The Alberta Clipper system from this morning had departed, but we were back up on the hill tonight for some night skiing with friends.
E wanted to catch up with some friends who were doing some night skiing at Bolton Valley tonight, so on top of my morning session of ski touring followed by riding the lifts with Stephen and Johannes, I ended up right back up at the mountain in the evening. It was very busy for a Bolton night skiing session, and we wound up parking in the lower tennis court lot because the others were so full. It’s very dark down there, but it does provide some neat views of the resort at night. It’s also right along the Nordic trails, so it makes for a fun evening ski to get back to the car. With so many visitors at the resort tonight, I assume all the new snow and the kickoff to the holiday weekend came together to really ramp up people’s interest for getting out for turns.
Combining fresh snow from earlier today and the start of school vacation week meant that the resort was really hoppin’ with visitors tonight. People and their equipment were all around the base area, including this fun snowboard that we came across.
I doubt I would have headed up for this evening’s session were in not for getting out to make some turns with friends, because I would only have expected the on piste conditions to deteriorate further after a full day of traffic. And at night, only the most popular trails are open, so that means extra traffic in the high-traffic areas. One thing about the end of a long day though, especially when there’s been new snow, is that you do get those terrain areas where the snow collects due to skier traffic. Directly under the Mid Mountain Chair was one of those spots tonight. Patrol has set up marking poles right beneath the chair because the snowpack is deep enough that you might run into people’s skis, and even after that caution area, people never return to skiing the center near the lift towers and they just push a lot of snow there. So, that held some of the best snow we found in the Beech Seal area.
Areas with those skier traffic-related accumulations and low-angle terrain were definitely the best bets when we were out there this evening, but when possible, I’d recommend just heading out in the day and venturing off piste if you can. The off piste conditions are just so much better right now, especially on moderate-angle terrain and anywhere that is untracked. The subsurface is definitely firm, so do watch out for places where the wind has scoured the powder or evergreens are dense enough that they’ve reduced accumulations – those areas can leave you bottoming out on some unforgiving snow.
Thanks to some heavy snowfall from Winter Storm Gerri this afternoon, fresh lines of powder were plentiful throughout the resort, especially off the Snowflake Lift where skier traffic had been especially low.
Over the past week, the weather pattern has featured these larger systems with ample snow and moisture, and the most recent one in the series is Winter Storm Gerri. It moved into the area overnight in the wee hours with an initial burst of heavy snow. The front end snow in this case wasn’t as potent as it was with Winter Storm Finn that came through midweek, so when we saw that Bolton Valley was indicating only 2 inches of new snow in their early morning report, we knew there was no need to rush right up to the mountain.
We watched the Bolton Valley Base Area Webcam through the morning and could see that up at 2,100’, the precipitation was snow, and it was quite heavy at times. Dylan and Colin headed up to the mountain in the early afternoon, and we asked them to give us an update on what they found. Their impressions were that the snow surfaces were rather wet, and they said the precipitation was even mixed with rain in the lower elevations at times, so E figured that instead of skiing, she’d hold off until the snow got better. I took another look at the webcam feed and saw that there was heavy snow falling, and decided that it would definitely be worth it to head up for some lift-served runs.
Heavy snowfall in the Bolton Valley Village this afternoon as Winter Storm Gerri continues to affect the area
Heading up the Bolton Valley Access Road, the precipitation switched over to all snow at roughly the 1,000’ elevation, and above that the road was quickly covered. The road conditions must have been getting a bit slick with the new snowfall because I had to drive around a van that was stuck trying to make it up the steep s-curve below Timberline. I had actually planned to park at Timberline and start my session there, but the Timberline Quad was apparently on wind hold, so I had to continue on up to the main base area. I arrived up in the Village to very heavy snowfall in the 1 to 2 inch per hour range, and with the intensity of that snowfall, there was just no way that the turns weren’t going to be great.
