour in the fresh snow. I toured via the Wilderness Uphill Route on the lower half of the main mountain in the 2,000’ to 2,300’ elevation range and found powder depths of 7 to 10 inches over the subsurface. It was medium weight powder and easily set up bottomless turns on lower and mid-angle slopes. Temperatures were in the mid-20s F, which was comfortable yet cool enough to keep the powder in excellent shape.

I really hadn’t planned on skiing today. Earlier in the week, Winter Storm Lola came through the area, and it was a warm enough system at all elevations that conditions were clearly going to firm up after it passed and temperatures cooled back down. While we did get some snow on the front and back ends of the system, it wasn’t going to be enough to get anywhere near the resurfacing that would be needed to soften up the ski surfaces. I was somewhat looking forward to an excuse to not head up to the mountain though; the snow conditions have been so good for more than two months straight that it’s been hard to pull away from the snow to catch up on everything else in life. Today I figured I’d take the opportunity to head on in to work and get some things done there. Mother Nature seemed to have other plans for me though. While there weren’t any major winter storms in the area, this is Northern Vermont, and sometimes snow, heavy snow, just happens. As I was driving home from Burlington yesterday afternoon, I did so to the tune of some very heavy snowfall. It wasn’t that the roads themselves were too bad in terms of traction, since there was only an inch or two of new snow on them; it was the visibility that was an issue. It was 1-2”/hr. snowfall with big flakes, and the plows hadn’t been out clearing things off yet. So, it was just white on white on white with massive flakes pounding down so that you could only see about a car’s length in front of you. Forget about trying to tell where the edge of the road or the other lane was. I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t received a squall alert on my phone with how difficult the driving was, but I did find out that at least there were Special Weather Statements posted: NEAR TERM /THROUGH SATURDAY NIGHT/... As of 645 PM EST Friday...Main focus with the update this evening was to monitor the ongoing heavy, gusty showers stretched across the forecast area. Have issued Special Weather Statements over the past few hours to note this, however these showers are not quite reaching true snow squall criteria with visibilities floating around 1/4 to 1/2 but wind gusts barely cresting 30 mph at times. The concern comes in regards to folks still traveling for an evening commute. PoPs have been increased and weather type switched to heavy snow for the next several hours. I was definitely in the target audience for that message though, and it was essentially heavy snow for my entire drive home. I’ve never appreciated every little road reflector and sign that the highway department has in place along Route 2. Thankfully we don’t have those massive open areas of terrain like they do in the plains, but you can clearly see why they sometimes close down the highways out there. Later in the evening I was reading the BTV NWS forecast discussion, to catch up on what had hit the area earlier, and I then learned that apparently more snow was on the way: Once the Sun sets, winds should begin to decrease, and temperatures will gradually cool off into the teens to lower 20s again. That surface trough will produce additional snow showers overnight, which will be enhanced by an incoming upper vort and then push south by morning. Sure enough, the radar showed more snow upstream just about to hit the area, and I couldn’t help but wonder what things were going to look like in the morning. By early this morning, we’d picked up 3.2” of new snow down at our site in the valley, and Bolton Valley was reporting 3-5” new in their snow report. For better or worse, I knew that was going to be enough to get at least some of the lower angle terrain skiing quite well, so I packed my gear for a quick ski tour on my way into Burlington. Based on the accumulations, I knew the Wilderness Uphill Route would be the place to go, and this was only reinforced by the fact that neither the Wilderness Double Chair nor the Vista Quad Chair were running because of the strong winds that were hitting the mountains. Indeed, when I reached the Bolton Valley Village, the winds were howling. I was amazed at the number of visitors that were at the resort without two main lifts in operation – cars were parking in the third and fourth tiers of the Village parking lots. Temperatures were well up into the teens F though, and you can really feel that we’re not in January anymore. It was clear that the winds had been strong for a while, because even the very sheltered Lower Turnpike area had been hit. Between areas that had been groomed, and areas exposed to the winds, you really had to head off the edges of the trail to get into the powder. Once you got to that new snow though, it was there just like the snow report had said. Starting right from the 2,000’ elevation, I found about 4” of powder in protected areas off the trail, and I was able to find a general 3-6” of powder in the 2,000’ to 2,500’ elevation range where I toured. In areas with some drifting, I was finding up to 12” of new snow, but that was certainly not the norm. The skiing was excellent, as long as you knew where to go. The lower angle trees were definitely the ticket this morning – the powder in there had not been hit by the winds, and they probably collected the extra snow that had blow from the exposed areas on the trails. It was medium-weight powder, so certainly not enough to be bottomless, but on mid-fat skis it was enough to generally keep you out of contact with the subsurface for nice, quiet turns. The Lower Wilderness Woods area was very good in this regard, and it was made better by that fact that the snow was pristine. Yes, the summit lifts were down, but very few people were even out touring, and nobody had been in there. The turns were nice enough that I contemplated going for another run, and I definitely would have if I didn’t have anything else on my schedule for the day. It was especially tough to pull away from the mountain at that point because another round of heavy snowfall had moved in as I was finishing up my tour. It was quickly accumulating over everyone’s cars, and you knew it was going to beef up the powder another notch to further improve the skiing.

