Stowe and Bolton Valley 2022-2023

[echo_VT]

Spouse is skiing at Gunstock today with colleagues. He says it’s wet and heavy but the skiing is great.

I just came back from Stowe. I taught a morning lesson to visitors from Florida.

we found If it was groomed later it’s good... powdery. If it was groomed earlier the first few inches are slow and sludgy due to warmth, but on top it’s fluffy soft and blower snow. Just have to be mindful of whats underneath. Bumps, there is so much new snow, nothing to scrape underneath, soft whole way thru.

when I parked my car in the lot not much snow. I came to my car at 1 pm and there was over 6 inches on my car. So I’m estimating 2 inches per hour. Weird bc I saw that for Killington not Stowe. It would pile up on top of us as we were on the lift.

I came home. I was supposed to clinic but the kid I taught on Sunday, I’m fairly certain I’m now sick bc of him. Same cough, body chills and aches. It doesn’t help I fell on pavement this morning clearing snow.

took Covid test… it’s not Covid … enjoy for you healthy folks!

 

[shadoj]

Feel better, @echo_VT ! Glad you're getting more snow for spring season.

 

[echo_VT]

Thank you @shadoj ! Yeah we’re thrilled we’re finally seeing winter show up with freshies and refills of said freshies!

I’m better today but still not well enough to head to the hill. I suspect maybe tomorrow or Friday things will turn around. I am besides otherwise engaged with a car appointment! So just reading a book on the couch here while the snow dumps all around us!

I know my colleagues are out and about getting some fresh turns. I’m happy for everyone. I feel like we’ve been starved for snow and we got it now.

I imagine the chin has to be spectacular

 

[echo_VT]

I did get to go out for some turns today. My daughter has ski program for the last 3 Fridays so I thought it might be worth it to get some last training days in. So I prepped her stuff and picked her up and we went to the hill. There, I dropped off her GS skis for tuning for the race, and dropped her off to train on her slalom skis.

My ski instructor friend was out with her snowboard. I thought I was meeting her to ski. So I ended up doing a run on nose dive on skis thinking I'd meet her there. We had some snow at the hill, everywhere else it started to rain around 12 noon. The run was pretty good at the top. I worked on rotation and outside ski in short radius turns. I think they felt pretty good!

But since the conditions were warm, and the snow was feeling sludgy at mid mountain to the bottom. I met her at the bottom of the gondola, and she was on her snowboard! What! I had no idea she snowboarded.

So I asked her if I should change to my snowboard, she said yes. I went to the locker room, changed to the snowboard and up we went on the gondola.

We did one run off the gondola, perry merrell. It's a good sessioning/teaching slope, pretty consistent pitch with some undulations to make it interesting.

We talked a little bit about L1 on the snowboard and what might be required. I did say I thought she could benefit from teaching on the snowboard. We tried some switch turns in the flats, and we worked on regular turns otherwise. She took my instruction like the pro she is and put it to work.

The tips I gave her were body position on her toe side, as well as closing her joints so front shoulder stacked over front leg's hip, stacked over front leg's knee, stacked over front leg's ankle. Her turns were already pretty good, but I gave her some things to work on due to back foot steering and the turns which were a touch too open.

We then headed over to spruce, and did a run on upper meadows (blue) and lower meadows to try switch. It's a little hard to try switch there so I recommended she try switch turns on Inspiration.

I left her to it, and went back to get a rice ball and milk tea, and then I went back to the locker room change to then pick up my daughter from program. She said they had a good training day and she ran gates. At the end of it, at 4 pm, we dropped off her slalom skis and picked up her GS skis for the race tomorrow.

Tomorrow I will snowboard at Smuggs while she's at the race! This should be fun!

 

[echo_VT]

Worked a race today! nice grippable firm conditions this morning, then it got mushy around 10:15 am as the sun was beating down. It turned into a cloud cover and flurries for the afternoon which I think helped! Now it's back to sun.

 

[echo_VT]

Conditions were great this morning and got less firm throughout the day. The stickiness was definitely grabbing and the surface was slow. I should have waxed beforehand!

 

[echo_VT]

Still plenty of snow in the woods so we did woods runs. We also did some gondola runs and hit some side hits and there was a chute as well. I worked on 1s, 3s, tripods, toe to toe 180s. Jumps with grabs and boardslides.

