Wilderness Lift Line Archives

January 19, 2025January 31, 2025

Bolton Valley, VT 19JAN2025

A posterized image of Ty Telemark skiing in powder snow in the Wilderness Woods area of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

An image of Ty beginning the descent of a line in the Wilderness Woods area on Telemark skis during a January ski outing at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Sunshine sets us up with some good natural lighting as Ty starts into a powdery line in the Wilderness Woods during today’s outing at Bolton Valley.

Today I headed up to Bolton Valley for a bit of afternoon lift-served skiing with E and Ty ahead of the cold temperatures that are expected to be around into the midweek period. The resort has finally shifted their attention to making snow in the Timberline area over the past week, and since it was open to lift-served skiing for the holiday weekend, we figured we’d check it out. It’s always a nice shift into the feel of Bolton’s full mid-season mode when you can start parking down at Timberline to base yourself there to ski the rest of the resort.

Midafternoon yesterday when I was heading home from backcountry skiing in the Jay Peak area, it started snowing as our Saturday system pushed into the area, but the precipitation changed to sprinkles of rain in the valleys as I headed south. We’d picked up a few hundredths of an inch of rain down in the valley at our house in Waterbury that gave a slight crust to the snowpack, so I was curious how high the snow levels had risen. I immediately checked the consistency of the snow when we arrived at the Timberline Base at 1,500’ and was happy to find that the snow was powdery without any rain crust, so even the lowest elevations of the resort had remained above the snow line.

As we ascended on the Timberline Quad, we could see that the lower Timberline trails without snowmaking still need more snow. Our long-duration storms from early January scoured a lot of the west-facing terrain, and the existing snowpack down at the Timberline elevations just wasn’t deep enough to hold up to that very well. Most of the natural snow terrain at Timberline was open, but it’s still just a bit thin to support lift-served skiing without some areas of brush and grass poking through. The areas where they’ve made snow have plentiful coverage of course, but seeing what was available, we decided to head up to the main mountain for better coverage and conditions.

The resort was reporting 4 to 6 inches of new snow in the past 24 hours, and 8 inches of new snow in the past 48 hours, so somehow the mountains just keep pulling the inches out of these minor systems that come through the area. Those snowfall numbers are definitely more reflective of the main mountain though, because accumulations down at Timberline were certainly less.

Up at the main mountain we decided to head right to Wilderness to ski the natural snow terrain, and it was indeed night and day compared to the conditions down at Timberline. There’s certainly been plenty of skier traffic at the resort since it’s a holiday weekend, but jumping off trail into the trees revealed the usual foot plus of light powder that we’ve been seeing over the past couple of weeks in untracked areas. On piste, the snow was nice packed powder wherever the winds hadn’t scoured it down, so we stuck to moderate-angle terrain below the Wilderness Mid Station and had some great runs. We even had some sun at the beginning of our session, and it was nice to have that light and a bit of extra warmth. You could tell that colder air was moving in, and temperatures were dropping through the lower 20s F, so when the clouds came back in ahead of approaching Winter Storm Demi, you could really feel the chill.

We headed back to Timberline as we finished up our afternoon session, and we did find some nice natural snow in areas like Lower Tattle Tale, but due to the shallower snowpack you had to be very selective and stick to well protected areas that hadn’t been scoured. The manmade snow on Timberline Run was definitely firm, and I’d say the disparity between the quality/firmness of the natural and manmade snow is far more than the usual at Timberline right now. The snow they made should be very resilient though.

An image showing a view of the new Miso Curry station in the Timberline Base Lodge with a customer putting in a food order at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — A view of the new Miso Curry station in the Timberline Base Lodge as a customer puts in an order

The opening of the Timberline area means that food service is firing up there, and this year in the Timberline Base Lodge they have Miso Curry offering food. It turns out that like the Miso Toh Kome hut up at Bolton’s main base area, (and other resorts in the area) Miso Curry is another offering from the Miso Hungry chain. We didn’t know that curry was so prominent in Japanese cuisine, but we shared an order of their katsu pork curry with edamame, and it was great. We were thinking it might be a bit tough though for families if the kids want something more typical to eat, but they can always catch that at the main base lodge, and Miso Curry seems to be a great addition to the variety of food available at the resort.

