Bolton Valley, VT 26MAR2023

An image of Dylan performing a 360 ski jump in the Valley Road terrain park after a late March snowstorm at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
Dylan sailing his way through a 360 during today’s session with the family up at Bolton Valley. Our most recent spring snowstorm brought excellent conditions for both powder skiing and hitting the terrain parks.

We haven’t seen much snow here in the Northern Greens since last weekend, and from what I’ve heard, the conditions on the slopes haven’t been all that remarkable.  A more substantial winter storm started to affect the area yesterday however, and it seemed to hold some promise with respect to putting down several inches of snow in the mountains.

While the storm had only dropped an inch or two of snow down here at our house in the valley as of this morning, that snow contained almost a half inch of liquid equivalent, and with the temperatures being marginal in the lower elevations, it was easy to see that the accumulations were going to be elevation-dependent.  The Bolton Valley snow report was only indicating a few inches of new snow as of this morning, but that was enough to at least get us to head up to the hill and check out the conditions.  It seemed like a toss-up with respect to whether or not the snow would really be enough to kick the conditions into high gear, but there had to be more than a half inch of liquid equivalent from the storm at elevation, and that’s certainly enough for a decent resurfacing of the slopes.

An image of snow bikes near the Timberline Base area of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in VermontWe parked at Timberline, and right from the start, we were encouraged by what we saw.  There were 2 to 4 inches of dense accumulation even at those lowest elevations, and as we rode the Timberline Quad and watched and listened to the skiers below, their relatively quiet turns suggested that the new snow had bonded well to the subsurface.  Our plan was to head up to the main mountain, get a good assessment of the conditions at all elevations, and then take it from there.  Up at 2,500’ when we got off at the Timberline Summit, it was immediately obvious that the conditions were going to be good.  The new snow had clearly put down a resurfacing that was incorporated well into the grooming and created a soft, quiet surface that let you cut right into it with your carves.  We next took a trip up the Vista Quad, and the conditions above 3,000’ were even better.  The sides of Alta Vista yielded excellent turns, and my depth checks were coming in with 6 to 7 inches of new snow.

An image of a house in the Village area along the side of the Villager trail during a late March snowstorm at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
We were treated to wintry scenes and great snow all around the resort today compliments of our latest winter storm.

We’d met up with some colleagues from work and their families, and our group spent much of the afternoon roaming around the main mountain, venturing from Vista to Wilderness, with a lot of time spent on Snowflake.  The boys were having some great fun on the jumps in the terrain park, and with the usual low traffic of Snowflake, the trails held plenty of untracked lines.  When we were over on Wilderness, just about everyone hit the Wilderness Woods and had some great turns, and those of us inclined to hit the trees off Snowflake were treated to run after run of untracked powder through some very nice lines.

An image of Dylan jumping into some powder skiing in the trees of the Snowflake Lift after a late March snowstorm at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
We spent a lot of time today catching up on some powder skiing in the trees today, and the conditions were excellent thanks to this most recent winter storm.

We finished off our day with a long run down from the Vista Summit to the Timberline Base, and based on that run it was very evident that the main mountain was the place to be today for the best powder and groomed surfaces.  The snow below 2,000’ was still decent, but as we’d seen, the accumulations were a bit less, and the powder a bit denser.  Up on the main mountain was definitely where the best snow was located, and skier traffic was quite light.  It’s March after all, and since this wasn’t an obvious slam dunk storm cycle, I’m sure there were many folks that opted not to make the trip to the mountain for conditions that probably could have gone either way.

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