Arriving up in the Bolton Valley Village this afternoon I was greeted steady snowfall and cars quickly getting covered in new snow
During my afternoon session I managed to get in runs on all the rest of the lifts, and heavy snow continued to pound the resort at all elevations. It was windy, especially at the Vista and Wilderness Summits above 3,000’, but thankfully the wind was from the west and at your back while you rode the lifts. After my first couple of runs, the lights were coming on, and I got to ski Spillway in night mode. I always find it exciting to be able to ski something that steep under the lights, and I knew that the conditions on Spillway were going to be really good because you couldn’t hear anything from the turns of the skiers and snowboarders below you as you passed over them on the Vista Quad. Indeed, my own experience on the trail revealed that the conditions on Spillway were simply fantastic; new snow was falling so heavily that it must have been covering up an slick spots faster than skiers could push the snow away.
I did notice that below the Mid Mountain elevations (~2,500’), the groomed/packed ski surfaces did have that “wet pack” feel that I’ve encountered in the lower elevations of Whistler Blackcomb. That’s usually a sign that some very wet snow has fallen and was packed by skier traffic. I could see what Dylan was talking about with respect to the wet surface conditions, but at the point that I was up there, those conditions were hard to find because temperatures were falling, and it was snowing so hard that those types of wet surfaces were covered up in all but the highest traffic areas. Some of the best turns I found were near the end of my ski session when I visited the Snowflake Chair. That area hadn’t seen much skier traffic, so I found a lot of fresh powder that skied beautifully. I did numerous depth checks and was consistently getting new snow depths of 6 to 7 inches. There was enough powder there that I questioned whether it was all from just this storm, but when Bolton’s afternoon snow update came in and they were reporting storm totals of 5 to 7 inches, that nicely corroborated my measurements.
All this new snow is a great addition to the snowpack, but even without it, one thing I noticed while out on the mountain today was the huge jump that the snowpack has taken since last weekend. I hadn’t been up to the mountain since Sunday, and at that time, patrol was just starting to open up more areas of natural snow terrain as coverage improved thanks to Winter Storm Ember. The contributions made by Winter Storm Finn must have been huge though, because the resort has now been able to open up just about everything, and everywhere I looked this evening, coverage felt like midwinter. As I look back now at my storm data, I guess I see the difference – Winter Storm Ember dropped 0.69 inches of liquid equivalent here at our site, while Winter Storm Finn dropped 1.99 inches of liquid equivalent. That’s almost triple the amount of liquid, and when you get up around 2 inches of liquid equivalent, that starts to become a serious resurfacing of the slopes. Winter Storm Gerri has already dropped about an inch of liquid equivalent here at the house, and the back side snow is still coming through, so that’s simply adding yet another great layer to the snowpack. All told, this past week of storms has dropped almost 4 inches of liquid equivalent here at our house in the valley, so it must have put down at least 4 to 5 inches plus of liquid equivalent for the mountains. When I look at the numbers, I realize now why the snowpack seems to have improved so much so quickly. When I was riding the Wilderness Chair today, I actually saw a ski patroller skiing the headwall of the Wilderness Lift Line to check the snow. You know the snowpack is getting decent when that headwall is even close to being skiable, so the fact that he was even testing it speaks volumes about how things have gone over the past week.
A scene from the Bolton Valley Village Circle area this afternoon with snow from Winter Storm Gerri falling in front of the Hotel
During a break from skiing today at Bolton Valley, I took a short walk around the Village and remarked at how the snow is piling up as we move toward mid-December.
It’s a busy weekend for me and I wasn’t certain if I was going to get out for turns, especially since I was unsure if surfaces were going to be soft with temperatures in the 30s F, but comments about the great snow in the New England subforum at American Weather helped tip the balance. If we’d had a notable thaw-freeze, then 30s F probably would have cut it with respect to softening things up, but the snow hasn’t really cycled above freezing for a while – it’s already in such good shape that it doesn’t need to soften. With the next storm moving in soon to make the weather more questionable tomorrow, today also seemed like the better day to hit the slopes. That aspect helped motivate us to get out while the weather was relatively stable.
E and I headed up to the mountain in the midafternoon period, and we were a bit leery about parking because the snow report indicated that Bolton had already filled their upper lots and people were parking down at Timberline. We were late enough that plenty of spots were opening up though as others finished their day and headed home.
The resort is definitely humming as they start to move to every day operation this week. They had all the lifts going except Timberline, where I don’t think they’ve made much snow yet, and the natural depths down at 1,500’ aren’t quite there to support lift-served traffic. Patrol has opened up just about everything else though – low angle, moderate angle, steeps, trees, people are skiing it all. Some steep, and even moderate natural snow terrain requires various levels of negotiation around the usual patches depending on whether you’re using rock skis or not, but you really can ski just about anything.
