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NNE Cold Season Thread 2022/2023


bwt3650
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On 2/2/2023 at 9:21 PM, Redmorninglight said:

I’ll be up at my camp in the Adirondacks this weekend. Considering headed to Bolton Valley Sunday for a split board rental —earn your turns session. I have been reading @J.Spin ‘s posts about their non-lift served terrain. Anybody have any advice on how all this works? I’m looking at a 2.5 hour drive early Sunday morning and wanted to be sure I have all the details.
Thanks.
Jeff

 

On 2/2/2023 at 9:32 PM, dmcginvt said:

Best of luck Jeff, Bolton sounds like a good plan and it will be warming up Sunday which like eternal enlightment on your deathbed from the dalai lama, you have that going for you.  I cant speak to it like Jspin can so I'll defer to him.

You’ve probably already seen it on the Bolton Valley website if you’ve been there, but with the parking, glade maintenance, patrol services, connection to the Nordic trails, etc., Bolton does require skiers on their backcountry network to have a Nordic/Backcountry/Uphill pass.  The website indicates that those passes are $17 midweek/$25 weekend, and since they haven’t updated their pricing page since last season, it appears that their prices are the same this season:

https://www.boltonvalley.com/winter/tickets-passes/nordic-backcountry-uphill-passes/

If it’s your first time exploring the area, a solid introduction to the network is to park in one of the lower parking lots down by the Nordic/Sports Center (most people want to park higher up closer to the lift access, so these areas are used less) and jump on the Broadway Trail. From there, connect to the Bryant Trail and head up toward Bryant Cabin.  The Bryant Trail is also the Catamount Trail during that stretch, so it’s very well maintained, it’s wide, well packed, and has a nice pitch for very comfortable skinning.  I’d say the Bryant/Catamount trail is the backbone for the area.  Simply looping around Bryant Cabin onto Gardiner’s Lane/North Slope will give quick access to all the glades that descend from there (see the map I attached), and it makes for very convenient laps.  The map I attached shows some of the most popular marked glades in yellow.  There are of course many more glades that aren’t marked on the map, and beyond that you can simply explore and ski wherever you want and have fun turns where the forest is naturally open enough on its own.

For more reference on the area, I’ve got dozens and dozens of trip reports with Google Earth maps on the backcountry page of our website:

http://jandeproductions.com/backcountry/

736453211_BoltonValleyNordicBackcountryMap13-14.thumb.jpg.218adaec0a50f49cb86fbd0772e43958.jpg

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4 minutes ago, tombo82685 said:

I’m in the northern tughill plateau. I saw the guy from Adirondack posting, which is a stone throw from here. So o figured I could post in here since lakes thread is non existent 

Yea, no worries, wasn't sure where you were located and clicked on your profile and then saw you were near the Tug which makes sense with that amount.

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2 hours ago, dryslot said:

There was some serious snow in the Western Maine mtns this past weekend.

IMG_1933.jpg

Wait till I start taking pictures up her in Caribou.  The people who own the inn told me it they didn't really start getting snow until about 3 weeks ago.  They've made up for lost time a bit.

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12 hours ago, mreaves said:

Wait till I start taking pictures up her in Caribou.  The people who own the inn told me it they didn't really start getting snow until about 3 weeks ago.  They've made up for lost time a bit.

Montreal had its second snowiest January ever so that is sort of in line w far northern Maine being burried  

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7 hours ago, STILL N OF PIKE said:

Montreal had its second snowiest January ever so that is sort of in line w far northern Maine being burried  

The locals say the snow started later than usual but they've made up some ground.  I tool the top one for @Ginx snewx.  I know how he loves the drift pics.  With the giant fields, some of the drifts are crazy.  The other one is overlooking Long Lake.

 
 
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cleardot.gif
 
 
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On 2/5/2023 at 12:22 PM, powderfreak said:

Recovered up to 25F in the valley.  Feels glorious.  Great ski day.

PF is right on with that one; yesterday was fantastic, both in terms of the temperatures and the snowpack/snow quality.  Temperatures were in the 25-30 F range when I hit the mountain yesterday afternoon, which was perfect for comfortable skiing while retaining soft, midwinter snow surfaces.

I hadn’t been out for any turns since last Sunday when I toured in the Nebraska Valley, so I was eager to see what the mountains had to offer yesterday once the arctic cold departed.  At the end of my tour last weekend, temperatures had risen above freezing in the lower elevations, and then we had those potent winds with the arctic front, both of which could have been insults to the quality of the snow surfaces.