December 21, 2024December 23, 2024

Bolton Valley, VT 21DEC2024

An image of the Miso Kome Japanese rice balls stand with light snowfall at the main base area of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

An image near the top of the Snowflake Double Chairlift with December snowfall at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — A view from near the Bolton Valley Snowflake Lift summit station amidst today’s snowfall

It was a cold one out there today; indeed, it was really a good day to just enjoy lots of indoor activities. But we did just have another storm push through the region, and the conditions on the slopes are good and keep getting better, so I still wanted to get out to see what the new snow was like and get some exercise.

Bolton’s Wilderness Chair was set to open at 10:00 A.M. again, and with the cold temperatures I definitely wanted to warm up with some touring. So, I decided to go with a session like the one on Thursday, which I kicked off with some touring before moving to lift-served turns. When I arrived midmorning in the Bolton Valley Village, it was 7 F according to the car thermometer, and single digits F is definitely midwinter cold. There wasn’t much for wind in the parking area at that moment, so I was encouraged by that while gearing up.

An image of an old sign for the Snow Hole trail covered with snow during a ski tour in the Wilderness area at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Catching sight of an old Snow Hole trail sign covered with snow along the Wilderness Uphill Route during today’s ski tour ascent

Ascending via the Wilderness Uphill Route was quite comfortable, since it’s well out of any wind, and I was generating plenty of heat. I stopped my tour at 2,500’, enjoyed a run through the powder along the edges of Lower Turnpike, and then hopped on the Wilderness Chair for a ride. My body was warmed up for the touring and Telemark turns, and the wind was happily at my back while I was on the lift, but I could tell it was pretty brutal up there at the Wilderness Summit above 3,000’. The calm conditions from below were gone, and the biting winds along the ridgelines made their presence known. After that trip, I didn’t have much interest in heading up to check out the Vista Summit, so I just stayed low and enjoyed a run off the Snowflake Chair. The warm-up touring definitely helped me stay comfortably warm for a couple of lift rides at least before I headed home.

Powder depths have obviously been bolstered by this most recent system, and conditions are good, but certainly nothing stratospheric for the Northern Greens. One factor in that assessment is that this latest storm was nice, but the snow was quite dry, and it was less of a resurfacing than the previous storm. We picked up about 0.20” of liquid equivalent from this system compared to 0.40” of liquid equivalent from the previous one, so scale those up a bit according for Bolton’s elevation and it gives you a sense for their contributions to resurfacing. The resort is opening more terrain all the time, but lift-served natural snow terrain could still use another solid resurfacing storm with an inch or two of liquid equivalent to take care of the tougher areas. Overall, the natural snow terrain that’s open is quite skiable with good coverage and quality surfaces, and there’s a decent, consolidated base above 2,000’, but you still need to pick and choose your lines somewhat in those spots exposed to wind that get scoured.

The resort was indicating 3-6” of new snow in their early morning report, and I can’t separate out accumulations from this storm specifically, but the changes in surface snow depths between Thursday and today give a sense of the contributions from this most recent event at various elevations. Thursday’s surface snow depths are on the left, and the approximate depths I observed today are on the right in bold:

340’: T –> 1-2”
500’: T –> ~2”
1,000’: T-1” –> 2-3”
1,200’: 0.5-1” –> 3-4”
1,500’: 1-2” –> 5-6”
2,000’: 3-4” –> 8-10”
2,500’: 5-6” –> 9-11”
3,000’: 6-7” –> 10-12”

So, there’s a lot of nice, fairly deep powder above 2,000’, and it’s right-side-up and skiing great thanks to this latest storm’s snow being dry. My observations from down at the house have been giving me snow densities in the 2 to 6% H2O range throughout this latest storm, so indeed it’s some quality powder. The back side of this system has actually been aided by some direct lake-effect off Lake Champlain. The bands were mostly oriented to affect the Champlain Valley earlier in the morning, but as midday approached, the bands shifted such that they were more directly hitting the mountains. That definitely helped keep it extra snowy throughout the day and boost accumulations.

An image of trees covered with fresh snow in December during a ski tour in the Wilderness area at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Enjoying some of the snowy trees in the Wilderness glades on my ski tour this morning at Bolton Valley

Tomorrow is supposed to be even a bit colder than today, so if I head out it will just be for a tour vs. riding any lifts. After the warming and consolidation earlier this week, it looks like Timberline is probably getting in shape to support some good touring and powder skiing again, so I may stay low and tour there if a ski session comes together. We’ll see how much additional snow the resort is reporting in the morning, but since we were getting hit at our place by those lake effect bands right into the evening today, Bolton should have been getting even more of that snow. The models suggest we’ve got another couple of clippers affecting the area over the next few days, with warmer temperatures as well, so that’s looking nice moving into the holiday week.