Snow has been piling up at the resort as displayed by some of the roofs in the Bolton Valley Village
The snow quality we encountered was fantastic, soft and carvable but not sticky at all, and there’s no ice anywhere to speak of because of the huge resurfacing we got from those recent storms. The resort has all of Wilderness open with zero grooming, so they’re just letting people have at it as nature intended. That means that there’s plenty of uneven terrain and occasional water bars to negotiate, but the snow quality is so good that it’s simple to deal with any obstacles you encounter.
Dylan was up with a bunch of friends from UVM, so while we were waiting to meet up with them at the bottom of Wilderness, I walked around the Village a bit and grabbed some additional photos. It’s been a few days since the last storm, but there’s tons of snow all over the place up there that’s piled up and sticking to things. The snowpack is certainly in good shape for early December. We’ll soon see what this next storm does for the slopes – Winter Storm Warnings are already up as it approaches.
Winter Storm Warnings are already up in our area ahead of the next big wintry system that is expect to impact the area.
Catching some turns on the Sprig O’ Pine trail at Bolton Valley this afternoon during heavy snowfall from our latest winter storm
Down here in the valley at 500’ our precipitation has generally been snow, but the temperatures have been marginal, so thus far we’ve had less than an inch of accumulation. It’s been a different story at elevation though. We’d been watching the Bolton Valley Base Area Webcam since this morning, and more often than not it’s shown moderate to heavy snowfall with some big fat flakes. Even from the webcam you could tell it was accumulating, so I waited until the afternoon to let some of new snow build up, then I headed up to the mountain for some runs.
Coverage has mostly melted back at the base of the Bolton Valley Access Road at 340’, and the precipitation there was a mix of rain and wet snow, but cars coming down from the resort had at least a couple inches of fresh snow on them. As I ascended, somewhere in the 1,000’ to 1,500’ range, the precipitation instantly flipped to 100% snow, and you could tell that you’d hit a critical temperature threshold. Up in the Village at 2,000’ it was pounding big flakes. There were visibility issues just like yesterday, but while yesterday was due to thick low clouds and fog, today it was due to the snowfall.
A view of the main base lodge at Bolton Valley – heavy snowfall greeted me as I arrived up in the Bolton Valley Village for some afternoon skiing.
Like yesterday, I skied again off the Mid Mountain Chair, and you could tell that the base snow had stiffened up where it had been groomed, at least up around 2,500’. From about 2,200’ and below, there was a notably softer base. At those higher elevations where the base was starting to tighten up, the new snow was definitely helping to take the edge off, but with on piste skier traffic, the fresh snow had been pushed around a lot, and you had to move off the groomed terrain to really take the best advantage of the new snow. In areas that hadn’t been groomed, there was no demarcation between the new snow and more recent layers below it, and my off piste adventures generally yielded turns in 12-14” of powder. The powder did get a bit denser as you dropped in elevation, but it was still quite manageable. I was on mid-fats and never even felt the need to switch to alpine turns; the snow was dry and consistent enough that Telemark turns were still comfortable all the way.
Heavy snowfall continued up at Bolton today throughout the afternoon while I was out on the mountain
The freezing level was slowly dropping in elevation while I was out on the mountain, and by my last run it was only right down at base elevations where the groomed base still had that initial softness I’d encountered. Driving down the access road at closing time was a bit hairy with the pounding snow and fresh accumulations. The road accumulations finally started to abate around 1,500’, and road surfaces switched to just wet below that. The snowfall rate was easily an inch an hour at times, and even thought it occasionally slowed down for periods earlier in the afternoon, it looks like it averaged around that inch per hour mark because the resort was reporting 4 inches of new snow as of 4:00 P.M. closing. If the snowfall keeps up for a while this evening like it did this afternoon, they’ll have another great shot of snow to cover up the slopes by the morning.
