NNE Cold Season Thread 2021/2022

[jculligan]

51 minutes ago, J.Spin said:

In terms of whether or not to wait another storm cycle, it will depend on the terrain pitch and level of variety you’re looking for.  If a couple routes of green/low blue pitch with ~500 verts is enough, that terrain is good to go.  Sufficient base is in place below whatever is currently falling, and the only remaining factor left on that terrain is water bars.  Any water in them is frozen, and they are covered with snow, but they are not yet filled 100% up to grade with snow, so attention has be paid when approaching/crossing some of them.

The Lower Turnpike trail (see the far left of the map below) is where the resort’s Wilderness Uphill Route is located, and it’s also the default descent route for folks that are just looking for a quick outing.  It’s about as perfect a setup as you can get for earning turns when the snowpack is just getting going.  It starts above 2,000’, it’s well protected from the wind, it’s pitch is low to prevent the scraping associated with the aggressive edging required on higher-angle terrain (folks in the Rockies would probably equate it to “Meadow Skipping”, if you’re familiar with the term), the snow is preserved well because it’s packed to a reasonable degree by skier traffic, and it literally starts right from the Bolton Valley Village for convenient access.  The pitch is perfect for bottomless turns on 6”, and up to about 12” of champagne, or reasonably dry, sub 8-10% H2O powder (and ski width will play into it as well).  Above those depths, or slightly lower if the snow is dense, you’ll start battling insufficient pitch for fun turns.  One huge aspect of Lower Turnpike that people may not notice at first is the fact that while it’s low angle, it’s very consistent, so you’re not battling flat spots (a bigger deal for split boarders, but still a nice touch even for skiers).  I remember talking with the former ski patrol director of the mountain, and he was a huge fan of Lower Turnpike indicating that it was actually one of the best trails on the mountain in that regard.

For someone who is taking a first foray into skinning for turns in powder, Bolton’s Wilderness area, and specifically the Lower Turnpike trail, is just about the best place I can think of in the Northeast due to the combination of everything I mentioned above, and availability of fresh snowfall since it’s the Northern Greens.  A big appeal for someone new to earning turns is the security of being in bounds, right on resort trails.  So in that respect, it’s not really “backcountry” skiing, but an added plus as people advance is that one can easily access the resort’s backcountry network right next door using the same ascent route.  The backcountry network begins right at the edge of the Wilderness Uphill Route shown on the map, and the details of that area are available on their backcountry network map.

Just a few final notes about the Wilderness area – the pitch is roughly green to mild blue on the lower half to two-thirds of the mountain, and above that it gets up into higher blue and black pitches.  The higher pitches are much more exposed to the wind, so they are easily scoured.  A typical approach I use is to simply ascend as high as the snow quality allows.  That’s a good approach if someone is uncomfortable with the skiing due to insufficient base.  The bottom half of the Wilderness area is actually so well covered by natural snow that the resort will often open up lift accessed skiing there for skiers to connect over from Vista, long before they start running the Wilderness Chair.  I’m not sure if they’re quite there yet, but they are definitely close, since I saw today that they’re starting to open natural terrain on the lower parts of Vista.  With the way the snow continues to plow into the spine this evening, it’s definitely got me wondering how close they are.  That’s just something to consider in terms of powder access because at that point, lift-served skiers will start to work their way over there as they discover it, and the powder on the lower half of Wilderness will see more traffic.

If you have other questions about the setup, just let me know and I’ll be happy to help.

 

This is incredible insight, thank you!! I think we have made other plans for this immediate weekend, but it's likely we'll be taking the trip out there NEXT weekend. I haven't skied Bolton in years, and I've never done any uphill there. Looking forward to experiencing the mountain in a different way!

[jculligan]

1 hour ago, powderfreak said:

Speaking of, I was surprised on radar how far those streamers are going downwind.  They’ve been training over Jackson and Bartlett area.

 

It's been flurrying here, but no accumulation since the synoptic stuff shut off around noon. I think I've been between streamers for the most part. But nice to see flakes floating around out there regardless.

[J.Spin]

Event totals: 3.5” Snow/0.18” L.E.

