I headed up for some touring at Bolton Valley this morning to check out the overnight snows, and after being somewhat unimpressed with the way the powder skied on Saturday after those fresh accumulations, I was eager to see how this event affected the skiing. I’m happy to say that Sunday night’s snow led to fantastic powder skiing right from the start. The resort was indicating 4 to 6 inches of fresh snow, and that seems right in line with what I found for new accumulations on terrain that had been groomed before the storm. Liquid analyses from down at our house in the valley indicated that the overnight snow was in the 6 to 7% H2O range, so while it wasn’t super dry, it seemed dry enough to sit atop the existing snowpack and blend well with the powder to create a right-side-up gradient. Just as important in the quality of the powder skiing may have been the temperatures – unlike the single digits from Saturday or even the teens from Sunday, temperatures were in the 20s F. It had been a while since I skied in temperatures that warm, and you could definitely feel the effects of the faster, warmer snow. My skis had plenty of glide, and the powder turns immediately gave that “floating-on-a-cloud” feeling while descending in the Snow Hole area. Another enjoyable aspect of the temperatures was simply the comfort of the relative warmth. I guess it’s really only been a couple of weeks, but after a lot of cold days, I’d forgotten how enjoyable temperatures in the 20s F can be – you can ski, hang out, and do whatever, and it’s all so easy.
I toured via the Wilderness Uphill Route, and what made the session especially good was that there was so much more untracked powder than I’d expected. The Wilderness Chair still wasn’t running, so I assume it has to be down for mechanical reasons while they repair it, and having just the minimal midweek ski touring traffic on all those acres is certainly going to leave a lot of untouched snow to spare. The resort was getting pounded with upslope snow today on top of the denser snow that fell overnight, so hopefully that’s a recipe to set up many more days of quality powder skiing in the coming days.
