Bolton Valley, VT 13FEB2017

Today’s ski session was great, but it really wasn’t the one I was expecting.  Since E and the boys were off from school for a snow day, and I had some time in the morning, it seemed like a great chance to all get in some skiing together.  My first inclination was to visit Bolton Valley, which is right on my way into Burlington and very convenient, but lifts weren’t opening until 10:00 A.M., which on the late side based on the time I had.  So, we decided on Stowe, which opened at 8:00 A.M.  However, what we found on the Mountain Road was traffic backed up all the way to Harvest Market.  That’s miles away from the resort.  I figured it had to be because of an accident, but people in touch with E indicated that it was just bumper to bumper all the way down from the resort.  I’m not sure how long it would have taken to travel all those miles, but we didn’t really have the time to find out.  We switched our plans to Bolton Valley, figuring we’d take at least a few runs, but winds were keeping the Vista Quad on hold, so the available terrain would be quite minimal.  It was just one of those crazy days where getting us all together to ski was going to be a challenge.

So in the end, I wound up stopping at Bolton for some earned turns on my way into Burlington, just like I often do.  It simply took me a lot longer than usual to get to that point.  Fortunately, just as one would expect thanks to the recent visit from Winter Storm Orson, the snow is simply spectacular.  I skinned up the usual Timberline route, and while there were some tracks on Twice as Nice from skiers who had visited earlier, it was still snowing big, fat, fluffy flakes, and their tracks were rapidly disappearing.  Today seemed like a great day to make a run on Twice as Nice, and it delivered bottomless turns all the way.  The depth of the powder I found there today was generally 8 to 10 inches at the Timberline Base elevation, with nearly a foot in may spots higher up.  The density gradient of the powder was fantastic, since we’ve been getting some really light fluff on the back side of the storm.  It was funny to come full circle back to what I probably would have done if E and the boys hadn’t had the day off, and while it was a crazy path getting me there, the quality of the turns was definitely worth it.