Bolton Valley, VT 17NOV2018

An image of Dylan getting ready to pack up his climbing skins during a November ski tour at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont
Dylan gets ready to pack up his climbing skins as we get ready to start out descent during the family’s ski tour at Bolton Valley today.

We’ve had some great snow in the Northern Green Mountains over the past week.  Three coastal storms have affected the area:  a double barrel low pressure system last weekend, a low pressure system hugging the coast in the midweek period, and now Winter Storm Avery this weekend.  All told, the local mountains have picked up two to three feet of snow in the past seven days, with Bolton Valley reporting 32 inches during the period as of today.  That’s a good pace of snowfall for any week during the winter, but it’s an excellent pace for November.  This is when the mountains should be building that natural snowpack, so this is an especially good time to be getting these substantial storms.

An image of snow from recent November storms at the Timberline base area of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
Some of the recent snow accumulations at the Timberline base area of Bolton Valley

“Snow depths were generally 1 to 2 feet throughout the tour…”

The family got out for a tour in the snow from last weekend’s storm, but I had a busy week and wasn’t able to check out the snow from the midweek system.  We had time to get out today though, and there’s been enough snow now that even Timberline was an option.

An imae of Dylan skiing some of the powder from November snowstorms at the Timberline area of Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont
Dylan in some of today’s power at Timberline

Timberline had already seen lots of visitors as of late this morning, so there was a well-established skin track on the usual Twice as Nice route.  Snow depths were generally 1 to 2 feet throughout the tour, and temperatures were just creeping above freezing down at the base, so the powder down in the lower elevations was starting to get just a bit wet.  In the higher elevations the snow was fairly dry, middle-weight powder, so the skiing was quite good.  I’d say starting at the main base up above 2,000’ would be a good move to optimize the best snow, so I might think about that for my next tour, but even touring down to the 1,500’ elevation is still quite reasonable.

An image of Ty falling in the powder while on a ski tour at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont
Ty going down in the powder on today’s ski tour

After our tour we headed up to the main base to pick up our season passes, and learned that there’s talk of starting the lift served season a week or two early.  I’d say we’re happy either way, since there’s still plenty of touring to do even if the lift-served skiing hasn’t started.