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Bolton Valley, VT 4/5/2009

J.Spin

New member
Joined
Oct 26, 2006
Messages
112
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Location
Waterbury, VT
Website
JandEproductions.com
Date(s) Skied: April 5th, 2009

Resort or Ski Area: Bolton Valley, VT

Conditions: 7 to 10 inches of new snow above 2,500', about 5 inches at 2,000', 3 to 5 inches in the 1,500' range; the new snow was fairly dense, and wind affected at higher elevations.

Trip Report: Our weekend storm system looked like it had the potential to deliver another round of powder to the Green Mountains, but since the snowfall was going to be quite elevation dependent, it was going to be harder than usual to monitor it from the valley floor. As Saturday evening approached, I considered popping up to the mountain for a look at where the snow line was located and how accumulations were coming along, but the good folks at SkiVT-L were already on top of things. Scott Braaten had driven up to Bolton Valley in the early afternoon and indicated that the snow line was around 1,000’, with about an inch of accumulation in the village (2,100’). Dave had been thinking of coming up from Boston for some turns if it was going to be worth it, and while I told him Saturday didn’t appear to be anything worth driving for, Sunday held promise for a great day. Thanks to Scott’s early report on the snow level, and the Burlington composite radar showing a continuous stream of moisture crashing into the spine of the Greens, by late afternoon I felt confident that we’d have enough snow to warrant Dave making the trip and I gave him the word. Later that evening at around 10:00 P.M., Andrew Snow sent in another Bolton Valley snowfall report indicating a snow line at roughly the same level as what Scott had seen, but the accumulation in the village was up to 3 inches at that point. Down in the valley at our location (495’) snow had started to mix in with the rain at around 9:30 P.M., but the temperature was dropping slowly and the precipitation was still just a mix by the time I headed off to bed at some point after 11:00 P.M. Nonetheless, the radar continued to show plenty of moisture coming into the mountains and things were looking good for a powder day on Sunday.

In the morning I woke up to find that snow was just starting to accumulate in the valley, but early resort reports revealed that some of the mountains had already received more than a half foot of fresh with ongoing snowfall. The feed of moisture coming into the mountains was still visible on the radar and looked like it hadn’t skipped a beat all night.

With the Timberline quad no longer running for the season, we decided to take advantage of that fact and spotted Dave’s car down at the Timberline base on our way up to the village. We were hoping to cash in with some additional fresh tracks on our last run of the day. It was still snowing and blowing up on the main mountain as we started our day, and we made a couple runs off the Mid Mountain lift while the operators continued to monitor the Vista Quad in the winds. As I’d expected, the new snow was fairly dense (comprised of needles) like the Monday/Tuesday snowfall, but this storm had more wind so the powder wasn’t quite the quality of Tuesday morning. It took a bit more work to negotiate powder turns with the wind-affected snow, but the skiing was good.

We met up with Stephen and his posse of kids later in the morning and we quickly had quite a collection of little skiers willing to follow us through the powder. Plenty of face plants were managed, but the kids seemed to enjoy crashing in the powder as much as anything. The Snowflake Lift wasn’t running, but only the terrain park was closed off so we brought the kids over for some first tracks down Snowflake Bentley and they had a lot of fun tackling the fresh snow. The mountain had reported 7 inches of new snow in their early morning update, but I was often finding 8 to 10 inches of accumulation in undisturbed areas at the mid mountain elevations.

In the afternoon we took a break to watch some of the pond skimming from the accessible portion of the terrain park, and Ty, Dave, and I used Foxy to grab some additional first tracks on our way to a viewing spot above the pond. After taking in a bunch of the pond skimming, Ty, Dave and I hiked over to Timberline for a final run of untracked snow. Apparently due to a rather lengthy day of battling the powder, Dylan seemed a little too tired to make the trek to the Timberline Summit (and probably too tired to handle the skiing) so E took him down to Timberline in the car.

The hike over to the Timberline Summit area went pretty quickly, and although Ty brought up the rear, he seemed to be in good spirits and still had good stamina after a fairly long day on his Telemark skis. The Intro trail had been a bit blasted by the wind, but below the mid station the snow was more protected. We descended on Spell Binder as it didn’t have any tracks, and there were some great turns made even though the snow was gradually becoming more and more dense as we descended. Below 2,000’ the snow was certainly getting wetter, and I think some of the natural snow trails down there must have had a lot of bare areas before the storm. I’m sure we’ll make more use of early and late season Timberline turns now that Ty can easily do the hike over there, and it shouldn’t be too long before Dylan will be able to do it even after a day of skiing.

In terms of our current storm, it looks like the local mountains were getting into the snow as early as yesterday afternoon and it looks to continue. As of this afternoon we’ve got snow starting to fall in the valleys as well, and as of today’s report from the Mt. Mansfield stake, the snowpack is at 88 inches, which is actually the highest it’s been this season.

Some pictures from Sunday have been added below:

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J.Spin
 

laxski

New member
Joined
Mar 23, 2007
Messages
51
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J.Spin do you work at U.V.M saw on eastern weather you mentioned you were at the school. Daughter is showing interest in going there any info greatly appreciated. The trip report and photos were awesome keep them coming heading to Mt. Snow this weekend. Was at Stowe at Christmas wanted to ski Bolton but weather was rainy.
 
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