I was driving home from Burlington during that, and it was brutal. It wasn’t that the roads themselves were too bad in terms of traction, since there was only and inch or two of new snow on them; it was the visibility that was an issue. It was 1-2”/hr. snowfall with big flakes, and the plows weren’t really out clearing things off yet. So, it was just white on white on white with massive flakes pounding down so that you can only see about a car’s length in front of you. Forget about trying to tell where the edge of the road or the other lane was. I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t received a squall alert on my phone with how difficult the driving was, but at least there were Special Weather Statements: NEAR TERM /THROUGH SATURDAY NIGHT/... As of 645 PM EST Friday...Main focus with the update this evening was to monitor the ongoing heavy, gusty showers stretched across the forecast area. Have issued Special Weather Statements over the past few hours to note this, however these showers are not quite reaching true snow squall criteria with visibilities floating around 1/4 to 1/2 but wind gusts barely cresting 30 mph at times. The concern comes in regards to folks still traveling for an evening commute. PoPs have been increased and weather type switched to heavy snow for the next several hours. I was definitely in the target audience for that message though, and it was essentially heavy snow for my entire drive home. I’ve never appreciated every little road reflector and sign that the highway department has in place along Route 2. Thankfully we don’t have those massive open areas of terrain like they do in the plains, but you can clearly see why they sometimes close down the highways out there. I was reading the BTV NWS forecast discussion, and it was only there that I learned that apparently more snow is on the way tonight: Once the Sun sets, winds should begin to decrease and temperatures will gradually cool off into the teens to lower 20s again. That surface trough will produce additional snow showers overnight, which will be enhanced by an incoming upper vort and then push south by morning. Sure enough, the radar shows more snow upstream just about to hit the area. Life in the Northern Greens.

I don’t know the resort numbers for Stowe, but here in the Winooski Valley we had 2.74” liquid equivalent and 59.5” of snow for January (2.51” of liquid equivalent for the Jan 2-31 period you mentioned). Mean liquid equivalent for January here at our site is 3.45 ± 1.28”, so this January was below average, but well within 1 σ. Typically I find that the resorts in the Northern Greens run about 2X the snow (and presumably liquid) that our site sees, so that would be around 5 to 6 inches of liquid equivalent for the mountains this past January. The 2X snowfall number is very rough of course, but so far this season, Jay Peak is running at 2.25X our snowfall here in the Winooski Valley, and Bolton Valley is running at 1.81X our snowfall, and the average of those two is 2.03X. Bolton Valley is just a few miles away and our closest direct comparison for a resort elevation, and I think they’re running below the 2X ratio a bit because we’ve probably had fewer marginal temperature/elevation-dependent events this year relative to average.

Powderfreak should be able to give you the Froude Numbers that he typically associates with west/on/east of the spine, but your understanding of blocked vs unblocked flow is correct. For the Northern Greens ski resorts, Bolton Valley and Smuggler’s Notch are typically considered to be on the west side of the spine, while Stowe and Jay Peak are on the east side. As for the back side of the system at the end of the week (it’s been given the name Winter Storm Lola), there does appear to be some upslope snow potential. There’s not as much mention in the BTV NWS forecast discussions today, but they talked about the potential for several inches of snow yesterday: LONG TERM /WEDNESDAY THROUGH SUNDAY/... As of 326 AM EST Sunday… Post cold front passage Thursday night into Friday, several inches of upslope snow looks very possible, especially across the higher terrain of the northern Greens and Adirondacks as the region will remain under broad cyclonic northwest flow. Additional chances for snow showers are possible Friday night into Saturday as well with seasonal temperatures in the teens for lows and 20s to 30s for highs. The potential amounts will probably ebb and flow over the next few days in the modeling, but the GFS has consistently shown the potential for 6 inches or so thanks to the cyclonic northwest flow. The BTV NWS will certainly mention it in forecast discussions later this week if that look persists.