Yesterday I was keeping it fairly simple and close to home and decided to tour on the Bolton Valley Nordic and Backcountry Network.  I figured I’d tour up to Bryant Cabin, check out the snow quality, and decide from there if I was going to go any farther.  I was brining minimal camera gear for this outing, so I borrowed my younger son’s backcountry ski pack instead of my larger one, and I opted for mid-fat Teles instead of going with full fats.  I was definitely feeling light and fast with that setup, and hit Bryant Cabin in under 30 minutes, so I felt that I easily had time to extend my tour.  In addition, the quality of the snow was far better than I’d expected.  We haven’t had a major storm cycle since Winter Storm Kassandra about a week ago, so I didn’t really expect the powder to be all that fresh.  Those concerns were sidelined right at the start of my tour though – I did numerous depth checks on my ascent, and even down at 2,000’, the surface snow was 15-20” deep above the base.  Whatever warming had taken place last weekend was clearly below the 2,000’ elevation range.  I’d heard secondhand that the freezing level was somewhere down around the Timberline Base (1,500’), and I guess it never rose much higher than that.  The other concern about the snow had been the effects of the wind, but any drifting and wind crusts were few and far between on the terrain I covered up to Bryant Cabin and beyond.  I ran into many areas where the trees were just caked and choked with upslope snow clinging to every branch at various crazy angles, and snow doesn’t stay like that when it’s been hit by heavy winds.

Finding the snow quality so impressive, I actually decided to continue my tour all the way up to the top of the Catamount Trail Glades around 3,000’ and the powder just kept getting deeper.  Estimates of surface snow depths that I found on my tour were as follows:

2,000’: 15-20”

2,500’: ~20”

3,000’: 20-25”

Untracked areas up in the Catamount Trail Glades were two feet of bottomless powder, and you could easily be fooled into thinking we’d just had a major storm cycle in the past couple of days, not a week ago.  For the rest of my descent I headed down past Bryant Cabin along Gardiner’s Lane and North Slope, and finished off with a connect onto Wilderness via Alchemist.  The conditions on Alchemist were perhaps the biggest testament to the quality of the snow, because it’s got a hard core southerly exposure, and things have to be pretty prime to get real quality powder turns there.  I’d say I encountered some of the best conditions I’ve ever seen on Alchemist, so the snow over the past week or so has been extremely well preserved.

It was hard to get a sense for the total snowpack depth while I was out on my tour because it’s getting too deep to probe easily, but the Mansfield snowpack at the stake is at 42”, so the snowpack depth is probably just a bit less than that as you drop to around 3,000’.  While that Mansfield snowpack is a foot below average, we’re getting to the point in the season where being below average is less and less relevant in terms of off piste coverage and skiing quality.  We’re past that 40” mark at the stake, and all the terrain I encountered yesterday was game on, regardless of pitch or obstacles.  I ran the snowpack liquid analysis this morning down at our site in the valley for CoCoRaHS, and there’s 3 inches of liquid equivalent in our snow.  The local mountains probably have double that amount at elevation, so it’s easy to see why the off piste skiing is so good.  If you’ve got 6 inches of liquid equivalent under your feet, that’s going to take care of a lot of terrain, even pretty steep terrain.

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You’ve probably already seen it on the Bolton Valley website if you’ve been there, but with the parking, glade maintenance, patrol services, connection to the Nordic trails, etc., Bolton does require skiers on their backcountry network to have a Nordic/Backcountry/Uphill pass.  The website indicates that those passes are $17 midweek/$25 weekend, and since they haven’t updated their pricing page since last season, it appears that their prices are the same this season:
https://www.boltonvalley.com/winter/tickets-passes/nordic-backcountry-uphill-passes/
If it’s your first time exploring the area, a solid introduction to the network is to park in one of the lower parking lots down by the Nordic/Sports Center (most people want to park higher up closer to the lift access, so these areas are used less) and jump on the Broadway Trail. From there, connect to the Bryant Trail and head up toward Bryant Cabin.  The Bryant Trail is also the Catamount Trail during that stretch, so it’s very well maintained, it’s wide, well packed, and has a nice pitch for very comfortable skinning.  I’d say the Bryant/Catamount trail is the backbone for the area.  Simply looping around Bryant Cabin onto Gardiner’s Lane/North Slope will give quick access to all the glades that descend from there (see the map I attached), and it makes for very convenient laps.  The map I attached shows some of the most popular marked glades in yellow.  There are of course many more glades that aren’t marked on the map, and beyond that you can simply explore and ski wherever you want and have fun turns where the forest is naturally open enough on its own.
For more reference on the area, I’ve got dozens and dozens of trip reports with Google Earth maps on the backcountry page of our website:
http://jandeproductions.com/backcountry/
736453211_BoltonValleyNordicBackcountryMap13-14.thumb.jpg.218adaec0a50f49cb86fbd0772e43958.jpg

Thanks for the information J.Spin. Sorry for delayed response. Not much service up at ADK camp. I was up there Sunday and rented a split board and skinned up toward paradise valley section. I spent the morning doing a long hike and downhill then a few shorter sections. Very fun skinning uphill. First time got me. Way better than snowshoes with board on backpack. Bolton services were great and the terrain was beautiful. Learning curve for sure but I really enjoyed the experience and company of folks I met hiking up. Will be back for sure.


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A bit of an interesting situation today.  I'm not going to post in the Feb obs thread as this  will not affect SNE.

37.3/25F  We should start off as snow but how fast it mixes and turns to freezing rain or rain is the question.  GFS gives me 1/2" of liquid

Snow cover is getting thinner.  Lots of people will be snowmobiling this weekend if we can retain this cover.  Hopefully this storm will be net neutral but the pattern doesn't look good.  I was hoping that we could get that Southern system up here but the models are not really budging.  

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