What more could we reasonably ask for?
Sure, one might reference the truly historic Snowvember 2018, which – from a natural snowpack perspective – was literally the GOAT according to the fabled Mansfield Snow Stake. Being my very first few days working here at Bolton Valley, I remember it vividly. Aside from my initial shock at how much of a daily to-do the snow reporting was, I also recall much of that November’s success was pinned to a huge storm on the last day(s) of the month.
Switching our collective lens back to November ’23, it’s actually probably the preferred setup for getting the season off to a good, but manageable start. Sure, we’ll always measure November’s against 2018, but the massive storm at the end of that month was hard to handle from an ops perspective. Had to take a few steps back to dig out before we could start moving forward. Too much of a good thing as some might say…
Though the big dumps will always get the accolades, the slightly slower and steadier snowfalls really a good season make, generally speaking. It doesn’t get the headlines, but a season passholder that gets 20+ days a winter knows what we’re talking about here. And that’s kind of what we got last month. We saw a pretty consistent run of temps (for snowmaking) and light snow events to keep the mountain ops mojo rising as we raced to open the day after Thanksgiving as we typically do… well, in the DesLauriers 2.0 era that is. And what an opening weekend 2023 it was!
And then…
Okay, we must admit, it was good leading up to opening weekend, but the real joy hit just after we shut down lifts Sunday afternoon only to be greeted with 18″ at the summit Monday morning. And not just any snow… a foot and a half of the dense, heavy base building snow you dream of in November. Our Wilderness Designated Uphill Route opened out of nowhere and winter was off and running not just on manmade snow, but natural snow, too. It was almost disorienting it happened so suddenly and because we didn’t have lifts Monday to Thursday that week, took nearly everyone that lives and works in the Bolton Snow Globe by surprise as they weren’t paying as much attention to the forecast.
And as if that wasn’t enough, just as we were done licking our chops from the powder party, bam! another foot for you a couple days later bringing the November ’23 snow total to a clean 50″.
Amazing the mountain magic sometimes. A little elevation made all the difference as it so often does. My daily commute back to Burlington was like traveling between two different worlds in just 30 minutes. Total snowpocalypse on the mountain quickly gave way to wondering if I should mow the lawn or pick fall vegetables from the garden for dinner. The broccoli plants were clearly on their last legs for the season sure, but nutritious and tasty nonetheless:
But I don’t care how tasty you can make your broccoli (we like to get a nice hot cast iron pan on the stove, put ’em floret side down and then roast in oven – don’t forget the EVOO, fresh garlic & s + p of course), it certainly was not as tasty as these Snowvember ’23 turns:
Photo courtesy of local legend Quinn Keating (doing double duty on the skiing and pov chest cam in this shot) who claims his skis are under the pow there somewhere. End of November or early March? Hard to tell…
Alright December, your turn! You have big shoes to fill, but this storm we see approaching tomorrow (Sunday, December 3) and perhaps sticking around until Tuesday looks like a good start.