Prayer Flag Archives - J&E Productions

January 25, 2025July 1, 2025

Bolton Valley Nordic & Backcountry, VT 25JAN2025

An image of glades in the Prayer Flag area of the Nordic and Backcountry Network of trails at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

An image of powder snow settling and curling over a tree stump in the area of the Nordic and Backcountry Network of trails at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — We haven’t had much new snowfall in the past couple of days, so the powder is settling on objects throughout the Bolton Valley backcountry in a variety of fun ways.

The pace of snowfall has slowed down a bit over the past few days here in the Northern Greens, so heading into the backcountry seemed like today’s call for good access to untracked powder. It was a sunny midwinter day, so my wife and I went snowshoeing in Morrisville in the morning, but I had time to head up to the Bolton Valley area in the afternoon for some ski touring.

I haven’t really done any ski touring west of the Bryant Trail yet this season, so I decided to head out to the Prayer Flag area on today’s tour. Although the main lines of Prayer Flag had seen a decent amount of skier traffic, the natural glades surrounding the area were nearly untracked. As Prayer Flag began to narrow and dive down to Brook Run, I traversed to the right through the trees toward the Holden’s Hollow Glades. The main lines there were well tracked as I’d expected, so I continued on into the surrounding trees to finish my run down to the Joiner Brook bridge. I felt like extending my tour a bit, so I skinned back up and did a run down the Cup Runneth Over glade before heading back to the car.

A Google Earth map with GPS tracking data for a ski tour on the Bolton Valley Nordic & Backcountry Network — A map of today’s ski tour on the Bolton Valley Nordic & Backcountry Network using GPS tracking data displayed via Google Earth

Although we didn’t get a ton of new snow this week, what we did get over the past couple of days was incredibly dry, so it topped off the existing powder quite well. We’ve also had the type of cold, dry weather this week that has allowed the powder to settle and dry out to enhance its right-side-up density gradient and improve with age. The quality of the powder out there today was excellent, and the density gradient was such that it skied well on any pitch. In terms of depths, my measurements at the 2,000’ level revealed 17 to 18 inches above the subsurface, and at 2,400’ I found 22 to 24 inches of depth. In general, I found that the main lines of most glades had seen a decent amount of skier traffic, and that’s not surprising without much fresh snow this week, but snow is in the forecast in the coming days to hopefully help reset the powder in those areas.

March 3, 2018March 17, 2018

Bolton Valley Nordic & Backcountry, VT 03MAR2018

An image of people riding fat bikes on the Nordic Trails at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont March after a fresh snowfall

An image of the Prayer Flag trail on the Backcountry Network at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Heading down through a bit of fresh powder today on the Prayer Flag trail on the Bolton Valley Backcountry Network

Yesterday the Northeast was affected by Winter Storm Riley, a whopper of a system with wind gusts reaching 93 MPH in Barnstable on Cape Cod. On the winter side of the storm, the Catskills were the epicenter for big snowfall, with accumulations reaching 40 inches. Here in Vermont, the snow totals weren’t quite as outrageous, but the southern resorts still pulled in over a foot of accumulation. Bolton Valley was reporting 4 inches of new snow from the storm, which seemed like just enough to temp me out for a tour in the new powder.

“I didn’t have first tracks, but I did catch second tracks, and they were generally bottomless thanks to the dense snow and 115 mm fat skis.”

I headed up to the Village in the mid-morning timeframe with temperatures in the upper 20s F and mostly cloudy skies. The parking lots were already getting quite full, but there were still a number of parking spots right along Broadway, and I was able to grab one of those. I actually saw a few folks riding fat bikes on some of the lower Nordic Trails, and it looked like a perfect day to be out on those. Actually, with the fresh snow, comfortable temperature, and peeks of sun, it was just a gorgeous day to be out on anything – I saw all manner of folks on the trails varying from the bikers, to snowshoers, to Nordic skiers, to backcountry skiers.

With only a few inches of new snow, I was looking for some low-angle glades for today’s tour, and I decided to venture across to the west side of the valley for a change. I kicked things off with a run on Prayer Flag, augmented by ascending a bit farther up the west wall of the valley above the flags to get some extra vertical. I didn’t have first tracks, but I did catch second tracks, and they were generally bottomless thanks to the dense snow and 115 mm fat skis. Only when I had to cut hard to stop or adjust for a major obstacle would I get down to the subsurface. Lower angle was clearly the way to go today though, because down on Brook Run I could see that steeper terrain like the Holden’s Hollow Glades will definitely need another storm before they’ll be back in top form.