 

[echo_VT]

I got back and did a clinic at Stowe yesterday. Snow conditions were firm at the top, and slice-able at the bottom. So the gulch bumps were great as were the christy glades. the runs were just fine as well! Still plenty of snow in the woods everywhere. With the rain, it helped soften the snow. That said, the lightning and thunder caused the lifts to shut down for a bit throughout the afternoon. Looks like today is another inversion day. meaning warmer at the top than the bottom. I will meet up with a fellow L2 participant on Friday and report back on conditions

 

[echo_VT]

Easter Sunday on Spruce Peak ski tour with the family and also the kiddo’s friend who it was her first time touring (both kids age 12 or 11 and will be 12 soon!) and her parents.

@ilovepugs joined us and we had a wonderful ski down, conditions were excellent! We ski toured to the top to see the view of Mansfield and snack away at the view lookout. Then transitioned to ski down — Went down Main Street which is where most of the racing happens. It’s usually closed to the public so it was great to do! What a fun run!

we then downhill skied at the resort (without @ilovepugs nor my spouse) for some of us and we did North Slope and Hayride with the public. It was good but definitely spring bumps the entire way down. Still tons of coverage. I hear it won’t go below freezing after today for the rest of the week — so we will lose our snowpack. It’s the beginning of the end…!

in the first photo can see there’s plenty of snow still at the chin. Both trails are filled in. Profanity and I forget the name of the other. I guess I still have a chance of skiing the chin if it holds. But I think it may be a next season adventure…

 

[echo_VT]

This morning did a morning ski at Bolton on wilderness trail. There are a couple of bare spots but it’s good coverage for most of it and can ski around. Could see lake Champlain and whiteface mtn across the lake to the west. Pretty gorgeous on this bluebird day.

I think today will be great but we’ll see for the rest of this week after today.

both Stowe and Bolton have plenty of snow and in the woods. But due to the rain last week, the snow has disappeared around tree trunks. It’s a matter of time now. Hope we don’t lose too much!

 

[echo_VT]

Bolton Valley just announced they will not open this weekend for a bonus weekend due to losing too much snow. I’m a little concerned… it will be going up to 80F here in Montpelier!

 

[jthree]

Bolton Valley just announced they will not open this weekend for a bonus weekend due to losing too much snow. I’m a little concerned… it will be going up to 80F here in Montpelier!

Working from home and boy, it is hot today!

 

[echo_VT]

It went above 85F today. Yeesh!

 

[ilovepugs]

I wanted to do wilderness again but I’m assuming it’s melted now!

Here’s my pic from Monday:

 

[echo_VT]

So we had a week of warmth… by that I mean 85F… almost daily for a week last week…

yesterday and today, while it was raining here, it’s been snowing on hill. About an inch to two inches dusting. kinda nice to have!

I haven’t been up, but I do have my boots and skis and skins and poles ready… today we were back to colder temps and overnight will get below freezing… I really should go

 

[ilovepugs]

So we had a week of warmth… by that I mean 85F… almost daily for a week last week…

yesterday and today, while it was raining here, it’s been snowing on hill. About an inch to two inches dusting. kinda nice to have!

I haven’t been up, but I do have my boots and skis and skins and poles ready… today we were back to colder temps and overnight will get below freezing… I really should go

It snowed at my house too. I really want to get out, but just got slammed with a bunch of short deadline stuff. Grrr

 

[jthree]

It snowed at my house too. I really want to get out, but just got slammed with a bunch of short deadline stuff. Grrr

Bummer about the deadlines!

I could see the snow shining in the sun on Mansfield from my Burlington window today...

 

[echo_VT]

Someone brought a keg of beer to the top of Nosedive, I believe it will be a party at the top tomorrow starting at 10!

 

[ilovepugs]

Someone brought a keg of beer to the top of Nosedive, I believe it will be a party at the top tomorrow starting at 10!

Ugh idk if I have the fitness to skin up NDHW!

 

[echo_VT]

Went uphill to check out the start of the nose dive bar (check out account nosediveheadwall stories on IG!) with a couple people I snowboard with yesterday and it was pretty fun for us.

There was one section that there was just a strip of snow. There’s still continuous snow in the woods as we got up higher, which I wouldn’t have expected and said so out loud.

The conditions were firm and those of us on skins were having some issues as it’s steep and in the one section where there was a small strip of snow. Close to the top scaling the headwall was the hardest part even though it was covered due to the huge bumps and steepness… our friend who had snowshoes it was much easier for her. I ended up skinning on the grass in some sections due to the strip section and the steepness. But also avoiding the rock gardens throughout (I think meant to prevent growth).

There were a few crevasses across the whole slope closer to the bottom.

That said, it is still continuous and most of the slope is in good condition and we can ski/snowboard the entire thing.