# Bolton Valley, VT 12/18/2010



## J.Spin (Dec 19, 2010)

*Date(s) Skied: *December 18th, 2010

*Resort or Ski Area: *Bolton Valley, VT

*Conditions: *Generally packed powder on groomed surfaces, 8-12 inches of powder in untracked areas, areas of thin cover on steep, natural snow terrain

*Trip Report: *We had one of those weeks where it snowed almost continuously at the house and in the local mountains, but there haven’t been any huge synoptic storms to make people really stand up and take notice.  We’ve actually had over a foot of snow this week at our location in the Winooski Valley, and 1.5 to 2 feet in the local mountains, but when it comes in doses of just a few inches a day and it’s very light and dry, it’s hard to know if it’s really adding up on the slopes.  Well, after heading up to Bolton yesterday we can definitely say that it’s been adding up in a big way.

Since it wasn’t an obvious powder day, we didn’t rush and headed up for a mid morning start.  After dropping E and the boys off at the village circle, I parked in the bottom row of the main lot, right above the sports center.  That lot was still mostly empty at that point, so I had the sense that the number of visitors wasn’t going to be quite as big as it was last Saturday for opening weekend.

I hadn’t looked at the snow report for the day, so we just played it by ear and discovered all the new ropes that had been dropped during the day.  Patrol has opened routes like Cobrass, Glades, The Enchanted Forest area, Vista Glades, Alta Vista, Vermont 200, Schuss, Beech Seal, etc., most of them just on the natural snow that has fallen.  I’m not sure exactly when all those trails opened, but most of them were not open when we were at the mountain last weekend.  According to Snowcountry Mountain Reports, Bolton was 45% open yesterday, and based on the snow we saw, I bet they could be 80% open if they wanted to.  They haven’t even fired up the Wilderness, Timberline, or Snowflake lifts yet, so while some of the Wilderness and Snowflake terrain can be accessed from Vista, there is a lot of potential terrain that’s just not open due to lack of lift access.  I did notice that snow was being blown down at the bottom of Timberline, and have heard that plans are to open it after Christmas.  I also noticed work being done at the bottom of the Wilderness lift yesterday, perhaps it was some preparation to get it going.

Anyway, as far as the skiing went yesterday, we rotated run choice among the family, so we managed to mix it up among the terrain options fairly well.  On the announcement board at the bottom of Vista they had a sign that said “LOTS OF FLUFFY SNOW”, and they weren’t kidding.  We found that most areas, even those with some manmade underneath were really nice packed powder due to all the natural snow that has fallen on top of the base, and on the sides there was plenty of untracked powder.  Areas where we did find icy snow were the top half of Alta Vista, where it was pretty horrible at the end of the day, and a few smaller spots on Beech Seal where there were snowmaking whales that hadn’t been covered with enough natural snow.  I didn’t ski it, but it also sounded like Hard Luck Lane was in similar shape to Alta Vista, which is not surprising with the way they are exposed to summit winds and the amount of traffic they get.  We didn’t ski Cobrass, since we only realized that it was open toward the end of the day, so I don’t know how much snow they blew and what it was like.  Coverage was clearly not perfect on steep, natural snow runs like Vermont 200, and patrol has thin cover signs up, but the coverage seemed quite manageable on what they had open.  On that note, we did ski Glades, which is on all natural snow, and it was very easy to avoid any thin areas even in the steep sections.  There were still some pockets of powder on Glades in areas that are awkward to access, but for the most part it was packed powder.  I’d forgotten how much fun even packed powder can be on a trial with lots of natural terrain features on which to play.

As far as tree skiing goes, some areas of the mountain are already in pretty good shape and people are starting to ski them a lot.  We didn’t ski any of the steepest tree shots, and I’m sure they aren’t quite there, but lots of the low and moderate angle shots are ready.  Obviously there are still early season dangers out there, but the consolidation from last weekend’s mixed precipitation storm really seemed to help.  No longer is it fluff to the ground, there’s a base of snow, and then lots of fluff on top.  I saw a patroller head into one of the tree shots off Wilderness, and in areas that have seen sufficient traffic, the level of coverage is very obvious.  With 27 inches at the Mt. Mansfield stake, we are still about a foot away from the “official” 40-inch depth start to tree skiing, but based on calculations I made in *a post at First Tracks in January*, we are just about at the point (mean = 28.2 inches) that people start venturing into the trees.  We’re actually about a week behind the average start of Northern Vermont tree skiing that I calculated in that post (December 9th), but that’s not too surprising since we haven’t really had a big, all-snow synoptic storm yet.  We’ve been relying on the upslope magic of the Greens, which has provided lots of fluff, but were it not for that consolidating synoptic storm last weekend, tree skiing would probably still be rather impractical.  With reports like *Greg Petrics’ mid week ones*, as well as *his report from the trees yesterday*, it’s quite obvious that tree skiing is not just on, but on with gusto for those with the knowledge of how and where to do it safely.