Our latest clipper system began affecting the area last night, setting up some fresh accumulations in the mountains for today’s turns. Bolton Valley was reporting another 3 to 4 inches of new snow overnight to top off the snow from our other recent systems, and down at the house we’ve picked up 3 inches of snow from this system with a bit over ¼ inch of liquid equivalent. In terms of how the new accumulations played out on the mountain, you really wanted elevation to get to the best snow. Elevation mattered both in terms of the quality of the subsurface, as well as the depths and consistency of the powder above it. We found that conditions were fine as long as you were above ~2,000’, so although we parked down at 1,500’ at Timberline, we spent most of our session up at the main mountain. Up above 3,000’ it was easy to find powder depths in the 8 to 12-inch range above previously packed surfaces, and at 2,000’ I’d say depths on equivalent surfaces were more in the 4 to 6-inch range. That dropped down to just a couple inches at 1,500’, but just as important was that the subsurface snow became wetter down below 2,000’. Based on what I’d experienced on my ski tour yesterday, where I found multiple layers in the surface snow of varying densities, we went with alpine skis today instead of Telemark skis, and that really seemed to be the right call. It didn’t matter much in the highest elevations where the powder was deeper, it was of lower density, and thicker layers in it were less pronounced, but the lower one went in elevation, the more having that stable platform of alpine skis helped in the off-piste areas. You really could get some nice turns at most elevations, but the main mountain delivered the best powder. Temperatures were very comfortable today – they must have been right around the freezing mark when we arrived at Timberline in the morning, and probably in the mid-20s F up in the summit areas. We’re at the end of the current winter vacation week for schools, so being a Saturday with fresh snow and good temperatures, it was busy at the resort. When we headed back down to Timberline around midday, it seemed like even the Timberline parking areas were filling up, and people were having to hunt around for spots. Both in the mountains and the valleys, it really started to pound snow in the afternoon with huge flakes as the back half of the Clipper began to push through. With this system, Bolton hit the 300” mark on the season’s snowfall, so they’re quickly approaching their season average with all of March and April still to go.

We’ve reached March 1st, so it’s a good time for a check on the season’s snowfall progression at our site. February was another solid month for snowfall, with 60+ inches to add to the totals. The train of winter storms has been keeping this season’s snowfall progression right up there with the 2007-2008 season as the cumulative snowfall chart shows below. In the 2007-2008 season we were in the midst of a double-digit storm on this date though, so it’s going to be tough for the current season to keep pace with that in the short term. We’ll have to see how much more we pick up on the back side of the current system, but even down here in the valley we’ve been getting hit with heavy snowfall made up of huge flakes this afternoon. As it stands right now, 2024-2025 certainly has the chance to be another 200”+ winter down here in the valley; there are 2 to 3 months left in the snowfall season, and simply getting average snowfall from here on out would hit the mark. In fact, even 80% of average snowfall from here on out would hit the mark, but we’ll just have to see what Mother Nature delivers.

I hadn’t been up to the mountain since Sunday, but temperatures have been on a bit of a roller coaster ride this week, and we’ve had some snowstorms come through the area as well, so I was curious to see what the conditions were like on the slopes. Since the weekend storm that was putting down snow when we were at Bolton Valley on Sunday, there was a midweek system that brought about a half foot of snow to the mountains, then a similar system that hit the area yesterday into today. There were also some warmer days during the week, and I’m not sure how high the freezing levels went, but up to a foot of snow in the past few days definitely had the potential to further enhance the ski surfaces. From the two systems, we picked up almost ¾ inch of liquid equivalent down in the valley, so the local mountains must have had an inch of liquid equivalent or more. Arriving at Bolton Valley between 9:00 and 10:00 A.M., I was surprised to find that people were already parking in the third tier of the Village lots, but then I remembered that this is also a big school vacation week, just like last week was. I toured in the 2,000’ to 2,500’ range via the Wilderness Uphill Route, and there was definitely some elevation dependence with the recent snowfall accumulations. I typically found powder depths in the 4-6” range around 2,000’, but I was getting 6-10” readings up around 2,500’. It appeared that there was some mixed precipitation and/or melt crust in the layers of surface snow, depending on elevation. Those firmer layers were typically sandwiched between layers of lighter snow, but you could definitely feel them, and they had more of an effect in the areas with shallower depths of powder. I had to really be disciplined when making Telemark turns to avoid getting pushed around, but with alpine turns you could hardly tell there were any thicker snow layers present, and I bet if you were riding a board, it would be even smoother. Our next system is hitting us right now, and this one may be a bit more potent because I’ve seen snowfall forecasts as high as 8-12” for some higher elevations spots along the spine. Tomorrow has the potential to be a pretty decent day with the addition of this next round of snow atop the others that fell this week.

