NNE Cold Season Thread 2021/2022

[radarman]

We saw 3 ski patrollers ripping up light pow in the woods off Nosedive coming out onto Rimrock.  We found that it was all about the aspect.  That particular one was very wintry as expected.  Anything cut ESE was a different story as you noted.  Anything from butter to sticky paste to heavy mashed potatoes.  I will say the yellow hot wax paid serious dividends, even if in places it was still a little grabby.  But we were getting through better than most.

[#NoPoles]

61 degrees today! I had some windows open for a bit.

[wxeyeNH]

We are rapidly loosing our winter snow cover and all the deer that yard up behind our house are having a field day.  Last week we had 31.  At any time now they will disperse and head back up into the hills.  

Here is our zoo.

 

[tamarack]

14 hours ago, wxeyeNH said:

We are rapidly loosing our winter snow cover and all the deer that yard up behind our house are having a field day.  Last week we had 31.  At any time now they will disperse and head back up into the hills.  

Here is our zoo.

 

Most our neighbor has seen in the (still-snow covered but with bare patches after today) field across the road is 15.  We've had the Gang of Four - 2 large deer and 2 small ones - rotating clockwise thru our woodlot and the one across the road on a 3-4 day cycle all winter.  Only interruption was when they were cleaning up the hundreds of drops from the apple trees, after hunting season of course.

[DavisStraight]

15 hours ago, wxeyeNH said:

We are rapidly loosing our winter snow cover and all the deer that yard up behind our house are having a field day.  Last week we had 31.  At any time now they will disperse and head back up into the hills.  

Here is our zoo.

 

Mt BIL has 50 acres in Holland MA and his land borders a state forest and he has a lot of deer, most we ever counted at one time is 12, I never realized they hung out in such large herds. I've had 4 in my yard a few times but never saw 31, that's great to watch.

[STILL N OF PIKE]

19 hours ago, wxeyeNH said:

We are rapidly loosing our winter snow cover and all the deer that yard up behind our house are having a field day.  Last week we had 31.  At any time now they will disperse and head back up into the hills.  

Here is our zoo.

 

That’s a awesome sight to Have in a big back yard 

[IrishRob17]

On 3/17/2022 at 7:16 PM, wxeyeNH said:

We are rapidly loosing our winter snow cover and all the deer that yard up behind our house are having a field day.  Last week we had 31.  At any time now they will disperse and head back up into the hills.  

Here is our zoo.

 

I have a love/hate relationship with deer, depends on what they do to my yard.  Anyway, I used to get big herds like that, sometimes bigger, but the local deer population has taken a hit thanks to https://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/123773.html

 

[#NoPoles]

I'm liking this Sping. I wish it would stick around.

[J.Spin]

It’s been a busy past week, so I hadn’t had a chance to put together anything from Winter Storm Quinlan yet, but I had some time this weekend to assemble a few photos and snow updates from last weekend’s sessions at Bolton Valley.

On Saturday, the storm was just getting going.  Once it did though, it was quite a ride, and I’d say that term applies to both the skiing and the driving.  Snowfall rates down here at the house were running at around an inch an hour during the day, and the higher elevations were obviously doing at least that well.  With that in mind, I decided to hit the mountain in the afternoon, by which point there should have been a good chance at a solid resurfacing of the slopes.  I had no idea how long the lifts were going to hold out in terms of the wind, so I packed midfats and fat skis, with skins for both.  It’s always a good insurance policy to have the skins on hand for these types of storm days.

My wife opted out of heading up with me, since she suspected the driving on the access road was going to be outrageously hairy, and that the storm conditions on the hill were going to brutal.  She was, of course, correct on both accounts.  On the drive up the Bolton Valley access road, I saw two cars that had ditched on their descents.  That wasn’t bad compared to some storms, but it was certainly a sign.  Both vehicles had gone off at those steep bottom pitches of the access road as it makes its final dive into the Winooski Valley, which is a common area for cars to bail.  For one of the vehicles, a tow truck was just getting set up to pull it out, and it looked like the operator was going to need to take up the entire roadway to do it.  Thankfully, he waved me by just as he was about to rig up.  In the midst of the heavy snowfall, the scene felt like something out of “Highway Through Hell”.  Thankfully, it wasn’t a big rig off the road, but the weather fit the bill.  I could see that there were multiple plows working the road to try to keep up with the snowfall, because it was constantly pouring down and making the driving rough.