November 29, 2024November 30, 2024

Bolton Valley, VT 29NOV2024

An image of snow falling at the base of the Wilderness Double Chairlift during the Thanksgiving 2024 snowstorm at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

An image of ski tracks in powder snow on the Wilderness Liftline during the Thanksgiving 2024 snowstorm at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — I wasn’t initial sure what to expect from the Thanksgiving snowstorm at Bolton Valley, but with a solid shot of new powder over the existing base snow, there were excellent soft turns out there today.

With the Thanksgiving winter storm wrapping up overnight, today was clearly a day to get out for some skiing, but I wasn’t initially sure where I was going to go. The storm seemed to be more potent further south based on observations that I’d seen, as well as images from mountain cameras like the Okemo snow stake webcam and the Sugarbush snow stake webcam – they both showed about a foot of new snow at elevation. We’d been watching Bolton Valley’s webcams throughout the storm, and the resort was certainly getting some decent accumulations, but Bolton doesn’t have a specific snow stake webcam and it was a bit difficult to get a feel for just how much they’d received from the wider views. This morning, I perused a variety of mountain webcams from around the state, and in the end, there didn’t seem to be all that much difference in practical base area accumulations and coverage between what I was seeing at Bolton and the various resorts father south. I also checked on how much liquid equivalent was in the new snow, since that has such a big impact the quality of the skiing, and while the Vermont CoCoRaHS numbers seemed to be around an inch of liquid to our south, we’d picked up over 0.6 inches of liquid in the snow that fell at our house in the Winooski Valley, so I’d expect Bolton Valley to have picked up at least that much. With some base snow already in place at Bolton, that felt like plenty of snow for some good touring and turns.

An image of pickup truck covered in snow in the Village area during the Thanksgiving 2024 snowstorm at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — A view of some of the growing storm accumulations in the Bolton Valley Village today

Overall, the decision ended up being relatively easy, and I headed up to Bolton around midday. Down at the base of the Bolton Valley Access Road at 340’, new snow accumulations were just spotty, with areas of grass visible, but by the time I hit the Village at 2,000’, I found 6 to 8 inches of fresh snow, so the skiing prospects were looking good. I ascended by the Wilderness Uphill Route, and the skin track was nicely set. I probed snow depths throughout the tour, and by the time I hit the Wilderness Summit at roughly 3,150’, depths were in the 12 to 14-inch range. Above 2,000’ there was already existing snowpack in place, so the higher-elevation snow depths I measured on today’s tour weren’t necessarily all from this most recent storm, but here’s the detailed snow depth profile from today:

340’: T-1:
500’: 1”
1,000’: 2”
1,200’: 2-3”
1,500’: 3”
2,000’: 6-8”
2,250’: 8-10”
2,500’: 10-12”
2,750’: 11-13”
3,000’: 12-14”

An image of steps covered in snow at the Wilderness Summit area during the Thanksgiving 2024 snowstorm at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Some accumulations of snow up near the Wilderness Summit during today’s ski tour

Although the precipitation from this storm was 100% snow even at our site at 500’ in the valley, temperatures were around freezing down low, so the accumulations were quite dense. That wasn’t the case up on the mountain though – the snow was considerable drier, and the powder was of good quality. It was clearly sub-10% H2O powder, and if I had to guess it was probably in the 8% H2O range above 2,000’. I’d brough mid-fat skis today since I was initially unsure of how deep the powder was going to be and how good the overall coverage would be, but one could easily go with fatter skis if they wanted. With some existing dense base snow in place, even black diamond terrain was easily in play today. You’ll still want to be on mowed, on-trail terrain though – I suspect that venturing onto anything with too many obstacles would find you hitting things below the base. And the trees are still not ready yet – the base isn’t deep enough to cover the typical obstacles in the woods. Today’s powder turns were great though, and the snow was dry enough that even low-angle terrain was fun. Fat skis could help there for a bit more planing and speed if you’re on the fence about what width to shoot for.