I cored our site’s snowpack yesterday for CoCoRaHS “SWE Monday”, since it also seemed like a good time to run an analysis ahead of some potential consolidation temperatures this week. The NOHRSC modeling for our site had the snowpack with a bit below 6 inches of total liquid equivalent in it, and indeed that wasn’t too far off from what I measured as the plot below shows. One can imagine how much water is up in the snowpack in the high country if we have half a foot at the bottom of the Winooski Valley at ~500’, and there may be more to add to it still in the coming weeks. Hopefully the melting process proceeds at a reasonable pace when the time comes.

Saturday was a real gem of a winter day with sunshine and temperatures in the 20s F. Our next system moved into the area Saturday night and continued through the entire day Sunday, delivering another 4 inches of snow here in the valley, and 10 inches up on the mountain. The snow was steady by generally light in intensity, and the temperatures stayed right up in the 20s F, so Sunday was another great day to be on the mountain. I headed up to Bolton Valley in the afternoon with my wife and my older son, and we spent our time at Timberline just like I’d done on Saturday. While Saturday had been busier than normal, in part due to it being such a pleasant, sunny day, Sunday seemed much more typical, with no lift queues at the Timberline Quad. Twice as Nice and Spell Binder had some excellent natural snow conditions, which had been bolstered by the new snow from the ongoing storm. When my wife took a break in the lodge, my son and I headed out for a bit more powder exploration, with a long run in the Adam’s Solitude area. Even with the new snow, there had been a lot of traffic over the weekend in greater Adam’s Solitude area, so you had some hunting to do for untracked lines. We found that most other off piste areas had seen less traffic, and we had some nice lines in the KP Glades, but you can’t blame folks for hitting the Adam’s Solitude area – the snowpack is deep and this is the time of year to do it.

Yesterday was just one of those gorgeous midwinter days – bright February sunshine and temperatures in the mid to upper 20s F. On top of that, the snow conditions in the local mountains just continue to be excellent. I had a bunch of work to get done yesterday, but I still wanted to get out for some turns and exercise, so I headed up to the mountain around midafternoon. Since it sits at the lowest elevations of the alpine trail network, Bolton Valley’s Timberline area is typically the last part of the mountain to really get it’s act together with respect to snowpack depths and coverage. With the snowpack at the Mt. Mansfield stake hovering in the 90”-100” range, we’re easily in that zone now though. Relative to the rest of the resort, I haven’t had a ton of runs at Timberline yet this winter, so this is a great part of the season to spend some time there checking out areas that I haven’t visited much. The resort clearly had plenty of visitors based on the cars I saw in the Timberline parking lots, but by midafternoon it wasn’t hard to grab a spot in the upper tier of parking. I was surprised that there was still even a lift queue of a few minutes at the Timberline Quad, and to see something like that so far into the afternoon definitely meant that people were still out enjoying the slopes. From the conversations I heard during lift rides, I quickly discovered why the resort was so busy – it was that combination of weather and snow conditions. Listing to people talk, it was clear that some of the absolutely fairest of fair-weather skiers were out for the perfect weather. I heard one woman comment that she wasn’t going to ski Sunday because it was going to be “messy”, and if upper 20s F and light snow is your definition of “messy”, then you know your standards for ski weather are pretty darned high. I guess we’re also finishing one school break week and starting another, so that’s a lot of extra folks that are probably on vacation at the resort. In any event, people were clearly out enjoying the weather – it was nice enough that it wasn’t uncommon to see people simply sitting outside comfortably enjoying the sunshine For my first run I headed right to Adam’s Solitude, because it’s been a long time since I’ve skied it, and I knew it was better to get out there sooner rather than later; patrol sweeps it very early. I explored a lot of the terrain like Secret Solitude on the outskirts of the main lines, and it reminded me of just how many acres and acres of steep, unexplored terrain are out there. My explorations kept me out there for a while, and indeed one of the patrollers was on sweep by the time I was finishing my run on the return track. The Twice as Nice trail had excellent natural snow, and you know the snowpack is good when even the scoured headwall areas are covered to such a degree that you have to strain to even find an exposed area of ledge of windswept pocket. From what I saw and heard, terrain with manmade snow varied somewhat – in some areas you could tell from the lack of any sound that even there the snow quality was excellent, but I could still hear some sounds of slick turns in the steepest and windswept areas. There was no new snow yesterday morning, but as of today, the resort is reporting 2 to 4 inches of new snow in their morning report from our current small system coming through the area. That snow is continuing to fall today, so it should represent another good freshening of the ski surfaces. Through the first week of March, the latest run of the GFS shows about a half dozen additional weather systems that could potentially affect the area, so the current Clipper pattern still seems to be holding in the models for the foreseeable future.