Up above 2,000’ at the resort, Quinlan was going full tilt in terms of both snowfall rates and wind.  Obviously the skiers and riders were dressed for it and took it in stride, but you could see that Village elevations had already taken quite a pounding during the day.  By that point, the storm had put down 8-10” of new snow in the Village, and the parking lots hadn’t been plowed since the morning.  Moving through the lots was tough with all that snow, and cars without 4WD/AWD and clearance, were definitely struggling to get around.  I got a spot right in the top lot from someone who had recently left, but I spent a good amount of time packing and checking my spot to ensure that I was going to be able to get out later.

I hopped on the Snowflake Lift and took a run on Sprig O’ Pine to find that indeed there had been quite a resurfacing of the slopes.  That 8-10” of snow certainly wasn’t fluff, and it had started out quite dense, allowing it to bond to the subsurface.  The Vista Quad and Wilderness Chair were already down on wind hold, and just as I skied up to the entrance of the Mid Mountain Chair, it went down on wind hold as well.  When Mid Mountain goes down, you know the wind is serious.

I could have done some additional laps on Snowflake or headed down to the Timberline Quad, but I really didn’t have a sense for how long they might be able to keep running with the winds.  So, I grabbed my skins from the car and headed to the Wilderness Uphill Route.  The Lower Turnpike area was sheltered from the winds as usual, but above 3,000’ on the ridgeline, the winds were just brutal.  The winds had to be 40 to 50 MPH sustained, and when I hit the final traverse of Peggy Dow’s to the Wilderness Summit, I almost couldn’t skin across because there were already waist-high drifts blocking the route.  I had to break trail along the eastern edge of the traverse and cut between the drifts and the trees.  Conditions at the Wilderness Summit were a maelstrom, and even in the most sheltered spot I could find, it was still so windy that packing up my skins was a struggle.  I laughed to even think of the upper lifts running under those conditions.

I’d say the snowfall accumulations at that point were rough 8-10” at ~2,000’ and 10-12” at 3,000’, and the skiing, as one would expect, was excellent.  As noted, there had been dense snow at the start of the storm, and everything of moderate pitch, or even higher angle pitch if the subsurface was smooth, had been resurfaced.  I’d seen a couple small groups of folks descending while I was heading up, but after that, I saw nobody.  I essentially had the entire main mountain area to myself at that point, and it was just point, go, and ski lots of fresh powder.

With the solitude I’d experienced out on my tour, the intensity of the ongoing storm, and the fact that it was already after 4:00 P.M., I expected to return to a deserted base area.  But that wasn’t the case; the Snowflake Lift and Mighty Mite were still running, and some folks were even skiing.  After being up in the 40-50 MPH winds, the 20-30 MPH winds around the base area did feel a bit tamer.  I couldn’t believe that the new Miso Kome Japanese food stand outside the base lodge was operating, but I’d yet to have a chance to try it, so despite the stormy conditions, I took it as a sign.  If they were willing to stay open during a storm like this, then hey, I’ll take the opportunity to try out their food.  While attempting to read their menu, which was on a sign pitched several feet away from the stand, it was snowing so hard that I had to keep wiping off the new snow just to get through the various items.  It had to be snowing at around 2”/hour at that point.  Inside the lodge, everything appeared to be quite normal, and I was even able to grab a couple of pizzas from Fireside Flatbread to bring home to the family.  So I guess storm or no storm, the services roll on at the resort.

The final part of Saturday’s outing was the descent down the access road.  I’ve obviously been down that road in many, many storms, but the timing of this one with the heavy snowfall rates made it one of the more challenging descents I can recall.  We were crawling down the road.  Cars were moving at a snail’s pace because the intense snowfall made it hard for the plows to keep up, and the road surface was so slick that you’d almost be slipping off the edge at a full stop.  On more than one occasion, I opted to ride the crown of the road because just the natural drainage slope in your lane wanted to guide you off.  About halfway down, we caught a nice boost from a plow that was on the way up and set up some added traction to the center of the road.  I used that slice of extra traction as much as possible for the remainder of the descent.

