Bolton Valley, VT 1/31/2009

[J.Spin]

Date(s) Skied: January 31st, 2009

Resort or Ski Area: Bolton Valley, VT

Conditions: 6 inches champagne overnight on top of 18 inches ~10% H2O snow from Thursday off piste. On Piste, some powder in the morning, and soft packed powder later.

Trip Report: Friday night’s 6 inches of fluff on top of Wednesday’s 18 inches of ~10% H2O denser snow set the table for at least some decent powder skiing, even if it wasn’t likely to be epic. With that in mind, Ty and I headed up to the mountain fairly early and got to the village in the 8:30 to 9:00 A.M. time range. I hadn’t paid extremely close attention to the forecast for a couple of days, but last I’d seen it looked like the temperatures were going to be as high as the 20s F. I suspect the forecast changed at some point, because it was notably colder than that. The sun was often out, but a brisk wind in the open areas of the higher elevations seemed to counteract much of its warmth.

Ty and I strolled up to the Snowflake lift, and unlike the dense snow-covered, wind-blasted landscape I’d seen at the base area on Thursday morning, it was looking much more like a powder morning. It was interesting to note that we heard a couple of the lift operators discussing how people were complaining on Thursday that the mountain had groomed too much – and it seemed that they were making sure they were going to remedy things for this powder day. We immediately found several inches of beautiful champagne over the previously groomed surface of Sprig O’ Pine. We did another couple of runs with some lower mountain woods, and found nice powder conditions. I checked the depth of the overnight snow at mid mountain (2,500’) and found about 4 to 5 new inches there. We were meeting Dave at 10:00 A.M., so we decided to head into the lodge and warm up - the thermometer at the bottom of the Mid Mountain Lift was still reading 11 F as of about 9:30 A.M.

We met up with Dave and headed off to the Villager Woods, where the snow was untracked and bottomless. We did introduce him to the Wood’s Hole Glades as well before I had to get Ty back down to the house for a birthday party with his friends. Dave stayed up on the mountain, and in the afternoon I went back up for another session with him, and we spend the rest of the afternoon in the Villager Woods. We checked out a bunch of new lines that nobody had touched, and I’m sure we’ll get back in there again. Some pictures from the day are below:

J.Spin

 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

Excellent shots..you must have a better camara than my point and shoot that I use to take pictures of tombstones..

 

[J.Spin]

Excellent shots..you must have a better camara than my point and shoot that I use to take pictures of tombstones..

For action shots I generally use my digital SLR, which is a Canon EOS 30D, and most of the time it has an EF 24-105 mm f/4 L IS USM lens on it. It's certainly not a setup that you can stick in a ski jacket pocket (I use a fanny pack for area skiing and a ski/photo pack for backcountry) but it does a great job even in lower outdoor light, and it holds up to a lot of weather/outdoor abuse because it's built like a tank. I also carry my wife's point and shoot (Canon SD700 IS) for video, or on days when I don't expect to shoot too much, since it's about the size of a pack of cards and fits in a pocket easily. But if I'm planning to get action shots, I always try to bring the SLR because it's so superior in startup time, frame rate, low-light performance, and just about anything else I can think of.

-J

 

[Chesser]

I always enjoy your trip reports, J.Spin, and not just because Bolton is my home mountain. Your snow-quality analysis is shockingly informative, and your pics are consistently worthwhile. Plus it's always good to see tiny kids starting out on tele gear. Little guy's going to be a phenom.

I assume you and the family already have season passes, so you don't need a free lift ticket, but if you send some of these shots in to the Bolton Photo Contest, I think your odds of winning are between 98 and 100 percent.

And, on a side note: by "Villager Woods" do you mean the woods between Cobrass and Villager? I don't want you to reveal your private stash, but I'm curious to know if I need to expand my explorations. If it's somewhere else, then you might want to check out those trees off Cobrass--they've been pretty great for the last week or so. Low-angle, but full of snow. I suspect you knew that, though.

 

[Greg]

Sick photos right there. Great stuff! :beer:

 

[JD]

Awesome TR, Yur kidz gonna rip.

 

[J.Spin]

I always enjoy your trip reports, J.Spin, and not just because Bolton is my home mountain. Your snow-quality analysis is shockingly informative, and your pics are consistently worthwhile. Plus it's always good to see tiny kids starting out on tele gear. Little guy's going to be a phenom.

I'm glad you're enjoying the reports. As a winter weather and ski enthusiast I have a lot of fun analyzing the snow we get down at our house in the valley, and then seeing how it differs up above at Bolton's elevations while we're skiing. In some storms we get some of the same quality and quantity, while in others the effects of elevation are really pronounced.

I assume you and the family already have season passes, so you don't need a free lift ticket, but if you send some of these shots in to the Bolton Photo Contest, I think your odds of winning are between 98 and 100 percent.

We do have season’s passes at the mountain, but I still decided to enter the Photo Contest a few weeks back because it seemed like Justin needed entries. He chose the shot below that I took from the Vista Summit; it was a cool scene with some of the Adirondacks and Green Mountain foothills poking out above the clouds. I should get around to sending him some more, as he said he could use them. We got our lift ticket the other day in the mail, and I figure I’ll use it so other friends and family can come with us to ski.

And, on a side note: by "Villager Woods" do you mean the woods between Cobrass and Villager? I don't want you to reveal your private stash, but I'm curious to know if I need to expand my explorations. If it's somewhere else, then you might want to check out those trees off Cobrass--they've been pretty great for the last week or so. Low-angle, but full of snow. I suspect you knew that, though.

You’ve got it right with regard to what I call the “Villager Woods”; they are that area between Cobrass and Villager. Unfortunately I don’t know any of the fun unofficial names for the off piste runs, so I usually go by whatever trail seems close. We first discovered that area of terrain when we hiked up from Villager in the off season, so I’ve been calling it the Villager Woods. That region is great fun with generally good protection from the wind, and there’s lots of additional open terrain that can be accessed by hiking up to the local peak above that area (not sure if it has a name). Dave and I ended up side-stepping up a good distance in our skis to check out some of the hike-to terrain when we were in there the other day. We were hoping to just boot pack our way up, but the powder was way too deep and we were immediately up to our waists. We couldn’t get anywhere without our skis on. The side-stepping was slow as well, but it worked out OK. The best option will clearly be to skin up when the powder is that deep, so I think we’ll just throw our skins in our packs the next time we plan to head up there. Bolton Valley has really got an incredible array of sidecountry and backcountry terrain options, and the list of areas in and around the resort that I want to explore seems to grow faster than I can get to them. I figured I’ll be exploring for quite a while.

-J

 

[ComeBackMudPuddles]

Great shot of Whiteface!! Beautiful colors.