Bolton Valley, Vermont - April 11th, 2007


This report starts off with several weather updates pertaining to the "Easter Snowstorm" that hit Northern New England from April 4th-10th, 2007, followed by the Bolton Valley ski trip report from April 11th.

After my powder Thursday at Bolton Valley, the "Easter Storm" had already delivered up to 16 inches of new snow at some of the local ski areas. However, Mother Nature was nowhere near being done with the snowfall from the event. The next morning (Friday) I checked the snowboard, and while there was only a little new snow accumulation, the temperature had dipped well below freezing even at our low elevation. The snow started to get fluffier, and the accumulations at the ski areas continued on:

The snow accumulations were pretty minor at all elevations throughout the day on Friday. We picked up less than an inch of snow in the valley by the time I took my evening weather observations, and the ski areas seemed to make just minimal gains.

Our plan was to head down to Massachusetts for part of the Easter weekend to visit family, with a Saturday morning departure on the schedule. However, with the way the "Easter Storm" was still spinning, Ty and I planned to go skiing if there was going to be a lot of fresh powder up at Bolton. We'd then head to Massachusetts later in the day. I'm not sure what my powder rule would have been for the day, but Bolton didn't report much of an overnight accumulation, so I didn't have to struggle with that decision. I can't recall exactly what Bolton reported that morning (maybe an inch or so), but the lower elevation Jay Peak and Smuggler's stations recorded just traces of snow in the A.M., Jay Peak Resort recorded 2-3 inches of accumulation for the day according to their snowfall tracker, and the Mt. Mansfield Stake recorded 1.0 inches of new snow at the end of the day. From the reports I heard, it sounded like a decent day of skiing on the slopes, but with only minor accumulations, it was an easy decision to leave town in the morning. Actually, with all the recent snowfall but not much fresh snow for the day at the ski areas, it would have been a prime day for some backcountry skiing if we didn't have anything else to do. Before leaving town, I took a snowboard reading, and consistent with the ski area accumulations, we'd only received a couple tenths of an inch at our elevation:

The next morning, although I couldn't monitor the snowfall accumulation at our house in Waterbury while I was in Southern New England (I need to get an automated web weather station hooked up at some point), I could at least monitor the accumulations at the ski areas through their web pages. So, I updated the running ski area totals that I'd been keeping for the storm:

It looked like most places had picked up about a half a foot of new snow, so Sunday seemed to be the pick of the weekend. Although not a mega powder morning, I'm sure it would have been nice to get out on the slopes. Even without a huge new accumulation, so much recent snowfall would have meant that all surfaces were pretty soft. We spent much of Easter Sunday day down in Rhode Island at E's sister's place, and it was quite a different world from what we'd left up in Vermont. There was no snow on the ground that far south of course, and the temperature was probably in the 50s F. E's sister does have a trampoline though, so even though we weren't able to ski, we got to practice some flips and spins.

We headed back to Vermont later in the day, and of course I had no clue what had been going on at the house in terms of snowfall. I knew the mountains had received some snow, but we were totally surprised to come back to the house and find that we had our own accumulation of the white stuff. A few hours earlier, I'd been jumping around on an outdoor trampoline in spring temperatures, and now I needed to get to shoveling out the driveway. It was quite a transition. I took an evening reading off the snowboard before heading to bed, and updated the snowfall totals using the ski area's evening reports:

With the end of their season, Mad River had stopped recording snowfall as of Sunday morning; they hadn't even recorded an afternoon update. So, Mad River's snowfall for the storm had stopped at only 20 inches, and that was it for them. Bolton Valley was closing as well, although they did take a snowfall reading at the end of their last day of operation, leaving them at 36 inches for the storm, and 301 inches for the season.

We didn't pick up much snow in the valley that night, but the ski areas continued to get hammered. Sugarbush appeared to catch the best upslope that evening, making a huge jump from 31 inches to 45 inches, and moving to the head of the pack for storm accumulations.

Now that I was back in town, I certainly wanted to get in some skiing on the new snow. But, I did have a bunch of work to do, so I decided that if I was going to get out, I might as well do it on a sunny day. I then waited for the storm to finish up. By Tuesday, the storm was finally wrapping up and moving away further to the northeast, so I took my final snowfall observations for the event. We wound up with 13.1 inches in Waterbury (our third biggest snowfall event of the season), and the ski areas were pushing four feet of accumulation:

If I was going to get in my sunny ski day, Wednesday looked to be the one. Another monster storm was on the way starting Wednesday night, and the clouds would be moving in ahead of it. My plan was to start skinning at Bolton's main base area to maximize my elevation. I knew the sun would be working on the new snow, and the higher elevations would stand the best chance of keeping cool enough to preserve the powder.

