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NNE Cold Season Thread 2024-2025


bwt3650
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Yeah it’s not warm.  It’s not really unusual for January in the north, but it’s still something you don’t want to be stuck out in.
Stowe Mountain Rescue had a long one yesterday in the Notch.  Three teens wandered off Spruce at the end of the day and got cliffed out.  Then it got dark and very cold.
SMR did a high angle rope rescue and got them down to the road at like 11:30pm.
This crew are certified badasses.
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That’s some life or death stuff right there…those guys don’t get nearly the credit they deserve.


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On 1/19/2025 at 8:22 PM, borderwx said:

Good living J! It has been a great week to be a skier in N VT.

There’s no doubt about that – I skied at both ends of the Northern Greens over the long weekend, and the off-piste conditions are excellent, just like you’d expect them to be at this time of year. Over the past couple of weeks I’ve found that the balance of snow accumulations and settling is generally yielding powder depths of 1 to 2 feet, and base depths at elevation are 40 inches or so. Snowpack at the Mt. Mansfield Stake is at 56 inches, which is only a foot above average, but the consistent snowfall and cold temperatures have kept the conditions in prime form.

January’s snowfall has been decent thus far, helping to keep us on the high side of average pace as the updated plot for our site shows below. It looks like snowfall slows down a bit over the next couple of days, but the GFS has more of northern stream bread and butter look with Clippers as we head into the weekend and on into next week.

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Tues and weds morning lows hit-23 to -25, this morning we didn't radiate efficiently due to cloud cover. I love how the body adjusts to cold weather. It was 5 degrees last night when I took the dog out before bed. We were outside for almost 30 mins and I didn't wear a hat or mittens. It was so much "warmer" than the 2 prior nights where it was -12 when I took the dog out. But before this cold snap, 5 degrees felt like Antarctica

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15 minutes ago, tamarack said:

Only -4 this morning after -14 and -15 lows.  Last evening looked to be headed for another minus-teens morning until the clouds arrived.  At 8:15 it was -6 here then popped up to zero by 8:30 and was locked into that temp thru 11 PM.

I just missed below zero this morning, my low was 2, last two nights were -4 and -5, decent stretch of cold. Looks like we still have cold although not as extreme for a while. Winter in winter.

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I’m casting a ballot for the best ski season in a couple years. Nice way to get back out for the day after a couple chilly ones.

Our low was -14, no real wind though, took a few for the burn to really set in on the face

Woke up to 8F. A dusting. Mountain had 5” of dust. Super beautiful in the sun light throughout the whole day.

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This cold seems to have the mountains way ahead of snow making schedule.  I know Jay has pretty much finished every trail they would blow, and has started going for round 2 on a few.  I would think the only hang up is for a trail like the jet that you want to go into may with, you would probably want to do the second round in late Feb, not late Jan.  But should have some great depths heading into spring this year.

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On 1/22/2025 at 12:34 PM, DavisStraight said:

Looks you guys will get the snow machine turned on again in a few days.

 

19 hours ago, bwt3650 said:

Snowy week incoming…northern greens should clean up with the upslope machine back in action big time…

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It’s nice to see January snowfall picking back up, in a month that has actually been pretty solid for snow anyway. It wasn’t until the 21st of the month that we even had our first day without snowfall, and thanks to the resumption of the northern stream systems coming through and some tapping of Lake Ontario moisture, Tuesday through Thursday this week have been the only days so far this month without new snow.

Yesterday’s system seemed to be the first in this upcoming stretch, and a quick look at the GFS (and other modes are similar, which gives more confidence) suggests the following timing for storms:

1 Yesterday’s shortwave

2 Tomorrow into Monday

3 Tuesday

4 Wednesday/Thursday

The latter ones look a bit more robust, so we’ll see if the track/modeling changes and what the mountains do with them.

Whatever happens with snowfall for the rest of the January, it’s gravy from a monthly standpoint. We’d already attained average snowfall by mid-month, and the snow surfaces/snowpack are in decent shape, so these potential snows are just what’s needed to continue to build the snowpack and freshen things up.

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The pace of snowfall slowed down a bit over the past few days here in the Northern Greens, so heading into the backcountry seemed like today’s call for good access to untracked powder. It was a sunny midwinter day, so my my wife and I went snowshoeing in Morrisville in the morning, but I had time to head up to the Bolton Valley area in the afternoon for some ski touring.

I haven’t really done any ski touring west of the Bryant Trail yet this season, so I decided to head out to the Prayer Flag area on today’s tour. Although the main lines of Prayer Flag had seen a decent amount of skier traffic, the natural glades surrounding the area were nearly untracked. As Prayer Flag began to narrow and dive down to Brook Run, I traversed to the right through the trees toward the Holden’s Hollow Glades. The main lines there were well tracked as I’d expected, so I continued on into the surrounding trees to finish my run down to the Joiner Brook bridge. I felt like extending my tour a bit, so I skinned back up and did a run down the Cup Runneth Over glade before heading back to the car.