As for the rest of our skiing from yesterday, we found really good snow in many places, but my favorite was definitely the Wilderness area.  Were it not for rotating run choice among the family, I would have tried to drag everyone over there basically every run.  There was lots of untracked powder at Wilderness, and my depth checks generally revealed 8 to 12 inches of quality fluff over the base.  It’s more than enough to keep one floating off the base snow, but even if you touch down there’s often some thick snow there that fell in the earlier part of this week’s event making a density gradient, so the quality of the powder skiing is right up there.  After morning exploration of the mountain, we had lunch up in the tavern and then actually got some sun for part of our afternoon session.  

Consistent with my initial observations, when we left in the afternoon the bottom section of the main parking lot wasn’t quite full, so whether it was the fresh snow that fell, or opening weekend excitement, I think last weekend was busier.  While we loaded up the car we had Ty count the number of Subarus in our section of the parking lot, and out of 40 vehicles, 17 of them were Subarus.  It wasn’t a rigorously controlled survey or anything, but we found it interesting. 

Some pictures from the day have been added below:




















































J.Spin


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## legalskier (Dec 19, 2010)

Awesome pics- they look professional.


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## thetrailboss (Dec 20, 2010)

AWESOME!  And a good plug for Bolton's $15 ticket deal this week!


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## rocojerry (Dec 21, 2010)

Another nice report J-Spin!  I think I got up there a few weeks ago, due to reading your reports from years prior -- nice secret stash up there!!  Would love to explore a bit of the slack-country next time I'm around.


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## J.Spin (Dec 30, 2010)

*legalskier:*  Thanks for the nice comment, we really enjoy trying our best to get nice pictures of our outings.

*trailboss:*  You know it!  It's so great that Bolton does their $15 days leading up to the holidays, and we're happy to get the word out.  Based on the lift lines that formed at Vista last Thursday and Friday, I have to think they were doing well.  It's too bad that Vista was the only main lift running, which is what led to the lift queues, but with $15 tickets it might have been tough for them to get too many lifts running.  It's funny how things have seemed so much quieter now, even though it's the holiday week, it's almost back to normal with no queues.

*rocojerry:*  Glad you had the chance to make it up, Anthony from First Tracks just made another visit to the mountain over the past couple of days and seemed to have a good time.  Bolton really is a Vermont gem in my opinion.  It's got to be have the smallest visitor numbers of any 300+ inch snowfall resort in Northern Vermont, and combined with standard speed lifts, it makes for some really high quality snow surfaces.  It's never going to be the place for aggro folks that want to bang out high speed laps on high speed lifts, but with all the in bounds trees, sidecountry, and backcountry, it is fantastic for folks that like to explore, take their time, and enjoy really good snow.  Hopefully you can get up again to start exploring that backcountry - the Nordic network is a great place to start as they've got nicely cuts trails and glades for those that want to earn their turns.  Conditions this holiday week have been great, I just added another report from Tuesday and hope to add a couple more soon.


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## vinnyv11 (Sep 28, 2011)

*Week before Christmas*

Hey Jspin based on the TR you know Bolton fairly well.  What are your thoughts on a trip up there this year the week before Christmas?  Based on your experiences would you expect a good bit of the mountain to be open or would I be better off waiting.  I know its hard to speculate and it all depends on weather but I figured it didn't hurt to ask someone with experience.


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## bzrperfspec77 (Sep 28, 2011)

there are some good deals to be had at liftopia for Bolton leading up to Christmas. I got a ticket for the 23rd at Stratton for $7 and thinking about making it a dual trip by heading to Bolton on the 22nd and staying over somewhere and hitting Stratton on the 23rd. Never been to Bolton but by Jspins reports and pictures of his little guys, it has jumped to Number 1 on my bucket list.