It was great to get home with the food and talk about the whole experience at dinner, and all told, that was certainly one of the more eventful ski outings of the season.

[J.Spin]

Sunday was the day after the storm, and the weather had settled down.  My wife and I headed up for morning turns at Timberline, and the conditions were great.  It was still cold by March standards, somewhere in the teens F in the morning.  The storm total reported by Bolton was around 18 inches.

We spent our entire morning at Timberline, and just stayed there since there was plenty of snow even down to 1,500’, and there was still some wind around as we hit 2,500’.  My depth checks generally revealed about 12” of new snow after settling down in the Timberline  elevations, which with the density at the beginning of the storm was plenty to cover most on piste terrain.  Initially, the headwalls of the steepest terrain areas were closed, since they had been scoured by the winds and thus not covered as well as they otherwise would have been.  The traverses below them were in good shape though, so that gave you access to run after run of untracked powder on spots like Spell Binder.  Eventually, patrol even opened the Spell Binder headwall, but you had to be quite cautious going down the most scoured sections

For off piste runs, you had to know the areas with good base depths, but the skiing in those areas was excellent.  The usual steepest areas were still sketchy of course, as one storm can only do so much.  My wife and I had a great run in one of our favorite glades, and when we showed it to my younger son and his friend when they arrived it the early afternoon, they were pretty impressed with the conditions.  We left around 1:00 P.M., but the boys did a lot of off piste exploring in the afternoon, and my son’s ski got a solid core shot to show for it.

The parking lots up at the Village were already full when we arrived in the morning, so the Timberline Quad had intermittent periods with a lift queue as the people arriving made their way up to the main mountain, but thankfully those died off as people dispersed.  Bolton opened the new expansion to the Timberline Lodge for the first time this weekend, and it looks quite nice.  I hear they are also going to use it as rentable space for conferences and events, but it’s going to be a great addition to the space in the lodge.

[mreaves]

That seems a lifetime ago. 

[powderfreak]

34 minutes ago, mreaves said:

That seems a lifetime ago. 

Looks a little different out there today.  Oh how the weather can change.

[Froude]

Hah yeah had to double check the calendar to confirm that was only a week ago today.

I'm headed up to Bryant Camp for a couple nights this week, hoping the spine can squeeze a couple inches out tonight to at least whiten things up.

[powderfreak]

1 hour ago, Froude said:

Hah yeah had to double check the calendar to confirm that was only a week ago today.

I'm headed up to Bryant Camp for a couple nights this week, hoping the spine can squeeze a couple inches out tonight to at least whiten things up.

I think we can do 2" wet snow above 2,000ft this evening.  Radar looks very blocked right now.  Snowflakes have been making it down to about 2,500ft or halfway down the Gondi terrain at times this afternoon.

[J.Spin]

1 hour ago, Froude said:

Hah yeah had to double check the calendar to confirm that was only a week ago today.

I'm headed up to Bryant Camp for a couple nights this week, hoping the spine can squeeze a couple inches out tonight to at least whiten things up.

 

16 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

I think we can do 2" wet snow above 2,000ft this evening.  Radar looks very blocked right now.  Snowflakes have been making it down to about 2,500ft or halfway down the Gondi terrain at times this afternoon.

Yeah, it was already snowing at 3,000’ at Bolton when I took my last run about an hour ago.  I saw just the occasional touch of frozen down at 2,000’ when I was leaving, but that should gradually change over as the temperatures drop going into the evening.  It seems there’s a good stream of moisture hitting the spine on a westerly flow:

[bwt3650]

1 hour ago, powderfreak said:

I think we can do 2" wet snow above 2,000ft this evening.  Radar looks very blocked right now.  Snowflakes have been making it down to about 2,500ft or halfway down the Gondi terrain at times this afternoon.