An image of evergreen branches covered in snow while out on a ski tour during the Thanksgiving 2024 snowstorm in the Wilderness are at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — One of the views of the early season accumulations from along the slopes during today’s tour

Thanks to our upwind friend Lake Ontario, snow was falling the entire time I was out touring. For most of the tour the snowfall was of varying light intensity depending on whether a larger pulse of lake moisture was hitting the spine or not, but it jumped up to borderline heavy snowfall when I was leaving a bit before 2:00 P.M. There was a good shot of moisture hitting the mountain at that point and the top half of the Bolton Valley Access Road had taken on enough accumulation that people were really taking their time on the descent. With the lake effect snow event taking place right now, we’ve had about another inch of new snow down here in the valley, so I suspect they’ve had at least another couple of inches up at the resort. And there’s more moisture pushing into the area this evening based on the radar, so there should be some additional freshening of the powder surfaces for tomorrow.

March 20, 2024November 3, 2024

Bolton Valley, VT 20MAR2024

An image of a ski track in deep powder after a mid-March snowstorm brought over a foot of new snow to Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

An image of heavy snowfall at the Wilderness Summit area during a mid-March snowstorm at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Solidly heavy snowfall at the Bolton Valley base area elevations today gave way to very heavy snowfall coming down at over 2 inches per hour in the summit areas

In Bolton Valley’s lift rotation schedule, today was the first time the Wilderness Chair would be running since the weekend, so it was a good place to be to get in on all the snow that’s fallen in the past couple of days. So, after ski touring yesterday, today seemed like a good opportunity for some lift-served turns with Wilderness thrown in.

It was snowing all the way down to the valleys this morning, but not necessarily accumulating too efficiently in the lower elevations. Up above 2,000’ in the Village though, snow was accumulating easily. Snowfall was moderate and steady in roughly the ½” to 1”/hr. range when I first arrived, but by the time I’d made my first run and worked my way over to Wilderness, it had picked up substantially to somewhere in the 2”/hr. range. It was the type of snowfall that covers you in white flakes in mere moments if you aren’t moving around on the lift enough to shake it off.

An image of the Valley Road area with powder ski tracks in additional snow that had fallen after grooming during a mid-March snowstorm at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Even areas that had been groomed were taking on additional snow and had seen a solid resurfacing from all the recent snows.

As might be expected with substantial snow falling day after day, the ski conditions are excellent out there right now. There’s still firm snow that you can find on piste in high traffic areas and steeper slopes, but just head off to untracked or lightly tracked areas, and you won’t really be interacting at all with the old base. I found that even well-groomed areas could be really nice – my first run down Alta Vista was on the groomed surface, but it hadn’t seen much skier traffic at all, and there had been at least another couple of inches of snow since it was groomed, so the turns were all silky smooth with no noise anywhere. Off piste I found about a foot of powder up in the 3,000’ range, and slightly less down around 2,000’, but there’s enough liquid equivalent in all the new snow now that it will support bottomless turns throughout that elevation range.

Wilderness was skiing really well thanks to the especially low skier traffic in recent days, and they had Bolton Outlaw open, which I hadn’t skied in quite a while. It’s steep enough and has probably seen enough traffic from ski touring that I was still contacting the old base, but I was able to cut over to the steep terrain of the Wilderness Liftline Headwall, and that was nearly untracked and yielded excellent turns. The Wilderness Chair stopped three times in fairly short order when I was nearing the Wilderness Summit on one of my runs, and I thought that it might be due to wind issues, but the lift operator at the base let me know that it was just issues with people loading – apparently they were still working out the shape of the loading ramp there. All that new snow can bring about complications that I never would have thought of.

An image of evergreens coated with fresh snow during an ongoing mid-March snowstorm at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Evergreens around the mountain today bore the fruits of continued rounds of recent snowfall.

The snowpack in the Northern Greens is in good shape – the depth at the Mt. Mansfield Stake passed 80 inches today, so these recent storms have helped it cruise right above average for this time of year. There’s still more snow in the forecast right through the weekend, so it wouldn’t be surprising if the snowpack depth increased further in the coming days.

A weather alert map from the National Weather Service office in Burlington Vermont showing a Snow Squall Warning for the western slopes of the Northern Green Mountains during a mid-March period of repeated snowfall events — The rounds of snow just keep rolling through the area, and the Snow Squall Warning put out by the National Weather Service Office in Burlington is just what you’d expect as the heavy snow hits the western slopes of the Northern Greens

March 15, 2024September 8, 2024

Bolton Valley, VT 15MAR2024

An image of an outdoor bench covered in snow form a mid-March storm at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

An image of ski turns in powder snow underneath the Wilderness Double Chairlift after a modest mid-March snowfall at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Carving out some sweeping powder turns under the Wilderness Chair in this morning’s fresh snow

This morning I was seeing reports of 2 to 5 inches of new snow for the resorts of the Central and Northern Greens. Snow levels were high; thus, the accumulations were likely to be dense, but that would mean the liquid equivalent could be there for some decent resurfacing of the slopes. I wasn’t sure how much resurfacing would be needed, but the past couple of days have had some spring-like warmth and sun at times, and I haven’t been up to the hill during that period, so there would be plenty for me to discover about the state of the snowpack.

