Bolton Valley Nordic & Backcountry, VT 20FEB2024

An image of a condominium in the Village along the edge of the Nordic and Backcountry network of trails at the start of an afternoon ski tour at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
The glow of afternoon sun hits the mountains as I set off past some of the Bolton Valley Village condominiums onto the Nordic & Backcountry Network for a ski tour.

I was fairly busy today, but I did have a chance to get out for a sunset ski tour up on the Bolton Valley Nordic and Backcountry Network. I’d say powder depths were roughly similar to what I found on yesterday’s tour, with perhaps a touch of settling. The powder in the backcountry just seems to get better each day though as the lower layers of the surface powder settle and bond to the subsurface. This is one of the more impressive progressions I’ve seen in the improvement of the powder skiing over time, and as I was gearing up for my tour, I heard other skiers talking about it as well.

I didn’t have a ton of time before dinner, so I did a quick loop up Bryant to Coyote and on to Gotham City with a descent of Gun Sight and subsequent glades. As mentioned, the powder was simply fantastic, and by the time I was descending the sun had gone down and I was skiing by the light of the moon (with headlamp assistance at times). There are still plenty of untracked lines throughout the lesser used glades, although you have to work a bit more to get untracked lines in the more popular glades since it’s now been a couple of days since the last substantial snowfall.

An image of the Village area and night skiing trails after finishing up a ski tour on the Nordic and Backcountry Network at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
Finishing up my tour in the dark with a view toward the Bolton Valley Village and the ski trails lit up for night skiing

Since it’s a big vacation week, the night skiing was going full tilt when I got back to my car, and it seems like the resort is getting some solid visitation. For those who are on school vacation this week, they certainly got a doozy in terms of both snow conditions and weather.

A Google Earth map with GPS tracking data from a sunset ski tour in February on the Nordic and Backcountry Network of trails at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
A Google Earth map with GPS tracking data from this afternoon’s sunset tour on the Bolton Valley Nordic and Backcountry Network