We’d already been planning to head back to the mountain today for an early morning start, since Bolton’s highest elevation lifts (Vista Quad and Wilderness Double) never ran yesterday due to high winds. They both ran fine today and delivered some great skiing on the upper mountain. Conditions already would have been great, but that extra 3-4” of sub-4% H2O champagne we picked up early this morning put the icing on the cake, and it continued to snow much of the morning on the mountain as well.
” I did a snowpack depth check right around the 3,000’ mark in the Outlaw Woods, and found 32”, which seemed somewhat reasonable with a depth of 30” reported from the Mt. Mansfield Stake.”
I already summed up the VT resort snow totals for Winter Storm Malcolm in a post in the Northern New England thread at the American Weather Forum, but ultimately, all the ski areas along the Green Mountain Spine seemed to be in that 1½ to 2 foot range. Without a heavily consolidated based below what just fell from Malcolm, it’s tough to get settled depths from just this storm because there’s no clear demarcation in the snowpack. Depth checks of the settled snowpack that I made yesterday were all in the 20”+ range, and it was certainly deep up around 3,000’. I did a snowpack depth check right around the 3,000’ mark in the Outlaw Woods, and found 32”, which seemed somewhat reasonable with a depth of 30” reported from the Mt. Mansfield Stake.
We had a fantastic first run down Hard Luck, where we found just a few tracks ahead of ours – it was nice to show the boys what getting out a bit earlier can get you! I think they might have some manmade snow under there, but it was hard to tell with all the snow from Winter Storm Malcolm providing a very thorough resurfacing. The resort also opened the Wilderness Chair for the first time this season, and there was a notable queue as it was finally getting ready to open, but it was a fun wait because there was an excited energy among the skiers for it to make its season debut.
I can’t speak to the financial aspects, but in terms of snow conditions, it was definitely a solid holiday weekend for Bolton Valley and the Vermont ski areas in general.
Ha! That’s me in the yellow coat, dead center, enjoying a resort day with the fam. I love this site and the detailed information you post, which has been invaluable while touring the backcountry. Thank you for your efforts!!
That’s great Joseph, hopefully you had as great a day as our family did up at the mountain. And I’m glad you’re able to make use of my backcountry skiing reports; I’m always happy to help folks discover the great Vermont backcountry and save them a bit of the hassle vs. going in totally blind.