There was no real snow accumulation at the base of the Bolton Valley Access Road (elevation 340') when I headed up Wednesday morning, but continuous snow coverage started somewhere around 1,000'. Up at the village area (elevation ~2,150') the temperature was 30 degrees F, and the April sun was shining brightly. Despite feeling like such a prime day for skiing, the village was eerily quiet in its seasonal transition state. The only people I saw were a few guys that were working on the chair lifts. I took my usual skinning route up Sprig O' Pine and over to Mid Mountain. I looked to the north and saw a very nice view of Bolton Mountain with one of the Mid-Mountain shacks in the foreground, so I took a quick side trip from my tour to get some photographs. Birds were out in force again like I'd experienced the previous Thursday, to remind me that it was actually spring. On the upper mountain, I debated between taking the mellow route up Sherman's Pass, or the more direct route up the much steeper Schuss trail. I ended up choosing Schuss, because although I think it's a bit too steep and narrow for comfortable skinning, it's so short that it seems to be worth it. Looping around on Sherman's Pass just seems a little too much of a trade off when time is limited, although I suspect it's enjoyable when you have time to integrate it into your tour.

I had a pretty good sense of the state of the snowpack by that point. The sun had already worked on the recent snowfall, and any of the powder that wasn't protected by trees or exposure had mostly settled. There must have been at least some sunshine the previous day to accomplish part of the consolidation, because for Bolton's western-facing slopes, it looked the snow had settled much more than I expected from just a few hours of morning sunshine. Another clue to the mountain's weather history was that there were a couple of fluffy inches of powder on top of the consolidated snow. It seemed like those inches had fallen after the consolidation of the snow beneath. With the resort closed and the absence of any snow report for snowfall and temperature history, I had to go with what I saw on the ground. In terms of powder skiing at least, shaded areas held plenty of promise. The shaded areas I examined had plenty of deep, fluffy snow, so I knew I'd be seeking out some trees or other protected terrain for at least some of my turns.

Once I'd finished my ascent of Schuss, I had to decide where I wanted to go to look for powder. I actually wanted to check out Cobrass, and even though it may not have had the best exposure, there were some low angle trees that I wanted to check out above Mid Mountain. I finished my ascent on Sherman's Pass, and stopped atop Cobrass to remove my skins and get ready for the descent. In a shaded area atop Cobrass, I stuck my measurement ski pole in the snow, and it went down to about 18 inches before I hit anything substantially firm. That depth of unconsolidated snow wasn't representative of what was on the exposed areas of the trail of course, but it gave me an idea of what to expect in the trees.

The sun was out and the wind was light, and after so many days of snowfall, it was a great day to be out on the slopes. I made turns down Cobrass, and while the snow on the trail wasn't very loose or light aside from the coating on top, the skiing wasn't difficult. I was personally feeling a little logy on the width of my CMH skis, but I don't think it was the snow's fault. Once I got down to the intersection with Cobrass Lane, I followed it for a bit, and then headed left into the trees to sample some of the sheltered snow. The trees below Cobrass Lane are pretty open, and they let you have a bit of a continuation of the Devil's Playground terrain from above if you want to. The powder in the trees was deep and light like I'd found in other sheltered areas. I popped out of the trees and found some more protected powder on the skier's left of Deer Run. Once I got to Sprig O' Pine, I decided to make a quick traverse over to the terrain below the Snowflake Lift. There's a little more pitch there compared to following Sprig O Pine out to the base area, and it's a route I'd not yet taken on one of my tours. I descended along the skier's left of the Snowflake Lift Line, and actually found some pretty decent snow in which to put down some tracks. I even got to ski the bottom portion of the lift line that is closed when the lift is running, and there was some shaded snow there that was a real treat. Several guys appeared to be doing maintenance on the bottom station of the Snowflake Lift, and one of them razzed me about skiing a closed section of the trail ;).

Overall, it was a great morning outing. The Avocet recorded my descent as 1,075', and the Suunto recorded it as 1,056', for a difference of 1.8%. Even though I didn't get to make 100% of my turns in fluffy powder, it was nice to be out in the sun. With the next big storm knocking on the door, it would probably be a few days before there would be significant sunshine again. Of course, a little lack of sunshine is a small price to pay for a lot of fresh snow, and with the growing intensity of the April sun, shade from clouds is good for preserving powder. I later found out that Scott Braaten had been up at Bolton that Wednesday as well, although I think our timing and locations were slightly different. He toured out of the Timberline area, and seemed to be on the mountain a little later in the day.

J.Spin