J.Spin
New member
Date(s) Skied: Saturday, January 24th, 2009
Resort or Ski Area: Bolton Valley, VT
Conditions: Powder, Packed Powder
Trip Report: Here’s an update from yesterday at Bolton Valley. The mountain was reporting 18 inches of new snow for the week, which isn’t a ton of snow compared to weeks where a big storm and upslope event comes through along with the usual smaller snowfalls, but it’s pretty good considering that our pattern has been fairly dry. Their weekly snow total was certainly helped out by the 8 inches the picked up from the Thursday event. Yesterday morning I found 0.9 inches of new snow on the snowboard at the house (495’) and the mountain was reporting 3 inches overnight as well, so it looked like that would be nice for freshening up the slopes for the day. I also noted that the air temperature at the house was 19.9 F when I took my 6:00 A.M, snow observations, and by the time we were heading up to the mountain around 9:00 A.M. or so, it was down to 10 F. Up at the mountain at the Timberline base (~1,500’) the temperature was 8 F. We knew that the snow surfaces were going to be excellent based on the recent snows and continued below freezing temperatures, but the cold air coming in had the potential to put a damper on the day. The temperatures were actually supposed to continue to fall throughout the day, and if there was much wind with the single digit temperatures, we didn’t think we stick around long for skiing.
We kicked things off with a couple runs from the Timberline mid station, staying low in elevation to keep out of any wind or colder temperatures. As it turned out, there wasn’t too much in the way of wind at those elevations (~1,500’-2,250’) although we were hearing horror stories about the wind and cold from people that had come over from the higher elevations of the main mountain. After a couple of runs Dylan was ready for a break, and all of us were a bit cold (I know that E and I had cold toes) so we headed into the lodge for an early lunch. After lunch we went out for a couple more runs, and with the sun coming around to hit the slopes harder, it was noticeably warmer although I suspect the air temperature in the shade didn’t rise. We even hit the Timberline summit area on one of our runs, and there was a bit more wind up there, but nothing more than about 15 MPH. Ty and I split up from E and Dylan on that run, and by the time we got down to the base area it was feeling much warmer and I was ready for more runs. My toes weren’t even getting cold at all, so the sun seemed to be helping. Everyone else wanted to take a break though, so we hit the lodge again. We noticed that Ty’s cheeks looked like there were bordering on getting some frost nip, so we stuck inside for a while to see how they were doing. Once they were looking good, Ty and I headed back out.
We accomplished a lot in that next run and it was our highlight of the day. We found a route to a new line we wanted to check out in the Wood’s Hole area, dropped into the Wood’s Hole glades that I’ve been wanting to hit for a couple of seasons, and even managed to ski the bottom part of Spell Binder where we’d seen a lot of good snow. It felt like three runs in one, which was pretty amazing for a mid station run. Ty even discovered some cool snow rollers along the side of Spell Binder, which I’m guessing arose when Temperatures got up close to freezing toward the end of the week. We were feeling warm and raring to go for another run after that great experience, but the afternoon was getting on and I think the general consensus was that we should get going. Both the boys had good outings, with Dylan making lots of turns in the good snow and venturing comfortably into the powder, and Ty really stepping up his Telemark skiing by holding some lower stances and working on his powder technique.
In general, conditions are outrageous in the untracked trees and glades, even on the lower elevations of the resort; I probed in the Wood’s Hole glades with my measurement pole and found 15-20 inches of powder throughout the undisturbed areas. That’s far deeper than anyone will sink on skis, but the bottom line is that it’s bottomless out there with plenty of base except for a few areas that were hit with wind. The powder stack is topped off with some excellent champagne, and the whole concoction skis effortlessly. Poor Twice as Nice is still not back to its usual form from when it got hit by the wind, and you still have to look out for rocks and such in some areas. They apparently didn’t make snow on the whole trail, but it was sufficient for opening. I believe the mountain is 100% open except for the race that they are having today on Showtime.
It was 6 F when we left the mountain at around 3:00 P.M., so the temperature really hadn’t dropped much since the beginning of the day. Perhaps the sun helped to keep the temperature up. I wasn’t planning on skiing with Dylan today due to the temperatures, but Ty and E are off skiing at Stowe for the afternoon. It initially sounded like today was going to be the colder of the weekend, with highs not getting above 0 F, but when E checked on the Stowe temperatures she found that they were reporting 12 F at the base. That shouldn’t be too bad if there isn’t any wind.