The Thursday night system brough roughly 4 inches of new snow down at the house with 6 inches reported up at the mountain, and these were our most notable snow accumulations since Winter Storm Jett over the weekend. Other than a weak shortwave/upper-level trough tracking across the region in the Tuesday/Wednesday period, there hadn’t been any systems in the area this week, and mountain temperatures have been on the chilly side anyway, so it’s been nice to have a break and catch up on other things. Thursday night’s forecast did call for an inch or two of snow down in the valley, but since we got a bit more than expected, it seemed like a good excuse to head up for some morning exercise. I stopped by Bolton Valley for a quick morning tour using the Wilderness Uphill Route and got to the mountain within an hour of opening. So, I was surprised to find that cars were already filling up the third and fourth rows in the Village parking lots. That’s notable for early on a weekday, but I think it’s winter vacation week for a number of schools from around the region, and people were definitely out taking advantage of it. The backcountry parking area had plenty of spots left though, so I was able to park there and get fairly decent access to Wilderness. I hadn’t thought about temperatures, but they were still quite cold – it was in the lower single digits F up in the Village when I began my tour. There was also some wind, and while it was nothing like what we saw on Monday on the back side of Winter Storm Jett, it was still brisk enough that with single digit temperatures, it must have been cold riding the lifts. I toured in the 2,000’ to 2,500’ elevation range, and even at the lowest elevations I was finding accumulations of 4 to 6 inches of new snow. The new powder was nice, but it was super dry (liquid analyses from down at the house were in the 1 to 2% H2O range), so even on 115 mm fat skis, the turns weren’t bottomless. The subsurface is typically quite soft though, so the turns were still very good aside from spots where there were irregularities in the snow from old ski tracks, etc. We appear to be moving into a clipper-type weather pattern for the upcoming week or two. The next shot of snow is forecast to come into the area tonight into tomorrow, and depending on how you break it down, the latest run of the GFS has anywhere from 6 to 9 different systems affecting the area through the first week of March. It probably won’t play out exactly as modeled, but it looks like there’s a decent parade of wintry systems poised to affect the Northern Greens for the upcoming period.

The update the BTV NWS made to their Storm Total Snowfall map yesterday bringing back that 12-18” shading along the Green Mountain Spine in this area seems like it was appropriate. Our forecast did mention the potential for a bit more backside snow today, but we haven’t seen anything substantial develop as of this evening, so what we’ve got now may be the final total for the system. If the total stays there, then Winter Storm Jett will sit in the second place spot on the season behind the January 6th system that brough 22.7” of snow. A few other post-Winter Storm Jett notes with respect to the season: The storm pushed this month’s total snow to 50.7”, ensuring an above average February with respect to snowfall. That means that for this season, December, January, and February will all end up above average for snowfall, and that’s the first time that’s happened since the 2010-2011 season. Even with the very high reliability of snowfall up here in the Northern Greens, it still seems difficult to get all three of those midwinter months to achieve above average snowfall, so that’s a feather in the cap of the 2024-2025 season. The storm pushed this season’s snowfall to date past that of 2018-2019 and 2007-2008 (the updated cumulative snowfall plot is below). We don’t know if this season can hang with those seasons going forward, but for now it’s running in the ballpark of some seasons with good overall snowfall numbers. The storm brought season snowfall to ~160”, guaranteeing that we’ll see at least an average overall snowfall season here in our area.