Heading up to Bolton, light rain in the valley didn’t change over to snow until just below 2,000’, so indeed snow levels were relatively high as expected. With the anticipated snow levels, I’d planned to ski out of the main base area, and the elevation of the snow line confirmed that I likely wouldn’t be heading down to the Timberline elevations for my outing.

An image of the upper portion of the Wilderness Double Chairlift disappearing into the clouds on a March ski day at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Gazing up toward the Wilderness Summit obscured in the clouds

The resort only indicated a couple inches of new accumulation in their early morning report, but that was either early and/or from the base elevations, because I found more than that up high. I started off with an Alta Vista run, and I’m not sure when it was groomed, but I’d say 2 to 3 inches of dense powder atop the groomed surface would be a good description of what I found there. Turns there in the untracked snow above the groomed surface were ~75% bottomless on 86 mm mid-fats, so I was occasionally touching down to the firmer surface below, but overall, it was quite a pleasant and surfy experience. Off piste, things were a bit different. At the Wilderness Summit above 3,000’ I measured what seemed to be 5 to 6 inches of new snow, but it was a little challenging to get exact numbers. In many areas off piste, especially up high, the new dense snow has simply bonded into the underlying snowpack, and you can’t find an interface. I can’t say exactly at what elevation that changes, but it’s most pronounced up high where the snowpack has seen fewer, or less intense freeze-thaw processes over the past couple of days. Off piste turns were especially good up in those high elevation areas, but in general I found that everywhere off piste except for the very lowest areas of the main mountain delivered consistent bottomless turns thanks to the dense snow.

The freezing line seem to sit right around 2,200’ for most of the morning while I was there, and that was because the snow got sticky for the last 100’ of vertical on my runs. As midday approached, the freezing line seemed like it began to rise because on my last run I’d say the stickiness of the snow started to appear about 200’ above the base.

An image showing a trail map sign and some recent snow accumulations from a mid-March storm at the Vista Summit area of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — A view of the trail map sign and some recent snow accumulations up at the Vista Summit this morning

It was really quiet at the resort this morning, being a random March Friday without a major publicized snowstorm, but I did ride the Vista Quad with a guy who had come up from Northampton, Massachusetts. He’s an Indy Pass owner, his home mountain is Berkshire East, and with Bolton Valley being on the Indy Pass as well, it was a perfect fit for a trip. He said it’s been a rough season down there at Berkshire East, at least in terms of natural snow. Thankfully, they were able to get by fine on snowmaking terrain, but he was blown away by the natural snowpack at Bolton. From about Mid Mountain on up during our lift ride, when the surroundings really started to get white, he could not stop talking about all the snow. He said he really needed this trip for his overall state of mind because it’s been so long since he’s seen snow around his area, and from looking at the Berkshire East Webcams, I can see what he means. He’s really lamenting that fact that he thinks this is only going to continue to get worse with climate change. With the way the last couple of seasons have gone regarding snowfall down in Southern New England, I can understand why it’s so depressing. He’s a passionate backcountry skier as well, and I definitely wanted to ask if he’d considered the idea of relocating to somewhere like NNE or the Rockies etc. with more reliable snowfall, but I didn’t get a chance to go there before our lift ride ended.

Looking ahead on the weather models, it seems like we’ll have snow chances right on through to the end of the month and beyond. That’s typically par for the course during March and April, but getting snow becomes fickler toward the end of the season, and sometimes the supply of new snow just shuts off due to above average temperatures.

January 16, 2024January 28, 2024

Bolton Valley, VT 16JAN2024

An image of Ty Telemark skiing in powder on the Wilderness Lift Line with the Wilderness Double Chairlift in the background as heavy snow falls from Winter Storm Heather at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

An image of Ty laying down a ski track in fresh powder while Telemark skiing on the Wilderness Lift Line with heavy snow falling from Winter Storm Heather at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Winter Storm Heather blasted into the are this morning, with up to 8 inches of new snow already down by midafternoon to set up some great powder skiing at Bolton Valley

It wasn’t even snowing this morning when Ty and I headed off to Burlington for an early appointment, so we knew we’d be giving Mother Nature some time to get rolling and freshen up the slopes. The snow from Winter Storm Heather started up a couple hours later, and by midafternoon we decided to head up to Bolton Valley for some turns.