 

Details from the 8:00 P.M. Waterbury observations:

New Snow: 1.5 inches

New Liquid: 0.03 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 50.0

Snow Density: 2.0% H2O

Temperature: 18.0 F

Sky: Light Snow (1-3 mm flakes)

Snow at the stake: 6.5 inches

[PhineasC]

Still showing here. 11 degrees.

Thank God for upslope. 

[Patriot21]

Looks like 2" total from yesterday. I didn't expect the temperatures to get so low last night, -9 at 7:30am

[J.Spin]

Event totals: 3.8” Snow/0.20” L.E.

 

We’ve cleared out aside from a few clouds, so it looks like the totals above are the final values for Winter Storm Garrett here at our site, and it’s right in the 2-4” range that was in the forecast.  At the tail end of the event, the flake size dropped, perhaps as the colder air moved in, and the snow density fell accordingly down to the 15 to 1 range from the 50 to 1 ratios that were present during the height of the upslope snow.

 

Details from the 6:00 A.M. Waterbury observations:

New Snow: 0.3 inches

New Liquid: 0.02 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 15.0

Snow Density: 6.7% H2O

Temperature: 0.7 F

Sky: Mostly Clear

Snow at the stake: 6.0 inches

[eekuasepinniW]

Coldest morning so far @ 7.5 

Kind of love the days when the temp keeps dropping until nearly 9am.

[PhineasC]

1.4 was the low.

Another refresher Sunday?

[J.Spin]

9 hours ago, mreaves said:

Yeah, I think he teaches at UVM but I’m not sure what subject. Has to be something STEM. I work with some real data hawks and they got nothing on him. 

I'm a biochemistry professor, so meticulous data collection, measurement, analysis, etc. is definitely what we train to do.

 

9 hours ago, PhineasC said:

I have learned to use his obs to roughly gauge where things are headed for this area. There is a linkage between the peaks in VT and NH on most of these events if you follow them closely enough.

That's a perfect example - you using the observations/data from over here to get an idea of where things are headed in your area is literally a demonstration of the utility of accurate and consistent measurements.  The fact that the various weather and climate services can use the data is of course even more impactful.

[dendrite]

42 minutes ago, eekuasepinniW said:

Coldest morning so far @ 7.5 

Kind of love the days when the temp keeps dropping until nearly 9am.

Who are you?

Low of 5.0°. Tue-Wed will be rough for the boo, and a little unpleasant for the chooks. The phyllostachys nigra henon I planted a couple of years ago is only rated down to 0° so we’ll see what a bit below 0° does to it.

[eekuasepinniW]

36 minutes ago, dendrite said:

Who are you?

Low of 5.0°. Tue-Wed will be rough for the boo, and a little unpleasant for the chooks. The phyllostachys nigra henon I planted a couple of years ago is only rated down to 0° so we’ll see what a bit below 0° does to it.

If I can't have extreme heat and dews, I'll settle for extreme cold. I'm just glad we got enough fluffy snow so that I can fully bury my more sensitive plants.

I was looking at Feb 2015. What a ridiculously cold month. Imagine if you had just started your bamboo the previous summer? 

• Went above freezing on only 2 days.
• Only 2 nights had lows above the single digits.
• 16 nights with lows below zero.
• Hit -15.3 on 2/24, the second lowest temp in my stations history.

[tamarack]

1 hour ago, PhineasC said:

1.4 was the low.

Another refresher Sunday?

Another midgit, maybe - GYX has qpf trace to 0.05".

[tamarack]

6 minutes ago, eekuasepinniW said:

If I can't have extreme heat and dews, I'll settle for extreme cold. I'm just glad we got enough fluffy snow so that I can fully bury my more sensitive plants.

I was looking at Feb 2015. What a ridiculously cold month. Imagine if you had just started your bamboo the previous summer? 

• Went above freezing on only 2 days.
• Only 2 nights had lows above the single digits.
• 16 nights with lows below zero.
• Hit -15.3 on 2/24, the second lowest temp in my stations history.

An amazing month though the coldest (-25 on 2/24) is tied for 16th coldest here and only 1° below the median for winter's bottom.  It was the unending cold more than daily records that was the key feature.  We got above freezing for just 3-4 hours, on a Sunday afternoon, and the mildest minima were 5/4/1/1/0/0, with 22 subzero mornings, 6 at -20 or colder.