The winds have simply been roaring around here today, with gusts in the mountains hitting 50 to 60 MPH. Temperatures on the lower slopes have been in the teens F, which isn’t that bad, but with those winds, I didn’t have any interest in riding the lifts today. The question of riding the lifts today at Bolton Valley was moot anyway – all the major lifts started on wind hold early in the morning, and by midday the resort had already cancelled all aerial lift operations for the day due to the relentless winds. The snow report indicated that it “Might be a good day to put those skins on and head uphill.”, which was sage advice. A trip to Timberline seemed like an appropriate goal for a quick ski tour today, with its relatively low elevation enabling one to stay out of the gusts hitting the highest ridgelines. Folks seemed to be following the advice from the snow report, and I saw about 20 cars in the Timberline lot with uphill skiers coming and going when I got there in the early afternoon. The Timberline Uphill Route was in good shape, and one could easily use it to make great time on the ascent, aside from some spots where drifts quickly filled in the track. The wind was at your back on the ascent, and the gusts would give you a massive boost right up the hill, so that was an enjoyable way to make the ascent even easier. There was a mix of clouds and sun out on the mountain this afternoon, and with those temperatures in the teens F, when I was in the sun and out of the wind, it felt really nice. I took a run on Spell Binder, getting first tracks… at least as far as I could tell. There may actually have been some other skiers that had skied it earlier today, but the wind would erase everything so fast, you might never know if someone had skied it more than 30 minutes before you. There were obvious wind slab surfaces in the most exposed areas, but once I was below the Spell Binder headwall, it was easy to find areas that were out of the wind and had some nice powder. At our house down in the Winooski Valley we picked up 1.62 inches of liquid equivalent from Winter Storm Jett in the form of 18.8 inches of snow. While the overall snow density from the system was 8.6% H2O, the last half foot of back side upslope snow from the storm cycle was in the 6 to 7% H2O range. Some of that powder was hit by lighter winds and compacted a little more, but it still skied quite well. The powder depths I encountered on my descent were generally in the 8 to 24-inch range, depending on how much wind had snuck into various areas. With 1.62 inches of liquid equivalent from the storm at our site down in the valley, the mountain could easily have picked up a couple inches of liquid in their snow. Whatever the case, my tour today revealed that the storm put down an absolute resurfacing aside from the usual scoured areas. The resort is reporting a storm total of 18 inches, which seems quite reasonable, and I’m sure it was tough getting accumulation numbers up there with those winds.

I was out a little while ago for observations, and we were getting 2”/hr. snow, and from what I’ve seen, this is the most intense snowfall from this system thus far. With this evening’s snows it looks like this season’s snowfall progress has actually jumped a bit ahead of the 2007-2008 season.

Aside from the change to Winter Storm Warnings, there hasn’t been too much to update with respect to the BTV NWS maps for this event – the most recent Storm Total Snowfall maps with the general 8-12” shading have been he way to go. There was a bit of a bump with this morning’s map update though, which returned some of the 12-18” shading along the spine in the Bolton Valley to Stowe stretch.

I see that Ginx has popped into the NNE thread with a couple of updates on the season, and we’ve hit midmonth now, so it’s probably a good time for the seasonal snowfall progression update from our site anyway. I saw the reference to the 2007-2008 season in his first post, and indeed that was a solid, 200”+ season down here in the valley. We haven’t been running with the 2007-2008 pace (green line in the plots below) so far this season, but we’ve been getting a bit closer as of February. Looking at the season as a whole, it really comes down to November: the 2007-2008 season had a decent November with roughly 20 inches of snow, but this season we had a below average November with only 4 inches of snow. Were it not for that slow start, this season would actually be running right up there with 2007-2008. Another decent season that’s getting some mention is 2018-2019 because Matt Parilla has recently updated his website to provide the cool parameter of “Last Snowier Winter”, so I’ve added the 2018-2019 data as the orange line in the plots below. The 2018-2019 season doesn’t come to mind quite as quickly as 2007-2008 does (it didn’t quite break 200” here in the valley), but it was clearly solid with respect to snowfall if it’s running in the neighborhood of 2007-2008. We’re still behind the snowfall pace of 2018-2019 at this point, but we’re in the midst of Winter Storm Jett hitting us with some decent accumulations, so this season may make up a bit of ground in the coming days The first plot below covers snowfall up through Feb 15 for a closer look at where we’ve been comparatively among the three seasons, and then the second plot goes out through the end of March for a look ahead at how the 2007-2008 and 2018-2019 seasons progressed over the next month or two. One can clearly see from the plots how this season started out well behind the other two, but it also speaks to the strong pace of snowfall we’ve seen over the past couple of months to be able to gain ground on those seasons, where Mother Nature really didn’t take her foot off the snowfall pedal.