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## vinnyv11 (Sep 28, 2011)

I can never seem to find anything on liftopia.  Do they put up deals daily until they sell out or is it just early.


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## bzrperfspec77 (Sep 28, 2011)

http://www.liftopia.com/ski-resort-info/product/90/VT/Bolton-Valley-Lift-Tickets.htm#12-2011

$19 through Christmas. Most of the deals are super early.


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## billski (Sep 28, 2011)

bzrperfspec77 said:


> there are some good deals to be had at liftopia for Bolton leading up to Christmas. I got a ticket for the 23rd at Stratton for $7 and thinking about making it a dual trip by heading to Bolton on the 22nd and staying over somewhere and hitting Stratton on the 23rd. Never been to Bolton but by Jspins reports and pictures of his little guys, it has jumped to Number 1 on my bucket list.



In my experience pre-xmas skiing are rock bottom deals all over the place.  Careful though, not all runs are open.  Also, don't try to be first on the lift unless you like grease.  :sad:


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## J.Spin (Oct 1, 2011)

vinnyv11 said:


> Hey Jspin based on the TR you know Bolton fairly well. What are your thoughts on a trip up there this year the week before Christmas? Based on your experiences would you expect a good bit of the mountain to be open or would I be better off waiting. I know its hard to speculate and it all depends on weather but I figured it didn't hurt to ask someone with experience.


Hi vinny, I’d partly base my recommendation on what type of skiing you’re looking to do, because the earlier into the start of the season one goes, the more the strengths and weaknesses of Bolton can be amplified. I’ll mention some of those strengths and weaknesses below to give you a feel for the mountain, and then talk about some things to think about for skiing there during that pre-holiday period.

First I’ll mention some of Bolton’s potential “weaknesses”. For folks looking to lap high-speed groomed runs and get lots of continuous fall-line vertical on steep slopes, I’d recommend against choosing Bolton over other local places like Stowe, Sugarbush, or Jay Peak. This is my recommendation in general, but especially in the early season when parts of the mountain may not be open. I’m not suggesting that that’s what you are looking for, but since various people reading the thread could be interested in checking out Bolton, I figured I’d get that general comment out there. All the lifts at Bolton are standard speed, and there are flat areas around in the terrain that can break up the flow of the fall line (especially if one is not familiar with the mountain). Also, Bolton does not have the snowmaking firepower/deep pockets to blow a ton of snow all at once in the early season and open lots of terrain on man-made snow. This is great in my mind (in the vein of Mad River Glen), but waiting for natural snow is not everyone’s cup of tea. Slower lifts, breaks in the fall line, and less snowmaking power could frustrate many skiers spending their hard-earned money for turns, especially if they are looking for a certain quantity of skiing. But, if one is focused on high-quality snow and the skiing that goes with it, the things I mentioned above are often plusses. Slower lifts mean few people have touched the snow, keeping the quality of the snow surface quite high, breaks in the fall line are opportunities for traversing/exploration, yielding great snow for those with a nose for reading terrain that are willing to put in a little effort, and less contamination of the base by snowmaking means higher-quality snow as well, as long as there is plenty of natural snow. And fortunately, Bolton gets plenty of natural snow. I’ve heard enough people comment about how the terrain seems flat or the lifts are slow at Bolton to know that there are obviously people for whom the mountain is not a great fit. Some of the more obvious routes on the mountain certainly give this impression, so unlike some mountains where things may be more in your face, if one doesn’t know the ins and outs at Bolton or have the right kind of exploratory spirit, they may not get the optimal experience. I’m not trying to dissuade anyone from checking out Bolton, but I wanted to give people an idea of what it might be like; my daily reports from the mountain aren’t usually reviews of the resort, they are focused on the skiing we’re doing, and in general the concerns above aren’t even on the radar for me.