[dendrite]

37 minutes ago, eekuasepinniW said:

If I can't have extreme heat and dews, I'll settle for extreme cold. I'm just glad we got enough fluffy snow so that I can fully bury my more sensitive plants.

I was looking at Feb 2015. What a ridiculously cold month. Imagine if you had just started your bamboo the previous summer? 

• Went above freezing on only 2 days.
• Only 2 nights had lows above the single digits.
• 16 nights with lows below zero.
• Hit -15.3 on 2/24, the second lowest temp in my stations history.

Did you have the Davis in Jan 04? That’s the one that would’ve scared me.

Also, good use of bullet points. 

[alex]

2 hours ago, J.Spin said:

I'm a biochemistry professor, so meticulous data collection, measurement, analysis, etc. is definitely what we train to do.

 

That's a perfect example - you using the observations/data from over here to get an idea of where things are headed in your area is literally a demonstration of the utility of accurate and consistent measurements.  The fact that the various weather and climate services can use the data is of course even more impactful.

Very cool! I was a biochem major

[J.Spin]

1 hour ago, alex said:

Very cool! I was a biochem major

Ahh, great choice; we're always telling our students it's one of the best foundations for whichever medical/biomedical/biotech field people want to go into.  An old biochemist I worked with out in Montana hailed it as "The queen of the sciences".

[alex]

14 minutes ago, J.Spin said:

Ahh, great choice; we're always telling our students it's one of the best foundations for whichever medical/biomedical/biotech field people want to go into.  An old biochemist I worked with out in Montana hailed it as "The queen of the sciences".

Very true! Very few disciplines blend different subjects together the way biochem does - particularly chemistry/p-chem, physics, and biology, which is a great primer for anyone going into the biotech world, which is what I did. I ended up focusing on genetics first, and was lucky enough to be working in genetics for a pharma company at the time that the human genome project had started releasing data. Wildly exciting times. Then ended up in clinical research, program management and eventually... vacation rentals! 

[PhineasC]

What are the thoughts for tomorrow? Models seem decent for a couple inches.

[alex]

5 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

What are the thoughts for tomorrow? Models seem decent for a couple inches.

P&C says less than 1, map says 2-3". 

 

[NW_of_GYX]

Just saw that Great Glen isn’t even open for skiing yet. Another really tough year in the Whites so far following last years snow drought. Climo says there has to be a snap back at some point, whether that’s later this season or next. 

[J.Spin]

1 hour ago, PhineasC said:

What are the thoughts for tomorrow? Models seem decent for a couple inches.

 

1 hour ago, alex said:

P&C says less than 1, map says 2-3". 

Over here, our point forecast similarly suggests about an inch of snow, and the BTV NWS Event Total Snowfall map suggests roughly the same.  Clicking through to the Hourly Weather Forecast Graph for the point forecast, it has 0.08” of liquid equivalent, with precipitation starting around 3:00 A.M. tonight and continuing through late tomorrow night.  Unfortunately the BTV NWS forecast discussion doesn’t really speak to any thoughts on potential snow accumulations because they’re more focused on getting the details right for the potential warm air intrusion.  It looks like they feel the 850 mb warm nose stays well south of here; it’s not a huge deal with a minor system like this, but any time the area stays north of potential mixing is a positive for maximizing snow quality on the local slopes:

 

Area Forecast Discussion

National Weather Service Burlington VT

321 PM EST Sat Jan 8 2022

 NEAR TERM /THROUGH SUNDAY NIGHT/...

As of 321 PM EST Saturday…The main forecast challenge continues to be the strength of a warm nose around 850mb where the NAM and GFS remain steadfast in their respective thermal profile, the NAM being several degrees warmer around +5C as opposed to +1-2C on the GFS. Both agree that the warm nose won`t lift further north than central/southern Rutland/Windsor counties, but uncertainty remains on whether the dominant ptype will be sleet, freezing rain or a mix.

[eekuasepinniW]

7 hours ago, dendrite said:

Did you have the Davis in Jan 04? That’s the one that would’ve scared me.

