Sure Shot Woods Archives - J&E Productions

March 24, 2024November 24, 2024

Bolton Valley, VT 24MAR2024

An image of Ty blasting through waist to chest deep powder on the day after Winter Storm Ronnie at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

An image of Ty jumping out of the powder snow while skiing in the Sure Shot trees area after Winter Storm Ronnie at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Ty launches out of the powder as we navigate our way through some of the Sure Shot trees during today’s outing. Winter Storm Ronnie may have initially left us powder that was somewhat upside-down, but it improved a lot as the system pulled away and granted us with some drier champagne on the back side of the storm cycle.

This weekend has been an interesting dichotomy of days with Winter Storm Ronnie coming through – yesterday was an absolute blitz of a storm day as that session’s photos indicate, but the storm had departed by today and it was just one of those clear, calm, quiet, midwinter days with perfect temperatures that were just a bit below freezing.

I used the term “quiet” to describe the weather, but that in no way described the number of visitors to the mountain. We arrived right around the opening time for Timberline, and the cars were already pouring into the resort. I’m not sure about the lore behind nobody skiing after President’s week, but the number of people out today clearly revealed that such an idea is a crock. People continued to come to the resort all morning, and by the time we left in the late morning period, Bolton had an employee stationed at the bottom of the Bolton Valley Access Road and cars were backed up onto Route 2. I’ve seen them station someone at the bottom of the road when the road conditions are extremely difficult, or the resort is not running the lifts due to power/storm issues, but that wasn’t the case this time – there were just so many people coming to the resort that the parking was bursting at the seams. To punctuate just how many people were skiing around here, my friend Dave even came up from Boston to crash overnight last night at our place because he was skiing Sugarbush today. Apparently, everyone wanted to get out to ski after Winter Storm Ronnie.

An image of Ty slicing through powder snow in the trees after Winter Storm Ronnie deposited 16 inches at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Ty slices through some of the powder left by Winter Storm Ronnie during today’s outing at Bolon Valley

“And, when I see an image from today’s session like the one I chose as the feature for this report/post, with Ty blasting through waist to chest-deep powder, I guess it’s hard to complain too much about the powder not being as outrageously perfect as it might have been.”

In any event, the skiing was great, but the only thing that really stood out as exceptional was the weather. The snow had dried out and potentially consolidated in its lower levels somewhat overnight, and a bit of lighter snow had fallen as the storm departed, so the powder was not nearly as upside-down as it had been yesterday. The resurfacing had mostly been completed by the end of the day yesterday, but as of today Bolton was reporting a storm total of 16 inches, and based on my own liquid analyses from down in the valley at our place, the were 1 to 2 inches of liquid equivalent in there. I’ve definitely been hearing talk of it being the best day of the season, but that was mostly hyperbole with respect to conditions around here in the Northern Greens. If you just went by the snow quality and powder skiing, it probably sneaks into the top 10 in terms of great days because of the weather factor, but it really doesn’t come anywhere near the top five. Even this season, which seems to be running a bit below average in terms of snowfall, there have just been too many storm cycles that finished off with quality champagne over a substantial based and a good front end of dense snow that knock today down several spots in terms of the powder skiing. It was still and excellent day to be out on the slopes though; it’s not every storm that we get that sort of weather right as the system departs. And, when I see an image from today’s session like the one I chose as the feature for this report/post, with Ty blasting through waist to chest-deep powder, I guess it’s hard to complain too much about the powder not being as outrageously perfect as it might have been.

March 13, 2022March 21, 2022

Bolton Valley, VT 13MAR2022

A black and white image of Jay skiing powder after Winter Storm Quinlan on the Spell Binder trail in the Timberline area of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

An image of Erica skiing the powder from Winter Storm Quinlan in the KP Glades area of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — As long as you knew the areas that have held onto good base snow, there was some great off piste skiing today thanks to Winter Storm Quinlan, as E demonstrates in the KP Glades.

Today was the day after the storm (Winter Storm Quinlan), and the weather had settled down. E and I headed up for morning turns at Timberline, and the conditions were great. It was still cold by March standards, somewhere in the teens F in the morning. The storm total reported by Bolton Valley was around 18 inches.

We spent our entire morning at Timberline, and just stayed there since there was plenty of snow even down to 1,500’, and there was still some wind around as we hit 2,500’. My depth checks generally revealed about 12” of new snow after settling down in the Timberline elevations, which with the density at the beginning of the storm was plenty to cover most on piste terrain. Initially, the headwalls of the steepest terrain areas were closed, since they had been scoured by the winds and thus not covered as well as they otherwise would have been. The traverses below them were in good shape though, so that gave you access to run after run of untracked powder on trails like Spell Binder. Eventually, patrol even opened the Spell Binder headwall, but you had to be quite cautious going down the most scoured sections.