I hadn’t been up to the mountain since Wednesday, so I was eager to see how the ski conditions were faring as we move into the weekend. Winter Storm Iliana had hit the area at the end of the week, and while I didn’t see any mixed precipitation at our house near the Waterbury/Bolton line, I’d heard reports that the system had brought mixed precipitation to some areas. Overall though, snowfall has certainly continued to roll on at a solid Northern Greens pace in recent days – the Bolton Valley snow report was indicating 34 inches of snow in the past week. It’s the President’s Day holiday weekend, so the potential is there for a lot of visitors at the local resorts. We also have another large system (Winter Storm Jett) coming into the area this evening, and it should be hanging around through the rest of the weekend. I’m not sure how that plays into the plans of folks who are visiting the area for skiing, but I figured I’d just pop out for a relatively short ski tour in the Bryant Cabin area today. I headed up to Bolton around midmorning, and there were no signs posted at Timberline about the upper parking areas being full. There were also plenty of available parking spaces when I got up to the Village, and I actually was able to park in the closest spot to the Broadway Trail in the backcountry lot. The lower section of the Bryant Trail had been freshly groomed, and they’d done a serious grooming – the groomed area was so wide that it could easily support two-way traffic for automobiles. Temperatures were in the teens F and there was some sun mixed with clouds, so it ended up being quite comfortable. I toured up and around Bryant Cabin to the Not a Trail traverse, and then made my way down into Gotham City. Skier traffic wasn’t bad at all – a few of the most convenient Bryant Trail glades like JJ’s, and Big Blue had seen some decent skier traffic, but most glades had seen little to no activity at that point. I had first tracks down through the Grizzwall and Gun Sight glades. After my tour I stopped in at the new Nordic and Backcountry Center by the Village Circle to check it out and grab a couple of maps. Speaking with some of the associates, they said it had been busy in the early morning when people were stopping in and renting backcountry gear, but it was relatively quiet when I was there around midday. I also took a quick tour around the Village for some photography, and there weren’t any life queues at the lifts that I saw, so I think the fact that it’s a blackout period for some types of resort passes was helping to keep the number of visitors in check. Even when I was leaving the resort around midday there were still no signs at Timberline indicating that the upper parking lots were full, so that was another sign that visitation wasn’t hitting the packed levels that it does on some weekends. I’d started checking the consistency and depths of the snowpack right from the start of my tour, since I was curious if there had been any mixed precipitation over the past couple of days. I didn’t find evidence of any firm layers in the snowpack, so if they picked up any mixed precipitation on the mountain, it must have been extremely minimal. The uppermost layers of powder in the snowpack certainly weren’t of champagne consistency, and that made sense based on my liquid analyses of Winter Storm Iliana from down at the house. The storm brough 0.40 inches of liquid to our site in the valley, and the snow density for the storm came in at exactly 10% H2O. So, it was a very synoptic-like medium density snow that was topping the snowpack. Thankfully, it skied great, and there wasn’t any upside-down feeling to the powder atop the snowpack. I could cut nice deep turns into the powder on steep terrain with no issues. I toured in the 2,000’ to 2,700’ elevation range today, and powder depths were typically anywhere from 30 inches on the low end to 40+ “swallow-your-entire-ski-pole” inches before I’d hit a substantially firm layer. I could find spots where there was detectable wind slab about a foot down, but in the sheltered areas of the backcountry network where I was touring, those were generally few and far between. The overall snowpack depth at 3,700’ the Mt. Mansfield Stake is 85 inches as of today’s update, and snowpack in the 2,000’-2,700’ range I toured today was clearly at least 30 to 40 inches deep, since I wasn’t necessarily reaching ground level in my depth checks. Like Wednesday, I was again finding extra “unexpected” lines opening up as lower vegetation becomes completely buried. And, right now we have Winter Storm Jett hitting the area with another 6 to 12 inches of snow expected, so we should be adding another significant bump to the snowpack in terms of both depth and liquid equivalent.

I received a text alert this morning that we’ve been put under a Winter Storm Watch, which in association with Winter Storm Jett that is currently crossing the country. The latest BTV NWS maps are below, and on the Event Total Snowfall map they currently have some of the 12-18” shading here along the spine in the Bolton Valley to Stowe stretch of the Northern Greens. I see mreaves also recently posted a copy of the preliminary map above as well.

