Here’s an update from Bolton Valley/Waterbury today – it was certainly another powder day in Northern Vermont as others have mentioned. Down in Waterbury (elevation 495’), we picked up 0.3 inches of additional snow during the day to add on to the 2.5 that fell last night, bringing us to 4.9 inches for the past several days. We’ve sort of been ignoring the driveway as we’ve had just a little snow each day, but now it’s to the point that it needs a clearing. Up in the Bolton Valley Village parking areas (elevation ~2,150’) this morning, there were just a few inches of fluffy powder atop the consolidated stuff from plowing the lots (the resort reported 3 more inches overnight). We started the day off at the Snowflake Lift, and even though we didn’t take our first run until about 9:30 A.M., E and Ty got first tracks down Snowflake Bentley. It still blows me away that trails are still just sitting there 90 minutes after opening bell on a Saturday. Anyway, the Snowflake trails skied pretty nicely with about 3 to 4 inches of powder over a groomed base. The powder was fairly light stuff (6-8% H2O) although I’m not sure what went on with the grooming process because the groomed surface underneath wasn’t as soft as usual. I was wondering where all the snow from the past several days had gone, because by that point I hadn’t left the trails. Then, we took a run through the trees from near the top of Snowflake and I realized where it was. As we entered from the edge of the trail I checked the depth of the new powder and found a good 6 to 10 inches, and once we got into the trees there was easily a foot. It was very nice stuff and made for great powder skiing. The steep, wind-exposed trails near the summit still need a resurfacing storm, but all the trees I saw up near the top of the Wilderness area, even the steeper stuff seemed to be up to full speed. It was still snowing on the mountain when we arrived, but the sun was out for much of the middle of the day and there wasn’t any wind to speak of. However, there seemed to be a large temperature gradient from the base to summit areas. The upper half of Wilderness felt kind of cold, although in the village when I got in the car at around 2:00 P.M. the thermometer was reading 29 F. Down at the house the thermometer recorded a high temperature of 29.8 F today. I was bracing myself for a change of pace tonight if we didn’t receive our nightly coating of snow down here, but it looks like the NWS has us down for yet another shot. It doesn’t look like too much moisture is projected to come through here, but who knows how the mountains will do – there’s already a big slug of snow visible on the Northeast radar that looks like it’s heading toward Vermont.
J.Spin