An image of Jay skiing powder from Winter Storm Quinlan on the Spell Binder Trail of the Timberline area at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Jay enjoys some of that Winter Storm Quinlan powder today on Spell Binder

For off piste runs, you had to know the areas with good base depths, but the skiing in those areas was excellent. The usual steepest areas were still sketchy of course, as one storm can only do so much to cover up areas with poor base depths. E and I had a great run in the lower KP Glades, and when we showed it to Dylan and Parker once they arrived it the early afternoon, they were pretty impressed with the conditions as well. E and I left around 1:00 P.M., but the boys did a lot of off piste exploring in the afternoon, and my Dylan’s ski got a solid core shot to show for it.

“My depth checks generally revealed about 12” of new snow after settling down in the Timberline elevations, which with the density at the beginning of the storm was plenty to cover most on piste terrain.”

The parking lots up at the Village were already full when we arrived in the morning, so the Timberline Quad had intermittent periods with a lift queue as the people arriving made their way up to the main mountain, but thankfully those died off as people dispersed. Bolton opened the new expansion to the Timberline Lodge for the first time this weekend, and it looks quite nice. I hear they are also going to use it as rentable space for conferences and events, but it’s going to be a great addition to the space in the lodge.

January 20, 2019January 21, 2019

Bolton Valley, VT 20JAN2019

An image of Ty skiing the Lost Girlz area at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont

An image of Erica spraying powder as she skis in fresh snow from Winter Storm Harper at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — E throws up some powder today during our Timberline adventures in the snows of Winter Storm Harper

The current weather system affecting our area has been named Winter Storm Harper, and its snowfall began around here yesterday afternoon. There was a long lead up of light snow into the evening, but overnight it finally started to unload snowfall at roughly an inch per hour. The snowfall density hovered around a fairly standard 10% H2O because the flakes were quite small and temperatures were in the single digits F, but those small flakes still managed to accumulate at quite a pace throughout the morning.

Temperatures were only expected to stay in the single digits F today, so I had initially planned on heading for some backcountry skiing to stay warm, but once we saw that there was zero wind and all of Bolton Valley’s lifts were running, our plans shifted to riding the lifts. We headed up to Timberline around midday and found continued snowfall that was robust enough to challenge both the road and parking lot plows to keep up with it.

“…with the storm cycles we’ve had recently it’s just been resurfacing after resurfacing. So, you can certainly go fast and big on the slopes, and that’s just what the boys had fun doing today on the steep and deep terrain.”

We started off with a quick run on Spell Binder to get warmed up, and the depth of the powder seemed to range from 15 to 25 inches. I’d say the low end values would represent what had come from this storm, with the deeper areas including snows from previous storm cycles. Anything in that range of depths was more than enough to keep you floating though, since it was fairly hearty mid weight powder.

An image of Dylan skiing powder snow in the KP Glades are of Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — Dylan plowing through lots of untracked powder today out in the KP glades

That introduction on Spell Binder set the tenor for the day though, and it less us know that both the depths of the powder, and the degree of resurfacing called for steep terrain and plenty of it. With that in mind we spent the afternoon visiting a ton of powder-filled, steeply-sloped favorites like Lost Girlz, Thundergoat Pass, KP Glades, Sure Shot Trees, Doug’s Solitude, etc. Off piste coverage is excellent, and with the storm cycles we’ve had recently it’s just been resurfacing after resurfacing. So, you can certainly go fast and big on the slopes, and that’s just what the boys had fun doing today on the steep and deep terrain.

An image of Dylan jumping on his skis in the Thundergoat Pass area at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Dylan catching some air on Thundergoat Pass today as we focused on the steep and deep terrain thanks to our recent storm cycles

We took a mid-session break in the Timberline Base Lodge to have some food and pop in some hand/boot warmers, and seats were just about filled, but we were able to get a table within a minute or two. Food options are fairly minimal now from what we saw, but there were fries and chicken fingers for hot items. I’m sure it’s hard for the resort to manage the availability of food services at the Timberline Base Lodge because of the variability in its opening schedule, but we’d certainly be ordering more food if they had more available. We’d love to go back to the South of Solitude days as well!

An image of Ty skiing powder snow in the trees at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Ty slicing up the powder in the trees today

Overall all though, it was simply fantastic to get the whole family out for a lift-served Timberline powder day, and I think this was our first one of those this season. As usual, Ty was very impressed with how the lot was quite full of vehicles, but people seemed to be nonexistent on the slopes. I guess the message is that they were well spread out. E was cold and didn’t come out for our last run, but it was a big hit with the boys, especially Dylan. We hit Doug’s Solitude to Adam’s Solitude, and he jumps off big ledges, lots of untracked powder, and a chance for Dylan to ride his favorite return track to the base with all its whoops, jumps, walls, and endless halfpipe nature.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: