The 2020-2021 Ski season thread

[Ginx snewx]

2 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Checked my files, found that event that caused the 2012 April snow depth spike.  What a textbook upslope storm late in the season... high QPF and long duration during cut-off season.  That one fit with all the studies showing best upslope occurs with a stacked low tracking through northern ME and FVE area into adjacent Canada.

Several panels of 0.1-0.25" QPF in northern Vermont was the signal for huge storm.

 

Looks like ~1.70" storm total liquid realized down in Stowe Village over the multi-day event... easy to see how the mountain saw 2-3" QPF total.  BTV in the Champlain Valley was only 0.25" or so outside of the upslope zone.

 

From bare ground to a fresh 2+ feet in April 2012 after the big melt out.  Hopefully we still have one coming, even if it's a month from now.

The Picnic Tables.

Thats awesome. I remember 12 so well. Epic meltout.  Boulders the size of engine blocks were banging against a massive culvert at SR, kept us up all night.  Remember there was a big storm the first week of March in NNE as well. That said skiing rocked. Amazing when 10 feet of snow disappears in a week lol 

[J.Spin]

On 3/27/2021 at 9:08 PM, powderfreak said:

Checked my files, found that event that caused the 2012 April snow depth spike.  What a textbook upslope storm late in the season... high QPF and long duration during cut-off season.  That one fit with all the studies showing best upslope occurs with a stacked low tracking through northern ME and FVE area into adjacent Canada.

Several panels of 0.1-0.25" QPF in northern Vermont was the signal for huge storm.

Looks like ~1.70" storm total liquid realized down in Stowe Village over the multi-day event... easy to see how the mountain saw 2-3" QPF total.  BTV in the Champlain Valley was only 0.25" or so outside of the upslope zone.

I hadn’t immediately remembered that storm just based on the date, but then I went to my web page and found my storm report/trip report from 4/10/12, and I quickly saw which event it was.  Looks like it was 1.69” storm total liquid at our site, very similar to what you noted for Stowe.  The full report on the storm is linked above, but I added some images below:

[Professional Lurker]

Got this email yesterday...

 

Hello All,

 

Berkshire East will be closed tomorrow, Thursday April 1, and unless we experience an Easter miracle equivalent to a rabbit laying colored eggs, it looks like this will be it for the season. We held out hope of cold weather and snow shifting 70 miles east and bringing a foot of snow, though no forecasts are calling this. We stock piled a bunch of snow to get as far into the spring season as we could and I would not have guessed we'd get wiped out this fast, but I don't foresee us withstanding another inch of rain tomorrow.

 

Sent from my SM-A505U using Tapatalk

 

 

 

 

[GCWarrior]

35 minutes ago, Professional Lurker said:

Got this email yesterday...

 

Hello All,

 

Berkshire East will be closed tomorrow, Thursday April 1, and unless we experience an Easter miracle equivalent to a rabbit laying colored eggs, it looks like this will be it for the season. We held out hope of cold weather and snow shifting 70 miles east and bringing a foot of snow, though no forecasts are calling this. We stock piled a bunch of snow to get as far into the spring season as we could and I would not have guessed we'd get wiped out this fast, but I don't foresee us withstanding another inch of rain tomorrow.

 

Sent from my SM-A505U using Tapatalk

 

 

 

Yes too bad...   They did not get much rain last night. I drive by on my way to work everyday and though the main trails look very skiable the base is totally smoked.  There is a little snow around the lift.  Trying to work manmade snow when you only have a few hours of below freezing temps is tricky.  Nice season for them though.  Made a ton of cash. 

[Ginx snewx]

 

[HoarfrostHubb]

Wachusett is still saying they will be open Fri-Sunday, butbased on the weather, their webcams, and some pics I saw of some of the trails by someone who works there, I don't thinks so

[GCWarrior]

21 minutes ago, Ginx snewx said:

 

The late season market is small this year.  Makes sense for SR to try to get to 4/25. 

[sankaty]

Enjoyed this April Fool's article from VT Ski + Ride:

https://vtskiandride.com/new-ski-area-forecasting-program-vt-observatory/

Could the Stowe-based reporter be inspired by our own PF?