E glides through some of the soft snow that met us up at Bolton today, with temperatures in the 30s F and low clouds for very December feel
With temperatures in the 30s F today, I was unsure if snow surfaces up at the mountain were going to soften. Dylan was up at Bolton Valley with some friends though, and when we texted him for an update, he said that indeed the snow had softened up. With that news, E and I headed up for a few runs this afternoon. Visibility was near zero on the mountain with low clouds and fog, but it did give the mountain that low light solstice/holiday feel.
Indeed the snow surfaces were great. We’d waxed our skis pretty thoroughly just in case, but we didn’t encounter any areas of sticky snow, it was just buttery smooth spring-style snow that you could really sink an edge into. I’m not sure if the snow was stiffer up high, but we were just lapping the Mid Mountain Chair, and everything on the lower mountain was great. The Wilderness Lift was also open today, so the natural snow terrain that they’ve opened is still in decent shape. Those surfaces that have softened will of course tighten up when temperatures drop back below freezing, but hopefully the storm coming in to the area tomorrow will do a decent job of covering up the current base. There certainly seems to be the potential for a decent resurfacing of the slopes with an inch or so of liquid equivalent in the forecast.
Some low clouds and a December feel by the Mountain Market in the Bolton Valley Village
Soft snow and low clouds at the summit station of the Snowflake Lift today
After some initial frozen precipitation at our house this morning, we’d had on and off rain in the valley heading into the afternoon. It had been steady at times, but nothing too heavy. I got a bit worried though when I encountered a couple of downpours while driving through Bolton Flats, because the thought of skiing in the pouring rain wasn’t all that enticing. I was happy to see that the rain changed over to snow around 1,500’ at the Timberline Base, so that alleviated the concerns about having to potentially be out on the mountain in a downpour. The drive up the Bolton Valley Access Road definitely gave its usual introduction to the local temperature profile – the temperatures ticked right down at a steady pace and dropped from the lower 40s F in the valley to the lower 30s F by the time I hit the base village.
A look down the Sprig O’ Pine trail during today’s ski outing
I was getting concerned that the snow surfaces were going to be quickly tightening up as colder air moved in, but the lower mountain seemed to be just enough around the freezing mark that the snow remained soft. I could tell it wouldn’t be too long before the surfaces would be getting firm though – the wind had really picked up as the back side of the storm system was pushing through, and the Mid Mountain Chair appeared to close early because of it.
In the Bolton Valley Village today with some of the November snows
40 to 50 MPH winds and heavy snowfall from Winter Storm Quinlan raked the Wilderness Summit today.
Our latest system, Winter Storm Quinlan, was just getting going today, but once it got rolling, it was quite a ride, and I’d say that term applies to both the skiing and the driving. Snowfall rates down here at the house were running at around an inch an hour during earlier day, and the higher elevations were obviously doing at least that well. With that in mind, I decided to hit the mountain in the afternoon, by which point there should have been a good chance at a solid resurfacing of the slopes. I had no idea how long the lifts were going to hold out in terms of the wind, so I packed midfats and fat skis, with skins for both. It’s always a good insurance policy to have the skins on hand for these types of storm days.
E opted out of heading up with me, since she suspected the driving on the access road was going to be outrageously hairy, and that the storm conditions on the hill were going to brutal. She was, of course, correct on both accounts. On the drive up the Bolton Valley access road, I saw two cars that had ditched on their descents. That wasn’t bad compared to some storms, but it was certainly a sign. Both vehicles had gone off at those steep bottom pitches of the access road as it makes its final dive into the Winooski Valley, which is a common area for cars to bail. For one of the vehicles, a tow truck was just getting set up to pull it out, and it looked like the operator was going to need to take up the entire roadway to do it. Thankfully, he waved me by just as he was about to rig up. In the midst of the heavy snowfall, the scene felt like something out of “Highway Through Hell”. Thankfully, it wasn’t a big rig off the road, but the weather fit the bill. I could see that there were multiple plows working the road to try to keep up with the snowfall, because it was constantly pouring down and making the driving rough.
Heavy snowfall in the Bolton Valley Village this afternoon during Winter Storm Quinlan
Up above 2,000’ at the resort, Quinlan was going full tilt in terms of both snowfall rates and wind. Obviously the skiers and riders were dressed for it and took it in stride, but you could see that Village elevations had already taken quite a pounding during the day. By that point, the storm had put down 8-10” of new snow in the Village, and the parking lots hadn’t been plowed since the morning. Moving through the lots was tough with all that snow, and cars without 4WD/AWD and clearance, were definitely struggling to get around. I got a spot right in the top lot from someone who had recently left, but I spent a good amount of time packing and checking my spot to ensure that I was going to be able to get out later.