On Tuesday I headed home from Burlington at the end of the day amidst heavy snow that was falling at an inch per hour or more. The roads weren’t horrible, but the low visibility made driving really tough, at least through to the Williston area. In an exact reversal of the usual geographic snowfall trends we see here in the Northern Greens, the snow intensity lightened up the farther I headed into the mountains, and there was only light snow falling at home on the Waterbury/Bolton line. I checked the radar to see what was up, and there was an interesting band of snow aligned east to west stretching out from the Burlington area. We were just on the southern edge of that band here in the Winooski Valley, which is why the snowfall was lighter. As the band sank southward a bit more though, the snowfall intensity increased, and by morning we’d picked up 3.1 inches of snow here at the house, with Bolton Valley reporting 4 inches of new snow. The addition of the new snow was intriguing enough to get me to head up to the mountain for a quick morning ski tour using the Wilderness Uphill Route. Temperatures up at the resort were in the teens F, and with solid sunshine, it was a welcomed change from touring in the single digits F. There were no concerns about the new snow messing with the existing powder density gradient because the added snow was incredibly dry – my liquid analyses from down at the house indicated that the snow density came in around 2% H2O. A modest amount of snow that dry certainly doesn’t provide a resurfacing, but with plenty of deep powder already available off piste, and excellent subsurfaces on piste, it was plenty of snow to serve as icing on the cake and make the turns really effortless on any pitch. The snow from this localized band was just another small addition to the healthy midwinter snowpack in the Northern Greens, but all these events keep adding up - the depth at the Mt. Mansfield Stake is currently at 82 inches, which is between 7 and 8 feet. The healthy snowpack depth is becoming noticeable because more and more of the off-piste underbrush is disappearing, and on this tour, I started to notice lines opening up that I’m not too familiar with. Some of these novel ski lines are due to the extensive work that Bolton Valley has done on their mountain bike trails, but some are indeed arising from the fact that the mountain snowpack is simply getting deep enough to bury a lot of vegetation. We’re currently in the midst of Winter Storm Iliana, which will likely change the composition of the snowpack again. I haven’t seen any sort of mixed precipitation in this area, but snow analyses here in the valley have revealed snow densities anywhere from 7 to 13% H2O, so there is some denser snow in there. The composition of the snowpack will probably change yet again heading into the weekend – the forecast suggests that Winter Storm Jett will affect the area with potentially a foot of snow or more in the mountains, but we still have a couple of days to see how that system plays out.

We’re under a Winter Weather Advisory for the next system coming into the area (Winter Storm Iliana), with snow accumulations along the spine of the Greens in this area topping out around 4 to 6 inches. The latest BTV NWS maps are below:

Hey, every part of the globe deals with climate change differently. As they say, it’s just something you’re going to have to get used to going forward. So… “Deal with it.”, I guess?

Yesterday I headed up to Bolton Valley with my younger son and some of his friends to ski the accumulations from Winter Storm Garnett. The resort was reporting 8 inches of new snow from the system as of their morning update, so on top of the accumulations that we’ve been getting from the parade of small and moderate storms over the last several weeks, it was just another layer of frosting on the cake. Down in the valley we’d picked up 0.40 inches of liquid equivalent from the storm at that point, so the upper elevations of the resort should have picked up at least a half inch of liquid. That’s a moderate resurfacing of the slopes, but the quality of the subsurface snow is so high at this point, that even a half inch of liquid equivalent sets up some fantastic skiing. The depth of the snowpack at the Mt. Mansfield Stake is now 84 inches, or put another way, the snow is 7 feet deep, so more and more steep slopes and ledges are coming into play every day. Another important aspect of Winter Storm Garnett was that it came without much wind at all, so that has finally allowed some of the wind-scoured western facing pitches at Bolton to start building some snowpack. In practical ski terms, the state of the snowpack plus the new snow let us focus on a “steep and deep” day, hitting areas like Devil’s Playground, some of the chutes off Upper Crossover, and various other places. The heavily scoured steep areas definitely need a few more moderate storms, or perhaps a big system with easterly instead of westerly flow to acquire a deep base, but a lot of steep, fun terrain is already in play.

The shortwave that hit the area overnight sort of felt like it came out of nowhere, but the snow cranked up enough to deliver a half foot across the Northern Greens, and it was still falling early this morning. As the morning progressed though, the snowfall eventually subsided, and the sun came out to give us a nice window of pleasant weather between systems. The sun helped bring the temperatures up around 20 F at the mountain today – I definitely felt that warmth down at the Timberline Base at 1,500’, but up above 3,000’ along the ridgelines, it was still well below 20 F, and the sunshine could only do so much. The overnight snow made conditions at the resort even better than what I’d experienced yesterday. The rapid-fire storms that keep coming through just sort of blend together, but Bolton Valley is reporting 2 to 3 feet of new snow in the past week, and that snowfall is constantly refreshing the on-piste surfaces and the off-piste powder. My younger son was up at the mountain with a group of about 10 friends today, so I joined them for a bit and enjoyed some of the especially good conditions on Wilderness since the lift has recently been down for mechanical work. The Vista Quad was down for a couple of periods today for mechanical issues of its own, so Wilderness would develop a lift queue during those periods, and the Timberline Quad would as well to a lesser extent. The Vista Quad eventually looked like it was running again, so hopefully they’ve taken care of whatever mechanical issue popped up. The next system in the storm parade is Winter Storm Garnett, which looks to bring 4 to 8 inches of new snow to the mountains by tomorrow. The snow from Garnett has already started falling here at our house in Waterbury, so hopefully there will be a nice fresh coating of powder to kick things off at the mountain in the morning.