A few pictures from yesterday are attached below:
J.Spin
Resort or Ski Area: Bolton Valley, VT
Conditions: Powder, Packed Powder
Trip Report: Here’s an update from yesterday at Bolton Valley. The mountain was reporting 18 inches of new snow for the week, which isn’t a ton of snow compared to weeks where a big storm and upslope event comes through along with the usual smaller snowfalls, but it’s pretty good considering that our pattern has been fairly dry. Their weekly snow total was certainly helped out by the 8 inches the picked up from the Thursday event. Yesterday morning I found 0.9 inches of new snow on the snowboard at the house (495’) and the mountain was reporting 3 inches overnight as well, so it looked like that would be nice for freshening up the slopes for the day. I also noted that the air temperature at the house was 19.9 F when I took my 6:00 A.M, snow observations, and by the time we were heading up to the mountain around 9:00 A.M. or so, it was down to 10 F. Up at the mountain at the Timberline base (~1,500’) the temperature was 8 F. We knew that the snow surfaces were going to be excellent based on the recent snows and continued below freezing temperatures, but the cold air coming in had the potential to put a damper on the day. The temperatures were actually supposed to continue to fall throughout the day, and if there was much wind with the single digit temperatures, we didn’t think we stick around long for skiing.
We kicked things off with a couple runs from the Timberline mid station, staying low in elevation to keep out of any wind or colder temperatures. As it turned out, there wasn’t too much in the way of wind at those elevations (~1,500’-2,250’) although we were hearing horror stories about the wind and cold from people that had come over from the higher elevations of the main mountain. After a couple of runs Dylan was ready for a break, and all of us were a bit cold (I know that E and I had cold toes) so we headed into the lodge for an early lunch. After lunch we went out for a couple more runs, and with the sun coming around to hit the slopes harder, it was noticeably warmer although I suspect the air temperature in the shade didn’t rise. We even hit the Timberline summit area on one of our runs, and there was a bit more wind up there, but nothing more than about 15 MPH. Ty and I split up from E and Dylan on that run, and by the time we got down to the base area it was feeling much warmer and I was ready for more runs. My toes weren’t even getting cold at all, so the sun seemed to be helping. Everyone else wanted to take a break though, so we hit the lodge again. We noticed that Ty’s cheeks looked like there were bordering on getting some frost nip, so we stuck inside for a while to see how they were doing. Once they were looking good, Ty and I headed back out.
We accomplished a lot in that next run and it was our highlight of the day. We found a route to a new line we wanted to check out in the Wood’s Hole area, dropped into the Wood’s Hole glades that I’ve been wanting to hit for a couple of seasons, and even managed to ski the bottom part of Spell Binder where we’d seen a lot of good snow. It felt like three runs in one, which was pretty amazing for a mid station run. Ty even discovered some cool snow rollers along the side of Spell Binder, which I’m guessing arose when Temperatures got up close to freezing toward the end of the week. We were feeling warm and raring to go for another run after that great experience, but the afternoon was getting on and I think the general consensus was that we should get going. Both the boys had good outings, with Dylan making lots of turns in the good snow and venturing comfortably into the powder, and Ty really stepping up his Telemark skiing by holding some lower stances and working on his powder technique.
In general, conditions are outrageous in the untracked trees and glades, even on the lower elevations of the resort; I probed in the Wood’s Hole glades with my measurement pole and found 15-20 inches of powder throughout the undisturbed areas. That’s far deeper than anyone will sink on skis, but the bottom line is that it’s bottomless out there with plenty of base except for a few areas that were hit with wind. The powder stack is topped off with some excellent champagne, and the whole concoction skis effortlessly. Poor Twice as Nice is still not back to its usual form from when it got hit by the wind, and you still have to look out for rocks and such in some areas. They apparently didn’t make snow on the whole trail, but it was sufficient for opening. I believe the mountain is 100% open except for the race that they are having today on Showtime.
It was 6 F when we left the mountain at around 3:00 P.M., so the temperature really hadn’t dropped much since the beginning of the day. Perhaps the sun helped to keep the temperature up. I wasn’t planning on skiing with Dylan today due to the temperatures, but Ty and E are off skiing at Stowe for the afternoon. It initially sounded like today was going to be the colder of the weekend, with highs not getting above 0 F, but when E checked on the Stowe temperatures she found that they were reporting 12 F at the base. That shouldn’t be too bad if there isn’t any wind.
A few pictures from yesterday are attached below:
J.Spin