We were happy to see that the Timberline Quad was running, so were able to park and start our session right there. Snow was simply pouring down at that point, and my initial measurements revealed storm totals of 4-5” at 2,500’ and 6-8” at 3,000’.

An image of heavy snowfall from Winter Storm Heather at the Timberline Base Lodge at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Thanks to the arrival of Winter Storm Heather, snow was simply pouring down out of the ski at 1 to 2 inches per hour when we arrived at the Timberline Base today, and it just kept going like that all through the afternoon and into the evening.

An image of Ty Telemark skiing in the trees near Maria's in fresh powder from Winter Storm Heather at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — The tree skiing was excellent today with constant refills of fresh powder thanks to heavy snowfall from Winter Storm Heather.

The snow was light and dry (my past couple of liquid analyses from down here in the valley averaged right around 4% H2O), so it was very high quality powder. With such cold smoke snow, you weren’t getting bottomless turns on steep terrain, but you could on low and moderate angle terrain, and the turns were great even if you were contacting the subsurface.

It was pounding 1-2”/hour snow the entire time we were on the mountain, so one could easily tack on another couple inches or so to the storm totals by closing time, and it even kept snowing into the evening.

January 6, 2024January 11, 2024

Bolton Valley, VT 06JAN2024

An image of a ski patroller walking through snowfall during a January storm in the main base area of Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

An image of fluffy snow on evergreens near the mid station of the Wilderness Double Chairlift in early January at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Fresh snow from the frequent smaller storms that have come through the area this January adorns some the evergreens near the Wilderness mid station.

With the additional snow that was falling during yesterday’s afternoon/evening ski tour, plus another round of snowfall that came through this afternoon, today seemed like another good opportunity to head up to the mountain for a quick ski tour. Snow was falling all the way down in the bottom of the Winooski Valley, and it intensified as I headed up the Bolton Valley Access Road. Today was another snowy day, and although none of these past few systems have been huge, the continued accumulations day after day have definitely been having an impact on the quality of the conditions.

Compared to yesterday, I started my tour earlier today, and running out of light wasn’t an issue, so I was able to tour up to about 2,700’ instead of just 2,500’. Relative to the accumulations I saw yesterday, the combination of new snow and settling didn’t appear to change the new snow depths too much in the lower elevations as of this afternoon, but I definitely noticed an increase starting at around 2,500’, and the depth continued to increase above that level as well. Here’s the comparative new snow depth profiles between yesterday and today:

320’: 0-1” –> 0-1”
1,000’: 1-2” –> 1-2”
1,500’: 2-3” –> 2-3”
2,000’: 2-3” –> 2-3”
2.500’: 2-3” –> 3″
2,700’: 3-4”

With the available daylight and more time to tour today, I was able to choose some alternate areas of Wilderness that had mostly untracked snow. Getting into the untracked snow made for dramatically better skiing, and I was starting to even get into some bottomless turns on the lower angle slopes.

From my tours yesterday and today, I found that the water bars on the lower slopes of Wilderness were generally in good shape with respect to coverage, so there shouldn’t be any issues there if they decide to open that are for lift-served skiing. Based on what I’ve seen over these couple days of ski touring at Wilderness, the skiing is already quite decent there and it’s really going to take off with even a few additional inches of snow.

An image of a "Lift Closed" sign coated with a bit of fresh snow in early January at the base of the Wilderness Double Chairlift at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Fresh snow coats a sign at the base of the Wilderness Chair, which is currently the domain of only those who are ski touring via the Wilderness Uphill Route.

Next in the storm parade we’ve got Winter Storm Ember moving into the area, and it looks poised to put down a couple inches of liquid equivalent in the mountains and valleys. That should make for a dramatic increase in snowpack depths, and there should be a lot of additional terrain opening. Dylan has a number of college friends staying over at the house for a ski vacation during winter break, and we’ll all likely be heading out tomorrow to ski the new snow. I’ll put together an update of what we find!