Now for some of Bolton’s strengths: for folks that might enjoy skiing natural snow trails, doing some exploring around in the trees in bounds, traversing, skinning, hiking, maybe throwing in some sidecountry and backcountry… and want to have a chance to ski some of that glorious Champlain Powder™, Bolton can be a paradise. You can jump in the trees almost anywhere and find lines to ski. Tony Crocker over at First Tracks!! Online Ski Magazine asked me to comment on the quality/consistency of the Northern Vermont 2010-2011 ski season in a thread they had going called “2010-11: The Greatest Natural Snow Year of Our Lifetimes?”, and when I wrote up my comments, I decided to look into the amount of powder skiing we did as part of the snow quality assessment – if powder wasn’t available, it’s a sign that there had been some sort of warm episode, and recovery snow hadn’t yet fallen. You can check out the post, which has the links to all my reports and pictures from the season. If I run down the list, it looks like there are 38 Bolton outings in there spanning from December 10th to May 1st, and out of those there were only 5 days where we weren’t skiing powder. That’s not to say that all the remaining 33 days were massive dumps of fresh powder with 1 to 2 feet of new snow covering all the on-piste terrain (although of course there were those days as well), but powder was available to us on all those days and we skied it. Sometimes there was fresh snow right on the trails, sometimes it meant heading off piste into the trees, sometimes it meant traversing to lesser-used lines, and sometimes it might have even meant heading to the sidecountry or out onto their backcountry network. But if we were able to ski powder, it typically meant that on piste conditions were at least decent. 

The scene at Bolton really makes for a unique ski experience – read Jim Bauman’s Bolton Valley article at First Tracks!! Online. That article is from 2001, and is dated on a few things, but all the vibe, low skier traffic, and snow quality stuff that he talks about still rings very true today. Anthony from First Tracks!!, whom I mentioned above in this thread, seems to really enjoy Bolton because he and his family like to explore, do some hiking etc. to get to the best snow. Another First Tracks!! regular, rfarren, had what he deems the best powder day of his life right at Bolton Valley, and he skis all over the country, and beyond. I find that Bolton really shines with regard to the snow quality; many weekends during the winter we will spend one day at Bolton and the other day at Stowe, and the superior snow quality at Bolton is often obvious. It’s generally not the weather, since Stowe is actually a bit north of Bolton and even gets a bit more snowfall, it’s just a function of Stowe’s high-speed lifts putting a lot more people on the terrain, and a lot more terrain being covered with man-made snow. While Bolton’s trails are nice and there are plenty of challenging areas, heading off piste is where things really start to hit their stride. Kurt Ries, a local Bolton skier I know, passed along a little aphorism to me that I really like. I’m paraphrasing a bit, but essentially it’s the following: “Bolton’s trails will keep you happy for a day, but what’s beyond will keep you happy for a lifetime.” He definitely nails the experience with that saying.

Anyway, that covers some of the pros and cons at Bolton as I see them, so take them into account as you make you decisions about a trip, but now I’ll try to address your specific question about that pre-holiday timeframe in December. In line with my comments above, I would really think about a trip to Bolton in that timeframe if you’d like to get off piste a bit or be skiing some natural snow, because snowmaking terrain is likely to be limited. Spillway, which is probably the resort’s signature snowmaking black diamond trail on the main mountain, doesn’t even seem to have snow blown on it until much later into the winter. And unfortunately, due to the wind exposure and width to which it has now been cut, it really has to get manmade snow to be covered. Luckily, there are plenty of other black diamond trails surrounding it that are skiable on natural snow.

In terms of overall terrain at Bolton, there are three main areas of skiing, the main mountain (serviced by the Vista Quad), Wilderness (serviced by the Wilderness Double) and Timberline (serviced by the Timberline Quad). From what I’ve seen over the past several seasons during the pre-holiday period, I would expect a portion of the main mountain to be open, a smaller section of Wilderness to be open, and none of Timberline to be open. Wilderness is 100% natural snow, so getting it open depends on snowfall, and Timberline has a lower base elevation (~1,500’), so the resort likes to blow a bunch of snow down there at the base before they get it going. However, it seems as though they have to balance that with making snow on the main mountain. If there hasn’t been much natural snow, the pre-holiday skiing at Bolton could literally be on just a couple of trails. However, if we’ve seen a good period of base building leading up to that pre-holiday week, one will likely be able to traverse to various parts of the mountain and get in a ton of great natural snow skiing, even with minimal lift service. One other thing to think about is if the mountain will be having a special pre-holiday pricing deal again like they did last year ($15 per day, mentioned above by the trailboss in this thread), and they are only running one main lift (Vista), there could be lift queues on typical days that people have off from work. We experienced this last season on the 23rd and 24th of December. While we were happy that the mountain was getting some good business, as season’s pass holders we were actually anxious for the holiday week to come to get things back to normal.