I hopped on the Snowflake Lift and took a run on Sprig O’ Pine to find that indeed there had been quite a resurfacing of the slopes. That 8-10” of snow certainly wasn’t fluff, and it had started out quite dense, allowing it to bond to the subsurface. The Vista Quad and Wilderness Chair were already down on wind hold, and just as I skied up to the entrance of the Mid Mountain Chair, it went down on wind hold as well. When Mid Mountain goes down, you know the wind is serious.
I could have done some additional laps on Snowflake or headed down to the Timberline Quad, but I really didn’t have a sense for how long they might be able to keep running with the winds. So, I grabbed my skins from the car and headed to the Wilderness Uphill Route. The Lower Turnpike area was sheltered from the winds as usual, but above 3,000’ on the ridgeline, the winds were just brutal. The winds had to be 40 to 50 MPH sustained, and when I hit the final traverse of Peggy Dow’s to the Wilderness Summit, I almost couldn’t skin across because there were already waist-high drifts blocking the route. I had to break trail along the eastern edge of the traverse and cut between the drifts and the trees. Conditions at the Wilderness Summit were a maelstrom, and even in the most sheltered spot I could find, it was still so windy that packing up my skins was a struggle. I laughed to even think of the upper lifts running under those conditions.
I’d say the snowfall accumulations at that point were rough 8-10” at ~2,000’ and 10-12” at 3,000’, and the skiing, as one would expect, was excellent. As noted, there had been dense snow at the start of the storm, and everything of moderate pitch, or even higher angle pitch if the subsurface was smooth, had been resurfaced. I’d seen a couple small groups of folks descending while I was heading up, but after that, I saw nobody. I essentially had the entire main mountain area to myself at that point, and it was just point, go, and ski lots of fresh powder.
With all the upper lifts down on wind hold, I had the run of the mountain and plenty of powder on today’s descent from Wilderness.
With the solitude I’d experienced out on my tour, the intensity of the ongoing storm, and the fact that it was already after 4:00 P.M., I expected to return to a deserted base area. But that wasn’t the case; the Snowflake Lift and Mighty Mite were still running, and some folks were even skiing. After being up in the 40-50 MPH winds, the 20-30 MPH winds around the base area did feel a bit tamer. I couldn’t believe that the new Miso Kome Japanese food stand outside the base lodge was operating, but I’d yet to have a chance to try it, so despite the stormy conditions, I took it as a sign. If they were willing to stay open during a storm like this, then hey, I’ll take the opportunity to try out their food. While attempting to read their menu, which was on a sign pitched several feet away from the stand, it was snowing so hard that I had to keep wiping off the new snow just to get through the various items. It had to be snowing at around 2”/hour at that point. Inside the lodge, everything appeared to be quite normal, and I was even able to grab a couple of pizzas from Fireside Flatbread to bring home to the family. So I guess storm or no storm, the services roll on at the resort.
Despite the fury of Winter Storm Quinlan, a few brave skiers and riders were still out and about around the base area at Bolton Valley this afternoon
The final part of Saturday’s outing was the descent down the access road. I’ve obviously been down that road in many, many storms, but the timing of this one with the heavy snowfall rates made it one of the more challenging descents I can recall. We were crawling down the road. Cars were moving at a snail’s pace because the intense snowfall made it hard for the plows to keep up, and the road surface was so slick that you’d almost be slipping off the edge at a full stop. On more than one occasion, I opted to ride the crown of the road because just the natural drainage slope in your lane wanted to guide you off. About halfway down, we caught a nice boost from a plow that was on the way up and set up some added traction to the center of the road. I used that slice of extra traction as much as possible for the remainder of the descent.
It was great to get home with the food and talk about the whole experience at dinner, and all told, that was certainly one of the more eventful ski outings of the season.
The 6 to 8 inches of new snow from Winter Storm Carrie provided some nice turns today off the lower lifts of the main mountain at Bolton Valley.