March 15, 2023March 24, 2023

Bolton Valley, VT 15MAR2023

An image of Dylan skiing deep powder on the steep headwall of the Wilderness Liftline during Winter Storm Sage at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont

An image of Dylan and Colin blasting through deep powder while skiing on the Wilderness Liftline during Winter Storm Sage at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — Dylan and Colin blast their way down the Wilderness Liftline today amidst continued heavy snowfall from Winter Storm Sage

Continuing on overnight, Winter Storm Sage brought an additional resurgence of heavy snowfall into the area this morning. So, combined with somewhat limited lift service at Bolton Valley on Tuesday due to power outages, today was an obvious day to get out for turns. Dylan was off from school for his second snow day in a row, and since it initially didn’t look like Colin would be able to join him for skiing, he and I headed up to the hill to catch the opening of the Vista Quad. Snowfall was probably in the inch per hour range at that point, so the Bolton Valley Access Road was a bit slick, and we encountered a couple of vehicles having trouble on the ascent.

An image of Coline sending up a wall fo powder snow as he skis down the steep headwall of the Wilderness Liftline at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — Colin sends up a wall of white as he slashes his was down the steep headwall of the Wilderness Liftline today

Areas up around the ridgeline of the resort were getting hit pretty hard by the wind, so the new snow was heavily wind packed up there, but once you were down a couple hundred feet, most areas were fine. Surface snow depths I measured were generally around 20 inches on the low end, up toward 30 inches on the high end, and that seemed to fit pretty well with the resort’s reported 32” storm total. While the initial forecasts for Winter Storm Sage looked fairly lean in the Northern Greens, accumulations ultimately approached 3 feet, and the snowpack depth at the Mt. Mansfield Stake took a healthy jump up to 90 inches. Winter Storm Sage wound up being a solid storm cycle up and down the spine of the Green Mountains, with roughly 3 to 4 feet of accumulation. The north to south listing of available storm totals from the Vermont ski areas tells the tale:

Jay Peak: 28”
Smuggler’s Notch: 34”
Stowe: 33”
Bolton Valley: 32”
Mad River Glen: 32”
Sugarbush: 29”
Middlebury: 24”
Pico: 22”
Killington: 22”
Okemo: 35”
Bromley: 36”
Magic Mountain: 36”
Stratton: 40”
Mount Snow: 48”

At times on the mountain today, especially late morning, we were getting hit with larger flakes for increased loft in accumulations, but there was still plenty of dense snow present as well. When you’re nearing 3 feet of dense snow like that, the name of the game was still to hit steepest terrain for the best turns, so Dylan and I started off with a run of Vermont 200. After only that one run, we ran into Colin at the base of the Vista Quad, and our posse just continued to grow as the morning went on to include Parker, Parker’s dad, and Jesuin. We found excellent conditions on Cobrass, and Maria’s was outstanding – most specifically the initial steep section due to the pitch being a great fit for the substantial depth of the moderately dense snow.

An image of Dylan skiing the trees in deep snow from Winter Storm Sage at Bolton Valley Resort in Vermont — With almost three feet of snow from Winter Storm Sage, the steepest terrain was the place to be today, as Dylan demonstrates on a steep pitch of Maria’s glades.

While the Wilderness Double Chair was schedule for a midmorning opening, it wasn’t until midday or so that it actually opened. Wilderness offered up the clear highlight of the day in the form of the headwall of the Wilderness Liftline. That terrain isn’t usually open, because it’s very steep. It’s so steep, ledgy, and exposed to the wind that it rarely holds snow. I don’t believe it’s even officially a trail. Although the very top is usually roped off by patrol, you can access lower parts of it by traversing in from the surrounding trees. As we passed over it on the lift, it was clear that coverage below the first several yards was excellent, so we traversed in below that point to check it out. It delivered some classic steep and deep, and more than once I heard some of the boys proclaim that was the steepest powder they’d ever skied. Ski patrol clearly felt that the entire slope was safely skiable, and by our next run, the rope was opened and everyone was diving in from the very top. The energy and excitement of the folks on the slope, and those right above you on the lift (the snowpack is high enough that you needed appropriate timing to stay clear of people on the lift at the entry) was quite palpable.

An image of deep snow from recent winter storms hiding the Mountain Market in the Village area at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — With storm after storm affecting the area, the mountain snowpack is getting deep and buildings like the Mountain Market in the Village are starting to disappear as the snow on the roofs begins to merge with the snow on the ground.

Although the lower slopes of Wilderness are too shallow in pitch to support skiing in 2 plus feet of dense powder, they did offer another highlight of the day. The parts of the Wilderness Liftline that had been groomed were substantially lower than the surrounding areas of the trail that had not been groomed, so it provided a kicker to use if you wanted to jump into the powder. The boys started launching powder bombs as they threw themselves off the side of the trail, and eventually everyone got into it and was burying themselves silly. It was great fun all around and made for lots of hilarious GoPro footage. Action photography was definitely tough yesterday with the heavy snowfall, but we still our best to document the great outing in one of the top winter storms of the season thus far.

