Snowfall has been somewhat lean in Vermont this January, so we haven’t been up to Bolton Valley since the early part of the month. Things are definitely picking up now though. The past couple of days have featured plenty of upslope snow in association with an upper level low to our north pushing various smaller impulses through the area. Over the course of the past two days, the resorts in the norther half of the state have picked up 1 to 2 feet of new snow.
With Bolton Valley reporting nearly a foot of snow over the past two days, the family headed up this today to see just how it well it was settling into the terrain. The snow report let us know that some of the upper lifts would be delayed a bit due to winds, but they were opening just as we were arriving around mid-morning. The word was definitely out about all the new snow today – cars were already parking down to the lowest Village lot when we arrived, and more were coming in by the minute.
We started off with a quick run on Snowflake, and enjoyed some excellent powder on the side of Snowflake Bentley. Since he’s been Telemark Skiing and snowboarding up to this point, it was Ty’s first time on alpine boards all season, and he was really enjoying the powder turns much like a new sensation. There was no line for the Vista Quad by that point, so we hopped on and got to see the impressive rime up near the Vista Summit. Catching some of the first turns on the groomed Alta Vista was nice treat that we don’t usually experience, and it really was soft and carveable from edge to edge. We also got first tracks in the powder off to the ungroomed areas to skier’s left. The only downside in the powder there was occasionally hitting some old grooming chunks under the snow, but the new accumulations were deep enough to make them only a minor hindrance.
We made our way over to Wilderness and took a quick pass through part of the Wilderness Woods. The powder was really nice in there, and there had been little traffic up to that point. We finished off with some groomed and powder turns on Lower Turnpike, and found that the Wilderness Double Chair was running, but they weren’t quite loading it yet.
We stopped into the lodge for an early lunch, and by the time we came out they were loading the Wilderness Lift. Peggy Dow’s was in nice shape, but out favorite part was actually the Wilderness Lift Line, which had a lot of powder left on it. Everyone had so much fun there that we would have easily done it again, but a bit of a queue was forming at the Wilderness Lift so we decided to call it a morning.
When we were leaving, a woman was more than willing to wait for our parking spot way down by the sports center, so obviously the lots were really filling up. Even the Timberline lots looked full when we passed by. Temperatures were in the upper 20s F today, so folks were definitely out in force to enjoy it with the new snow – we’d even heard comments on one the local weather reports about just how good a ski day it was going to be. The current trends with the snow will probably go on for a couple more days, so conditions should stay quite good.