So what are the odds of having enough natural snow to ski natural snow trails or off piste at Bolton Valley in the pre-holiday period? Back in January of last year, I posted an analysis of when tree skiing typically started for Northern Vermont based on my own trip reports from roughly the past 15 years, and that can serve as a decent measure of when there is likely to be at least some off piste skiing available. After incorporating last season’s data in that summary post of the 2010-2011 skis season, the start date for tree skiing around here comes in at December 10th ± 13 days. That 13 day swing is the standard deviation, so assuming a normal Gaussian distribution around that average start date, one should be able to get into the trees by December 10th 50% of the time, and by December 23rd 84% of the time. That may not mean getting into the steepest off piste shots of course, which can require a deeper base to get covered. However, that date is likely even a bit conservative for getting into the trees based on the reasons I talk about in that post, so moderate angle off piste terrain will probably be in the picture. The rule of thumb around here is to wait until the Mt. Mansfield Stake has hit 40 inches before really hitting the off piste, but as you can see from my analysis, 2 to 3 feet is certainly enough to get things going for many slopes – and we’re not talking about scraping one’s way through rocks and logs under the snow at that point, the coverage is at least adequate. Another thing to think about is that La Niña is expected to be in effect again this season, so one can look at the past few La Niña winter seasons around here (2007-2008, 2008-2009, and 2010-2011) and see how they went. Again I’ve got links to the data in that tree skiing post along with specific comments and links, but we were skiing in the trees at Bolton by December 4th in 2007, December 14th in 2008, and December 18th in 2010. So, for that week before Christmas, which is December 18th – 24th this year, both methods would suggest there’s a decent shot at getting off piste at Bolton Valley. Based on the data, visitors should typically expect tree skiing if they come to Northern Vermont over the holiday period, and the chances of getting into the trees the week before the holidays are still decent - this year the odds start at 73% (Dec 18th) and go up to 86% (Dec 24th) based on my data. Using an online z-score calculator with the 13-days representing one standard deviation, you can play around finding what the chances are for having tree skiing around here available by a certain date. Of course Mother Nature can always laugh at the statistics and throw us a curve ball like a warm storm that makes getting off piste no fun at all. I’m not sure how far ahead you have to lock in your trip, but if you don’t have to commit too early, wait until you see how the weather pattern and base depths develop over the course of November and early December.

Feel free to ask if you have more questions. You can also go to my main ski page and check out the various Bolton Valley reports from pre-holiday periods in the past. Bolton has been our main mountain for the past five seasons since we moved back from Montana, so there should be plenty of reports describing how the skiing has been during that pre-holiday timeframe since December 2006.


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## vinnyv11 (Oct 3, 2011)

Thank you for the in-depth responseJspin.  You really have a lot of valuable information for anyone looking to visit Bolton.  I am still a novice I would say as my skiing is limited to only PA mountains and only this season.  Although I progressed pretty well I felt doing all terrain available to me by the end of the season.  It sounds like there would be a good bit available especially if I wanted to venture off the common trail however, my wife started last year with me and is still hesitant to get off of the greens with few exceptions so i'm not sure if there would be enough available for her.  She really doesn't do well when we have to traverse between areas based on my experience.  I'll take a look at the links you provided for other information and thank you for taking the time to give a great report about the mountain and your experiences.


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## J.Spin (Oct 4, 2011)

vinnyv11 said:


> Thank you for the in-depth responseJspin.  You really have a lot of valuable information for anyone looking to visit Bolton.  I am still a novice I would say as my skiing is limited to only PA mountains and only this season.  Although I progressed pretty well I felt doing all terrain available to me by the end of the season.  It sounds like there would be a good bit available especially if I wanted to venture off the common trail however, my wife started last year with me and is still hesitant to get off of the greens with few exceptions so i'm not sure if there would be enough available for her.  She really doesn't do well when we have to traverse between areas based on my experience.  I'll take a look at the links you provided for other information and thank you for taking the time to give a great report about the mountain and your experiences.


Glad to help vinny; based on your information above it sounds like Bolton would be a nice fit for you guys later in the season.  Both of our boys have done a lot of their learning at Bolton Valley, and we found that the less crowded slopes and high quality snow surfaces were really helpful in that regard.  There are a lot of nice green runs on the lower part of the main mountain (see map below) that are serviced by the Mid Mountain and Snowflake Chairs, so once they are all open it could be a nice area for your wife to work on her skiing.  Good luck, think snow!


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