Although we didn’t get a ton of new snow this week, what we did get over the past couple of days was incredibly dry, so it topped off the existing powder quite well. We’ve also had the type of cold, dry weather this week that has allowed the powder to settle and dry to enhance its right-side-up density gradient and improve with age. The quality of the powder out there today was excellent, and the density gradient was such that it skied well on any pitch. In terms of depths, my measurements at the 2,000’ level revealed 17 to 18 inches above the subsurface, and at 2,400’ I found 22 to 24 inches of depth. In general I found that the main lines of most glades had seen a decent amount of skier traffic, and that’s not surprising without much fresh snow this week, but snow is in the forecast in the coming days to hopefully help reset the powder in those areas.

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Got out in the woods around Worcester and Middlesex to work on some snowmobile bridges. Seemed like 10”-14” on the ground. This was between 800’-1100’. It was more snow otg than I was expecting. I only have around 6” at my house. The river was full of ice too. Normal temps up here are pretty cold. The last couple of years has made us weak. 

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A cold front moved through the area in the late morning period today, and whiteout conditions were encountered in numerous spots. With snow moving back into the area over the past couple of days, Bolton Valley was reporting an additional 2 to 3 inches in their 24-hour total, and my liquid analyses from down at the house indicated that it was indeed very dry snow – down around 2% H2O. This isn’t the kind of snow that is going to quickly build the snowpack, but it is the kind of snow that compliments the powder that is already in place. And the mountain snowpack is doing fine for this time of year anyway – as of today’s report, the snow depth at the Mt. Mansfield Stake is almost 60 inches.

My ski tour from yesterday revealed that the powder out there is in absolutely fantastic shape, so I decided to head out for another tour today. Temperatures were up today – well up into the 20s F in the mountains, but the wind had picked up as well. Skies were cloudy as the snow pulled out but quickly shifted to partly cloudy conditions with bright sun at times.

I toured on the west side of the Bolton Valley Nordic & Backcountry Network yesterday through elevations in roughly the 2,000’-2,400’ range, but today I toured on some of the more traditional Bryant Trail terrain and topped out around 2,800’. I toured up and around Bryant Cabin, then continued on up to the Not a Trail traverse and descended from there. I hit the Gun Sight area, which I’d yet to visit this season, and then continued my descent through a collection of lower-elevation glades. Similar to yesterday, the main lines of most glades have seen plenty of skier traffic, but all you have to do is head off into the surrounding trees and the snow is untracked and bottomless. Even in the dense evergreen areas the snowpack is deep – it was at least 30 to 40 inches when I checked at the 2,800’ level, but I can’t tell if I was actually probing all the way down to ground level.

Today must not have been as busy at the resort as yesterday, because when I headed up the afternoon there was no sign at Timberline about the upper parking areas being full. Bolton has definitely been checking people’s passes for Nordic & Backcountry Network access this weekend. Yesterday on my way up the Bryant Trail I had to show a patroller my pass, and today they had an employee stationed at the Nordic Hut at the base of the Bryant Trail. I showed her my pass, but she wanted me to get one of the new blue arm bands that the resort is requiring for trail network use this season. I’d read about the arm bands on the resort’s website but hadn’t seen them in practice. It looks like they’re fully implementing them now, but now that I’ve picked mine up, it’s good for the whole season. In the Nordic & Backcountry Center they said that you can just keep it on your backcountry pack, since people are finding them a bit small to go on the arm. I was planning to visit the Nordic & Backcountry Center anyway, because I wanted to check out its new location. It’s moved from down at Ralph’s Rec Center to one of the buildings on the west side of the Village Circle. This is a better location with respect to backcountry access, especially for those using the Wilderness Uphill Route since it’s so close, but it seems to be a little less convenient for Nordic skiers that might be starting out on the Broadway Trail.

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1 hour ago, #NoPoles said:

WWA hoisted, 3-5

I see that there are a bunch of Winter Weather Advisories and Winter Storm Warnings up around the area. The point forecast here suggests 4-8”, with a bit more for the local mountains, and as much as 7-15” in the southern part of the state. That seems generally in line although perhaps slightly above the look of the Event Total Snowfall Map around here, but the BTV NWS forecast discussion does indicate that they expect locally 6-9” in parts of the Green Mountains. BTV NWS maps are below:

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I didn’t see any major changes in the BTV NWS advisories map as of the overnight update, but it looks like they did bump up the Event Total Snowfall map a bit to have a more extensive area of the 6-8” shading here along the spine of the Greens. That seems a bit more in line with the associated point forecasts they have for those areas.

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