It’s been a busy past couple of weeks finishing up the semester for me, and there haven’t been any notable storms to urge me out to the slopes, but we got out to the mountain today to take a few turns in the new snow from Winter Storm Carrie.
For conditions, there was about a half foot of new snow reported by Bolton in their morning report, although there were probably a couple more inches on top of that with the way it was accumulating while we were there. Indeed they’re now reporting 8 inches for their weekly total, and I’d say that’s probably the storm total once the backside snows were incorporated. It was a decent resurfacing of the slopes, with 0.80” of L.E. recorded here at our place. I suspect they’re in the that ballpark for L.E. up at the mountain as well, although the western slopes probably were a bit lower on storm totals relative to the eastern slopes with the wind flow for the majority of the storm cycle. In any event, the surfaces we found out there today were nice, although I could see how high-angle terrain or higher traffic resorts could find the slopes getting down to firm surfaces pretty quickly.
The back side of Winter Storm Carrie made for a snowy morning up in the Bolton Valley Village.
The overall feel at the resort was quite wintry with temperatures in the teens F, moderate snow falling, and some wind. Bolton only had their lower lifts running as they were still prepping the Vista Summit for lift-served levels of traffic, but it looks like this storm put them over the top and they’re opening the Vista Quad in the next few days. The Wilderness Uphill Route is open, so with the leftover base they had plus this new storm, there’s certainly enough snow to be skinning for turns on the natural snow terrain at Wilderness, so that’s great to have in place for the upcoming holiday period. They’ll still need another decent shot of liquid equivalent to get more terrain open for lift-served levels of traffic on natural snow terrain, and to get the lower-elevation Timberline area open for ski touring traffic. I’m sure there are some people touring down at the Timberline elevations with what we’ve got at the moment, but the Timberline Uphill Route isn’t officially open yet. I think they’d lost most of the natural base snow there, so you’re working with just the accumulations from Winter Storm Carrie, and this one storm with ~3/4” of liquid equivalent isn’t quite enough to get touring into a really comfortable place.
A view of some of the snow on Beech Seal today, where 6 to 8 inches fell from Winter Storm Carrie
Fresh powder in the glades today as I enjoyed some turns in the lower-angle areas of Wilderness
Seeing Scott Braaten’s nice powder shots from Stowe and catching Bolton’s report of 4-6” in the past 48 hours was definitely enough to convince me to head out for some turns today. And of course, watching it snow huge flakes down at the house and on the Bolton Valley Webcam reinforced that sentiment.
I wanted to head up before that colder air was supposed to move in later in the afternoon, so I hit the mountain in the late morning. With those strong winds blowing from the northwest, it wasn’t at all surprising to see in the snow report that the Vista Quad and Wilderness Double, being the highest elevation lifts, were on wind hold. With that in mind, I decided to make it a hybrid outing of both riding the lifts and skinning to get efficient access to the fresh powder. The Mid Mountain Chair was running, so I ended up using that for a quick elevation assist over to the Wilderness area. I followed some folks that were using a nifty access route around the mid-mountain snowmaking pond to get to Wilderness.
I generally found powder depths topping out around 6” just like the snow report indicated, aside from wind scoured or drifted areas, or trails that had been groomed during the storm. Low angle terrain on fat boards was what I’d been planning to hit, and that definitely delivered. The lift assist from the Mid Mountain Chair was just right for cycling the bottom half of the Wilderness terrain, which had the kind of pitch this snow called for. Anything with moderate pitch or above was just too steep for the available snow, and you’d be hitting the scratchy subsurface unless you were in a drifted area.
Ski gear and powder outside one of the condos in the Village on a snowy Bolton Valley Sunday
The BTV NWS forecast discussion said that the precipitation would be somewhat cellular during the day, and indeed that’s just what I experienced out on the mountain. At times it would be whiteout conditions with near-zero visibility, and at other times that snowfall would wane and it would almost look like the sun wanted to break through. Temperatures started out in the 20s F, but were down into the teens F by the time I was leaving, so that colder air was moving in as scheduled.
Checking the depth of the snowpack today at around 2,600′ near Mid Mountain. Total depth was around 27″, with about 20″ of it being powder from recent storms.