[PhineasC]

5 hours ago, White Rain said:

The conditions look terrible, they said they would push the snow around to fill in the gaps. Thats a laughable statement when you look at the cams. They still are reporting 40-45” base depth on their snow report! Berkshire East officially closed today, they were expecting snow apparantly but are getting rain. Looks even worse out there.

Snapshot of the beginner trail. This one will not be opening.

 

I bet Cannon or Wildcat could get that trail open. The snow report would say something about “exciting spring adventure.”

[bch2014]

2 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

I bet Cannon or Wildcat could get that trail open. The snow report would say something about “exciting spring adventure.”

That’s a bit of a deceiving photo as that’s their beginner area. 

[Angus]

WaWa never blows much snow on that beginner area but this discussion did get me curious...yeah, they really have taken a beating but they have at least three groomers pushing snow around right now but that looks late Aprilish for sure.   https://www.wachusett.com/The-Mountain/Media-Center/Web-Cams.aspx

[PhineasC]

17 minutes ago, Angus said:

WaWa never blows much snow on that beginner area but this discussion did get me curious...yeah, they really have taken a beating but they have at least three groomers pushing snow around right now but that looks late Aprilish for sure.   https://www.wachusett.com/The-Mountain/Media-Center/Web-Cams.aspx

Looks really suspect to me. Just checked out the cams. I guess they could stay open in a technical sense. 

[powderfreak]

1 hour ago, PhineasC said:

I bet Cannon or Wildcat could get that trail open. The snow report would say something about “exciting spring adventure.”

We call it "a fun challenge" on the report.  It's a funny joke the locals love it on the report, been using that one for years and years... "ungroomed terrain will offer well, a fun challenge if you decide to try it" basically means best of luck if you survive it.  A trail is "sporty" is another one.  People seek those runs out if you call something sporty, they know what it means.  They want to hop from patch to patch to avoid rocks and dirt. 

[HoarfrostHubb]

1 hour ago, PhineasC said:

Looks really suspect to me. Just checked out the cams. I guess they could stay open in a technical sense. 

As someone who frequents that little bump routinely, I am taking a hard pass...

[HoarfrostHubb]

 

 

You can see where they are pushing whatever they can around to make a skiable ribbon.... 

 

Yo

[Angus]

1 hour ago, powderfreak said:

We call it "a fun challenge" on the report.  A trail is "sporty" is another one.  People seek those runs out if you call something sporty, they know what it means.  They want to hop from patch to patch to avoid rocks and dirt. 

Probably wasting way too much time giving this any consideration but this kind of skiing in the Spring I find quite enjoyable. By the end of the season, with your ski fitness at a maximum and your mechanics fine tuned, picking your way down a slope avoiding rocks and roots on a warm sunny day is fun...a bit of a puzzle to be solved. You can't ski soft, deep troughed bumps every run! I find VT in general is better for this b/c its' slopes aren't as rocky. 

[Brewbeer]

10 minutes ago, Angus said:

Probably wasting way too much time giving this any consideration but this kind of skiing in the Spring I find quite enjoyable. By the end of the season, with your ski fitness at a maximum and your mechanics fine tuned, picking your way down a slope avoiding rocks and roots on a warm sunny day is fun...a bit of a puzzle to be solved. You can't ski soft, deep troughed bumps every run! I find VT in general is better for this b/c its' slopes aren't as rocky. 

This.  

I always enjoyed jumping melted out water bars and bare ground.  The 2 foot wide skiable sections along the edges of some trails got to be quite a challenge if they were more than 30 or 40 feet long. 

[PhineasC]

14 minutes ago, Angus said:

Probably wasting way too much time giving this any consideration but this kind of skiing in the Spring I find quite enjoyable. By the end of the season, with your ski fitness at a maximum and your mechanics fine tuned, picking your way down a slope avoiding rocks and roots on a warm sunny day is fun...a bit of a puzzle to be solved. You can't ski soft, deep troughed bumps every run! I find VT in general is better for this b/c its' slopes aren't as rocky. 

It is fun, in late April or May instead of last week of March, IMO. 