January 23, 2023February 2, 2023

Bolton Valley, VT 23JAN2023

An image of ski tracks in powder snow during Winter Storm Jimenez on the Cougar trail at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

An image of ski tracks in powder snow on the Wilderness Liftline trail at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Enjoying some of Bolton’s fresh powder during this morning’s ski tour thanks to Winter Storm Jimenez

I headed up to the mountain this morning to catch a quick ski tour and check out the snow we’d received from Winter Storm Jimenez up to that point. Bolton was indicating 4 to 5 inches of new snow as of the morning report, and that’s what I found fairly consistently in touring from 2,100’ up to around 2,700’ on terrain that had previously been packed. Turns were generally bottomless with 115 mm width skis on low and moderate angle terrain, but the quality of the turns was bolstered by the fact that the subsurface continues to improve with each storm. That dense mid-month storm really substantiated the base, and Winter Storm Iggy added some drier snow atop that, so the depth and quality of the snowpack is improving by leaps and bounds. There have been additional accumulations today from a strong cold front passing through the area, and the next synoptic system in the queue is expected to impact the area tomorrow night and has been named Winter Storm Kassandra. That system seems to have a bit more potential for some upslope snow on the back side, and I’ve seen storm total estimates as high as 12 to 18 inches for the local mountains, which would represent another great addition to the snowpack.

An image of snow from Winter Storm Jimenez on the roof of a house along the access road to Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — Views of some of the recent snow from Winter Storm Jimenez on my drive to Bolton Valley this morning

January 16, 2023January 25, 2023

Bolton Valley, VT 16JAN2023

A shuttle bus with a bit of January snow in the Village area at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

An image of the Bolton Valley Access Road in January just below Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont — There’s a solid base of snowpack in the mountains and there’s even been a bit of new snow to set the wintry scene. Conditions should really take off with accumulations from even a modest winter storm.

After getting out to the hill on Saturday to check out the snow conditions, I hadn’t really planned to ski any other days over the weekend – the conditions on the groomed terrain were fine, but definitely on the firm side. And, the off piste just isn’t very viable at the moment, because while the snow from this most recent storm contributed a fantastic addition to the base snowpack, it needs another good round of snow on top of it or else you’re just skiing on a dense, crusty moonscape. But, a couple of my students alerted me that they’d be up at Bolton Valley this morning and asked if I wanted to join them, so I said I catch up with them for some turns. E had the holiday off and joined me, and we met up with them in the late morning period and had a great time catching up after the holiday break. Light snow fell much of the time from the system off the coast, and it certainly made the mood even more wintry, even if it didn’t add much in terms of accumulation.

Along with the bit of snow today, we’d also had a little light snow from that coastal system over the previous day or so, but all in all, ski conditions weren’t really all that different from what I’d experienced on Saturday. Groomed terrain with manmade snow had some bright spots (like Alta Vista again), but most was fairly firm as it had been before. One very notable positive change that took place over the course of the weekend was that the resort had opened a lot more terrain. A little (like Hard Luck I believe) was due to snowmaking, but the vast majority was simply natural snow terrain that patrol had been able to check and mark. They opened all the lower Wilderness terrain that is accessible from the Vista Quad, as one would expect, but I couldn’t believe that even Cobrass was open. It’s quite steep in spots, has a decent amount of southern exposure, and seemed to be mostly operating on natural snow.

“The snowpack is there. At least based on what I saw at Bolton over the weekend, if these storms deliver even half of the snow that’s currently modeled, lift and trail counts are likely to explode over the course of the next week.”

All the natural snow terrain they opened is just a testament to how durable a resurfacing this most recent winter storm was. The only thing holding back the off piste skiing (although some folks were jumping into the woods in areas) is just the crusty, dense nature of the snow. It’s simply not all that much fun right now because it’s a bit upside down and crunchy, but boy are both the on piste and off piste areas going to be ready to go with just one decent storm. With three possible winter storms in the queue over the next six days, ski conditions are really set to take a quantum leap if the accumulations come through as the modeling currently suggests. The snowpack is there. At least based on what I saw at Bolton over the weekend, if these storms deliver even half of the snow that’s currently modeled, lift and trail counts are likely to explode over the course of the next week.

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