An image of four skiers heading out from the Village parking area carrying their skis as they begin a tour in snow from a November snowstorm at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
Posted on by J.Spin

Bolton Valley, VT 11NOV2025

An image taken from the base of the Bolton Valley Access Road in Vermont after an early November storm that brough substantial snowfall all the way down to the lower elevations of the Champlain Valley.
A view from the bottom of the Bolton Valley Access Road this morning – our most recent November snowstorm was somewhat notable in that it brought substantial snow accumulations all the way down into the Champlain Valley.

I had time for a quick ski tour up at Bolton today, so I can pass along a bit of beta with regard to this latest storm and conditions. I’d seen that with the warm front end of this storm, the snow had melted out in the lower elevations of the mountain, so the depths that are there now in the roughly 2,000’-2,500’ range are only from this latest event. Seeing that Jay Peak webcam image that Powderfreak posted in the American Weather forum, I’d say Bolton got hit just a bit better – it’s probably similar to what Smuggler’s Notch picked up. Here’s the elevation-based snow depth profile I observed this morning in the Bolton Valley area:

340’: 4”
500’: 4”
1,000’: 4”
1,200: 4”
1,500’: 4-5”
2,000’: 4-6”
2,500’: 4-6”
2,700’: 5-8”

An image of a stop sign taken from the base of the Bolton Valley Access Road in Vermont after an early November storm that brough substantial snowfall all the way down to the lower elevations of the Champlain Valley.
Even in down in the valley this morning, the trees were coated with a healthy layer of snow.

You can see what a weird snow depth profile that is compared to the usual – the snow depth even in the Village at ~2,000’ is basically that same as it is at 340’ at the base of the Bolton Valley Access Road or at our house at ~500’. I only had time to tour up to ~2,700’ this morning, but the snow depths don’t really start to increase until you get above ~2,500’ into the elevations that have pre-existing snowpack, so it looks like the snow accumulations from the front end of this system were pretty consistent over quite a broad range of elevations.

In terms of the quality of the turns, today was more like the skiing from the Halloween/November 1st system vs. the much higher quality turns from the November 5th system. This snow was drier than the Halloween/November 1st system, so it skied better in that regard, but going with meadow skipping terrain was definitely the optimal choice for fun turns. The number of folks that I saw out touring today at the resort wasn’t outrageous – the top tier of Bolton’s Village parking area was ~1/3 full, but you could tell the ski touring activity was a bit livelier than the past couple of systems with the way the lower valleys got in some substantial accumulations.

An image of a cartop storage box with stickers in the main Village parking after a November snowstorm at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont
With this latest snowstorm bringing substantial snow accumulations in the Champlain Valley, a decent number of people had drive up to Bolton Valley, eager to get in some early turns.

There was a bit of a crust in the snowpack due to some mixed precipitation that fell at some point during the event. Thankfully, it was an interior layer because new snow had fallen on top of it, so it didn’t derail the turns like it might have had it been a surface crust.