[powderfreak]

30 minutes ago, Angus said:

Probably wasting way too much time giving this any consideration but this kind of skiing in the Spring I find quite enjoyable. By the end of the season, with your ski fitness at a maximum and your mechanics fine tuned, picking your way down a slope avoiding rocks and roots on a warm sunny day is fun...a bit of a puzzle to be solved. You can't ski soft, deep troughed bumps every run! I find VT in general is better for this b/c its' slopes aren't as rocky. 

I absolutely love it.  The route finding aspect and grass skipping (you can send it no problem over a surprisingly large area of grass without slowing down much)... it's by far my favorite part of spring skiing.  Following some ribbon or patches of snow without knowing if it'll end in raw earth or snow.  We'll leave some stuff open even if you may have to "turf it" a bit.  Slide across some wet leaves or grass.  All in the fun spring skiing atmosphere.

Since this winter seemed close to 2012... here's a shot from March 24, 2012 (that melt still leaves this season's melt in the dust)... blond mullet wigs and good times sending the strips of snow.  This is an open trail, love this stuff.

[PhineasC]

6 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

I absolutely love it.  The route finding aspect and grass skipping (you can send it no problem over a surprisingly large area of grass without slowing down much)... it's by far my favorite part of spring skiing.  Following some ribbon or patches of snow without knowing if it'll end in raw earth or snow.  We'll leave some stuff open even if you may have to "turf it" a bit.  Slide across some wet leaves or grass.  All in the fun spring skiing atmosphere.

Since this winter seemed close to 2012... here's a shot from March 24, 2012 (that melt still leaves this season's melt in the dust)... blond mullet wigs and good times sending the strips of snow.  This is an open trail, love this stuff.

I wish BW left some trails open when they start to get bare. They shut down Two Miles Home really early and several other trails I love when a few bare spots appeared. I think they still looked readily skiable to me. They are much more aggressive about restricting access to “thin cover” than other places. I make fun of Cannon a lot but they are much more liberal about this aspect. 

[Professional Lurker]

A few years ago when my kids were younger I introduced them to the thin cover, choose your line aspect of spring skiing. They loved it.

 

Here's one of their Instagram posts from several years ago from flying cloud at Berkshire east

 

 

 

 

 

 

[MarkO]

I had to get to 50 days last year. I've probably posted this before. This year I'm at exactly 1/2. 

 

[powderfreak]

When the cars start melting out at the Japanese ski resorts... ha!  This is pretty wild.

[HoarfrostHubb]

What the heck Scott?!?

Are those customer cars?

[Angus]

Good day at Stowe. Skied the Spruce lift from 9 to 11. Friend joined us who'd skied yesterday and said it never softened. After a couple of runs off the foreunner lift, we jumped into hayride and discovered it was soft snow top to bottom. We only skied lifeline and national once. We were laughing that you get fixated on skiing goat, lifeline, national, starr & lookout and overlook the rest of the mountain. Lots of snow left on the mountain. Back tomorrow.

[powderfreak]

2 hours ago, Angus said:

Good day at Stowe. Skied the Spruce lift from 9 to 11. Friend joined us who'd skied yesterday and said it never softened. After a couple of runs off the foreunner lift, we jumped into hayride and discovered it was soft snow top to bottom. We only skied lifeline and national once. We were laughing that you get fixated on skiing goat, lifeline, national, starr & lookout and overlook the rest of the mountain. Lots of snow left on the mountain. Back tomorrow.

Today was worlds better than yesterday... that extra 10 degrees made a big difference in fun factor due to the snow surface.  Yesterday never softened and while there were pockets of fresh snow, the steepness and wind blown nature of the snow led to a lot of just glare ice.  It was essentially a spring day that doesn't soften, and leads one to feeling unsatisfied, ha.  The bright sunshine but sub-freezing temps just never got the snow into that "playful" zone.

Today however, fantastic.  Everything I skied except the upper third of Nosedive softened nicely.  The Nosedive "Turns" were the only thing that was really firm and slick all day in that cold pocket.