Down at the pump house on Broadway, I reskinned my skis and headed back up World Cup to Bryant. I skied the first half of Cup Runneth Over to start my next run, skipping the steeper bottom half because the new snow just wasn’t sufficient for that pitch. Cup Runneth Over had seen a couple of skiers, but there was ample fresh snow remaining and the turns were generally very nice. I finished out with some of the usual glades in the World Cup area, and even caught part of the Telemark Practice Slope, which had actually seen minimal traffic.

A Google Earth Map with GPS Tracking Data for a ski tour on the Nordic & Backcountry Network at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — A map of today’s tour on the Bolton Valley Nordic & Backcountry Network

The classic end to the tour was of course a visit to the Village Deli to grab some subs with that fantastic new bread they’ve got. I didn’t see Gus today, but the Deli was really hummin’ with just about every table filled. It sounds like we might have another storm affecting the area this coming week, so we’ll certainly be watching that potential over the next few days.

A map of Bolton Valley's Nordic and Backcountry Network with more than two dozen glades listed.

Bolton Valley Nordic & Backcountry 10DEC2016

February 16, 2014January 17, 2015

Bolton Valley Nordic and Backcountry, VT 16FEB2014

An image of a Google Earth map with GPS tracking data for a ski tour on February 16th, 2014 at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

An image of the "Breakfast Bowl" sign and glades at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Getting ready to drop in for some first tracks in Breakfast Bowl this afternoon

We had a great day of lift-served skiing at Bolton Valley yesterday thanks to almost two feet of new snow from Winter Storm “Pax”, but today looked to be colder and windier, so some backcountry touring seemed like a good fit. It was such a gorgeous midwinter day today in the valley, with lots of sunshine, and highs around 20 F. The boys were more interested in sledding than skiing, but at least they were getting out enjoying the day. E stayed home with them and ended up doing some snowshoeing, but I headed up to the mountain for a tour. There had actually been a few more inches of fluff overnight in association with upslope flow from Winter Storm “Quintus”, so that new snow simply topped off what came from the larger storm.

“The settled powder was 25” deep up at Bryant Cabin, and assessments throughout the day revealed that to be pretty consistent at most of the elevations I visited.”

Since I was solo, I decided on an interesting tour that would hit some common spots as well as some new areas that would let me check out some additional glades. I began with a standard skin up to Bryant Cabin via the Bryant Trail, which went quite quickly without any real stops. I actually had my pass checked by one of the resort employees out on the trail, so the resort is keeping up on that. The settled powder was 25” deep up at Bryant Cabin, and assessments throughout the day revealed that to be pretty consistent at most of the elevations I visited.

From Bryant Cabin I headed out on Gardiner’s Lane and descended via JJ’s. There had been some skier traffic in the area, but there were various lines with fresh snow, and everything was simply bottomless and soft. I cut across to Possum, merged onto Cliff Hanger, and then skinned up to reach the top of Prayer Flag. Although I’ve explored that area before, I didn’t really know the name of the run until I saw it on the new Bolton Valley Backcountry Map. There was only one track on Prayer Flag, and it seemed to be an ascent track. The turns were good, and it was trench city with respect to the track I left. It was actually a bit much in the way of new snow for shallower grades, but for the steeper pitches it was excellent.

An image of ski trakcs in deep powder in the Breakfast Bowl area of the backcountry network at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — The powder was so deep today that ski tracks were often trenches.

From the bottom of Prayer Flag I headed out toward “Breakfast Bowl”, a glade I’ve never skied before, and noted that the tracks looked really good coming down out of Holden’s Hollow. I found Breakfast Bowl totally untracked, and those were some of the best turns of the day – there is plenty of pitch there for whatever amount of powder you’ve got. At the bottom of Breakfast Bowl, instead of heading back up toward Broadway, I decided to cut across Joiner Brook, head up to the plateau on the other side, and take the Valley Loop Nordic trail back to the car. On my way up out of the streambed, I really got a feel for the instability of the snowpack. With the upside down snowpack having dense snow on top of lighter, drier stuff, “whumphing” sounds were being made with every step. It felt like a snowpack that would be ready to rip in appropriate terrain, and no sooner had I been thinking about it, than a room-sized slab shifted under me on a fairly steep slope. It only moved a couple of inches since it was stabilized by some trees, but it sure let me know that the snowpack meant business. Finishing my tour on Valley Loop was somewhat slow on my fat skis, but it was relaxing, and I cut a few corners to speed up the process on the very winding trail.

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