Snowing at about 2200’..mixing at the base.  I’m a little more optimistic for 3-4 here based on the 3k, but we’ll see.  Not going to change much but maybe make the snowmaking trails a little more fun and fill in some gaps.

[PhineasC]

Gonna be a long mud season. 

[alex]

Seems pretty wild that in mid March even the upslope is rain lol

[J.Spin]

The forecast this weekend seemed generally on the dreary side, but I did want to get out for some turns and exercise, and early this afternoon seemed like a decent window.  The colder air and snow were expected to move into the area later in the afternoon, so midday offered the chance at spring snow that wouldn’t have tightened up, and it would be ahead of any rain that might fall on the lower elevations of the mountain.

Indeed I found some nice spring conditions at Bolton, all the way up above 3,000’.  There’s a lot of good corn snow out there, but some trails have those still slick areas of denser snow and ice underneath that you have to watch out for.  It wasn’t warm enough (generally in the 30s to near 40 F at 2,000’+ where I skied on the main mountain today) to really soften those densest spots, so the best skiing involved working your way around those areas and using the available corn snow.  Some trails (like Alta Vista and Hard Luck) had more corn snow available and fewer slick spots, while others (like Spillway and Beech Seal) had more of those icy/dense spots to work around.

The good news is that all that dense snow is going to last quite a while as we head into the spring.  Most natural snow trails had some coverage issues, so skiing was generally on routes with manmade snow today.  There’s still a lot of natural snow in the elevation range of the main mountain though (the snowpack depth at the Mt. Mansfield Stake is around 40 inches), so a lot of terrain would be in play with natural base for any large storm cycles that come through in the next few weeks.

When I first got to the mountain this afternoon, the cloud ceiling was up and down in the 2,500’ – 3,000’ range and there wasn’t any precipitation.  On my last run though, it was snowing up at ridgeline level, and by the time I was leaving, the frozen precipitation was just starting to make it down to the Village elevations.  The snow level must be well below 2,000 now though, because I can see that the precipitation is all snow on Bolton’s main base area webcam.

A few images from today:

[bwt3650]

About an inch down so far…nice to see the 2” mud layer on the driveway white again.

[PhineasC]

Rain turning to snow. 34. 

[alex]

Switched to cat paws here too

[PhineasC]

Would be nice to get warm and dry at this point, but the extended looks cold and rainy instead. 

[tamarack]

1 hour ago, PhineasC said:

Would be nice to get warm and dry at this point, but the extended looks cold and rainy instead. 

You might get a few inches of white at the start and finish of the Wed-into-weekend mess.  Maybe enough RA here to move the ice jam in Farmington.

[wxeyeNH]

17 hours ago, PhineasC said:

Gonna be a long mud season. 

Lots of closed roads around here right now.  My road is closed except to local traffic just beyond our house.  I made this video 3 years ago of driving up to our house.  For some reason this section of the road is not that bad right now.  

 

[Patriot21]

Flurries under mostly blue skies. Windy

[bwt3650]

3 day upslope event up here next weekend and early next week on the 6z gfs…late season blocking ftw?

[PhineasC]

Been sort of snoozing on weather for a bit here but the models do show some kind of ongoing mixed mess scenario for basically a week straight starting Wednesday. Seems very marginal but if we end up on the right side could be a decent amount of snow. Or days of dreary cold rain. 

[tamarack]

1 hour ago, PhineasC said:

Been sort of snoozing on weather for a bit here but the models do show some kind of ongoing mixed mess scenario for basically a week straight starting Wednesday. Seems very marginal but if we end up on the right side could be a decent amount of snow. Or days of dreary cold rain. 

Probably the latter at my locale.  Yay

[STILL N OF PIKE]

5 hours ago, PhineasC said:

Been sort of snoozing on weather for a bit here but the models do show some kind of ongoing mixed mess scenario for basically a week straight starting Wednesday. Seems very marginal but if we end up on the right side could be a decent amount of snow. Or days of dreary cold rain. 

Below normal temps and East coast trough in late March should be more snow for you . Too bad you aren’t 500 feet higher up :/ jk kinda