Can see the difference easily on the temperature graph... yesterday stayed sub-freezing and today ticked up past that critical 32F point.

 

[powderfreak]

Late this afternoon I took my final Gondola ride of the season... this first weekend of April is the historical closing weekend for Spruce and Gondola, with the Quad running for two more weeks.  We always close in the same pattern (first Sunday in April for the others, third Sunday in April for the Quad) regardless of how much snow is on the ground.

2011-2012 will remain the only winter I do not remember making closing day as we ended it on April 1st.  But this also is a good reminder that even though it looked bleak 7-10 days ago, it's also really, really hard to truly finish off the Mansfield to the point of closure prematurely.

A photo from the last run on the Gondi, and this is how it's supposed to end on a bluebird spring day with soft snow on all 2,100 vertical feet.

 

Also the last day of the Gondola means access to the High Road Snow Plot (which is really just a pole attached to a board set out in a random clearing at 3,000ft) gets restricted, so I pulled the snow board out of there.  Doesn't look like any snow is on the horizon and we can use the Lookout Plot to assess upper mountain snowfall if it does.  It's funny how this simple device is so well regarded among the Mansfield faithful.  People (like me) crave data and these sites give consistency to the snow measurements... instead of just eyeballing it while out and about.

The looks on two snowboarders' faces was funny when I just randomly blasted out of the woods (in an area skiers usually do not go, which is why its a great spot to measure) with this board and pole over my shoulder like I'm just casually skiing around.

 

[mreaves]

Story on the explosion in backcountry skiing in VT Digger this morning

https://vtdigger.org/2021/04/04/equipment-pandemic-fuel-explosion-in-popularity-of-backcountry-skiing/

[greenmtnwx]

10 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Late this afternoon I took my final Gondola ride of the season... this first weekend of April is the historical closing weekend for Spruce and Gondola, with the Quad running for two more weeks.  We always close in the same pattern (first Sunday in April for the others, third Sunday in April for the Quad) regardless of how much snow is on the ground.

2011-2012 will remain the only winter I do not remember making closing day as we ended it on April 1st.  But this also is a good reminder that even though it looked bleak 7-10 days ago, it's also really, really hard to truly finish off the Mansfield to the point of closure prematurely.

A photo from the last run on the Gondi, and this is how it's supposed to end on a bluebird spring day with soft snow on all 2,100 vertical feet.

 

Also the last day of the Gondola means access to the High Road Snow Plot (which is really just a pole attached to a board set out in a random clearing at 3,000ft) gets restricted, so I pulled the snow board out of there.  Doesn't look like any snow is on the horizon and we can use the Lookout Plot to assess upper mountain snowfall if it does.  It's funny how this simple device is so well regarded among the Mansfield faithful.  People (like me) crave data and these sites give consistency to the snow measurements... instead of just eyeballing it while out and about.

The looks on two snowboarders' faces was funny when I just randomly blasted out of the woods (in an area skiers usually do not go, which is why its a great spot to measure) with this board and pole over my shoulder like I'm just casually skiing around.

 

PF it always drives my son nuts, why does Stowe close so early, some years with plenty of snow to continue operating? 

[powderfreak]

6 hours ago, greenmtnwx said:

PF it always drives my son nuts, why does Stowe close so early, some years with plenty of snow to continue operating? 

It’s a weird mix of like historical precedence and just lost of interest. Too far north to get day traffic, but then people rightly say Jay and Sugarbush go longer. I think it’s falling now firmly in the “this is just what we do” regardless of ownership group.  Third Sunday in April has been the day for decades.

Business levels play into it but it’s also weird that we get almost zero push back from the local community.  They look forward to closing or at least have also accepted that third Sunday in April.  They all just will be skinning the very next day.

Most of the people I know couldn’t wait to close Big Spruce so they can now skin it with friends and dogs.  Main Street is a bump run right now all from skinning traffic. I truly believe the local community enjoys the closure with snow still left because this is such a strongly uphill oriented town and area.

They know they can go to Sugarbush or Killington for a while, but it’s an odd mix of people who cannot wait for the lifts to stop running here.

To answer your question, the main reason I get is just “That’s what we’ve always done.”