Bolton Valley, VT 24DEC2010

An image of a snow-covered slope at Bolton
A quiet scene with untracked powder at Bolton Valley's Wilderness area

The boys opened up some early Christmas presents today, so there was no way I was getting them up to the hill, but I was able to join up with Stephen and his kids for some turns.  In the past we’ve had some great Bolton outings on Christmas Eve, with some nice natural snow terrain available and the mountain almost to ourselves.  However, due to the sizeable amount of visitors we’d seen yesterday, we were wondering what today would bring.  Would more people have the day off, or would that be counteracted by more holiday obligations?  Well, the visitors were back in a big way, apparently even bigger than what we’d seen yesterday.  On the way up to the main base, I stopped in for a look at Timberline, and it looked quite ready for the planned Sunday opening.

Conditions were very similar to yesterday, and a bit of wind had actually reset some of the powder to provide repeat fresh tracks.  The wind also put down some wind crust, but it was pretty weak and didn’t change the snow too much.  The weather and snow were both great, but with the lines and afternoon holiday obligations were all left around noontime.  On the way down the road I saw that two Timberline lots were being used for additional parking, so business was certainly good.  To check out all the pictures with the text, head to the complete Bolton Valley report from today.