Also, good use of bullet points. 

Didn't get the Davis until July 05.  Just looked up that month... I don't remember it but it looks pretty brutal.

[powderfreak]

Sunrise by an excellent snowcat operator on Mansfield this morning.  Town down in the valley, the cold sink.

[dmcginvt]

8 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

Sunrise by an excellent snowcat operator on Mansfield this morning.  Town down in the valley, the cold sink.

That is a sick picture!!  WOW.  Top of national?  My best guess because it drops off so sharply and then national goes to the left down at the bottom of the pitch like that, as it crosses over liftline

[dmcginvt]

11 minutes ago, dmcginvt said:

That is a sick picture!!  WOW.  Top of national?  My best guess because it drops off so sharply and then national goes to the left down at the bottom of the pitch like that, as it crosses over liftline

HA, so wrong I now see the trail signs, embarrassment ensues 

[J.Spin]

It continued to snow after my session at Bolton yesterday, and with the impressive conditions I found during the touring part of my trip, my wife and I decided to head up for some touring today.

The recent rounds of snow have been great overall for the resort, and they’re reporting 7 inches of new in the past 48 hours.  All the new snow is a bit of a mixed blessing with respect to touring on the Wilderness terrain though.  In this morning’s snow report, it was already announced that a number of natural snow trails had been opened on Vista, so I assumed it was only a matter of time before ski patrol opened up lift-served access to the lower slopes of Wilderness.

With temperatures hovering around 0 F in the early morning we waited until late morning to head up to the mountain to take advantage of warmer temperatures.  While we were on our ascent we could see that the terrain was already getting rather tracked up, and indeed a big part of that was likely because patrol dropped more ropes, and lift-served skiers were coming over from Vista.  The resort did have an associate checking passes at the base of the Wilderness Lift though, so they were enforcing the need to have your pass on you, even for touring.

In terms of conditions, natural coverage is quite good on the lower slopes of Wilderness, as the trail openings would suggest.  I’d say the depth of the powder was about the same as what I found yesterday - a couple more inches had been added with the additional snowfall, but there was probably a similar amount of settling.  The snow was slower though today due to the colder temperatures, so that knocked the flow of the turns down a bit on the low-angle terrain of lower Wilderness.

Although the Timberline Uphill Route isn’t open yet down at the 1,500’ elevation, the terrain there is actually looking pretty close to being ready for non-lift-served traffic based on what we saw as we passed by.  Barring any major warming events, even a moderate storm would probably get that terrain in play for touring.

A few shots from today’s outing:

[J.Spin]

Earlier I’d checked on the totals that the Vermont ski areas have reported for the past couple of days, and the north to south listing is below.  The northern resorts along the spine reported numbers in the 6-9” range, but I was surprised to see that there also appeared to be some decent accumulations in the Okemo to Pico stretch of the spine.

Jay Peak: 7”

Smuggler’s Notch: 6”

Stowe: 9”

Bolton Valley: 7”

Mad River Glen: 2”

Sugarbush: 3”

Middlebury: 1”

Pico: 5”

Killington: 5”

Okemo: 7”

Bromley: 3”

Magic Mountain: 3”

Stratton: 2”

Mount Snow: 4”

[J.Spin]

Event totals: 0.1” Snow/0.01” L.E.

 

This morning on the boards I found a tenth of an inch of mixed precipitation, with the accumulation more due to sleet or granular components than any obvious flakes.

 

Details from the 6:00 A.M. Waterbury observations:

New Snow: 0.1 inches

New Liquid: 0.01 inches

Snow/Water Ratio: 10.0

Snow Density: 10.0% H2O

Temperature: 23.4 F

Sky: Cloudy

Snow at the stake: 5.0 inches

[#NoPoles]

Happy Birthday, PF! 

[powderfreak]

30 minutes ago, #NoPoles said:

Happy Birthday, PF! 

Thanks!  Lovely weather out there too, ha.  Just pouring tiny sleet and some freezing rain mixed in up here at the mountain.  It might be just enough precip to mess up the snow surface before the arctic blast.  We'll see.  I didn't think we would get much of anything but there's some QPF coming out of the sky.