Last weekend, Winter Storm Ezekiel brought some hefty snowfall to the Northeastern U.S., with totals exceeding two feet in areas around Albany, NY and Southern Vermont. Up here in the northern part of the state we only picked up a few inches of snow from the storm, with totals falling off to almost nothing near the international border in a total reversal of the usual trend.
“My analyses at the house were revealing snow to water ratios of 50 to 1, and even as high as 85 to 1, so that’s incredibly dry powder with just 1 to 2% H2O content.”
The upslope snowfall on the back side of the Clipper looked like it would continue all day today, so I decided it was time for a quick trip up to the mountain to check out the new powder. Thanks to our cold November temperatures, Bolton Valley has actually been open for a couple of weeks now, and I hadn’t even picked up my season’s pass yet because I’ve been so busy. E and D were both a bit under the weather, and T was at work, so unfortunately they’ll have to wait until another trip to get themselves set up with their passes.
I was worried about a long wait to get my season’s pass, but once up at the mountain it turned out that picking it up was very quick. While I was walking toward the lodge from my car, I ran into a member of the resort staff who was checking in with everyone about picking up their passes. For pick up, he said to head right toward the Village Café, and they’d take care of everything. Indeed, there was only one person ahead of me picking up their pass, and it was very quick. The process of pick up and filling out the waiver was all done very efficiently on a handheld, wireless iPad-type device, and there was plenty of nice seating on couches in the lobby area so you could have a seat while you finished off the process.
Of course the greatest part of picking up my pass this year was the fact that Bolton has gone RFID!!! Dylan and I suspected it when we saw electronic gates by the lifts during a ski tour last month, but I can definitely say it’s for real. It’s so nice to be able to just stick the pass in my pocked (my Arc’teryx Sidewinder Jacket has a pocket on the sleeve that works perfectly) and I never have to mess with getting it out at the lifts. I tested out my pass at the Mid Mountain Chair and the process was perfectly smooth.
An image of the snowy Bolton Valley Village today after picking up my season’s pass
“I checked the total snowpack depth in that area and measured a healthy 27 inches, with about 20 inches of that being powder from recent storms, and the rest being base snow. Clearly Bolton has gotten clobbered from some these smaller systems we’ve had.”
In terms of skiing, my plan was to use an assist from the Mid Mountain Chair and head over to Wilderness to ski some of the fresh powder in that area. I figured there would be no one on the upper mountain without the Vista Quad running, but when I was traversing over on Fanny Hill, I ran into a patroller who was prepping the trail for opening because they were going to open Vista. He reminded me that I wasn’t on the designated uphill route, but thankfully let me continue on over since I was just about onto the Wilderness terrain. I checked the total snowpack depth in that area and measured a healthy 27 inches, with about 20 inches of that being powder from recent storms, and the rest being base snow. Clearly Bolton has gotten clobbered from some these smaller systems we’ve had.
Enjoying the snowy views along my skin track in the Fanny Hill area.
Once connecting to the standard skinning route, I finished my ascent on Peggy Dow’s to the Wilderness ridgeline and got ready for some turns. Light snow with breaks of sun that had been with me on the last part of my ascent were replaced with a sudden change to a maelstrom of huge flakes coming down as I began to descend. I really didn’t have to venture far afield from Peggy Dow’s and Turnpike to find powder – there was plenty of it throughout the route because skier traffic had been low enough. Powder depths ranged from as much as 15 to 20 inches on the upper mountain, to typically 12 to 15 inches on the lower mountain, so even with the incredibly dry powder there was plenty of it to keep you floating. I’d brought my 115 mm fat skis and they were definitely the right tool for the job. I was surprised at how quickly my legs got cooked from making Telemark turns – they’d often be fried after just a dozen or so turns! I guess it has been roughly three weeks since I last skied, so my legs are clearly telling me they need to get back into ski shape. Today should get the process started though, and hopefully ski days will become more frequent as we move into December and we continue to get snow.
On the weather side, it looks like we’ve got a warm system to start off this next week, which will consolidate the snowpack somewhat, and then temperatures should cool down for midweek with potential for some moisture from the Great Lakes affecting the area. Then there’s the potential for another large system next weekend, but it will be a bit before we can figure out how much snow we might get from that one.
