bdfreetuna
New member
Been fighting off a very severe cold all week, almost cancelled reservation I had in Barre for 2 nights, but decided to follow through with plans in hopes I'd feel better in the nick of time. My wife was with me.
Due to holiday weekend and blackout dates, and my determination to ski as cheap as possible, I was able to use a Bolton 4 pack ($25 each, no blackout dates) at Bolton for Jan 1 and I had a Warren Miller movie Sugarbush midweek pass which was not blacked out January 2nd.
I would have gone to Jay Peak at least one day, believe me, if not for my 2-for-1 deals being blacked out through the 2nd.
Due to being sick it was easy to not party/ go to bed early on NYE. So got to Bolton and on the chair just around 9:00. First run was Preacher > Playground. This was exciting but the icy conditions on "that section" of Preacher and, like, exposed logs and similar unskiable obstacles on Playground made it a one and done.
What was groomed at BV skied very nicely, there was no ice or even really hard-pack to be found on the unbumped trails. Some fast confident cruising. Wildnerness chair opened up and the stuff over there was really nice. So spent half of the day lapping cruisers and the rest checking out TNT (crusty bumps and some stuff to avoid, but fine), Hard Luck (firm and fun) and Vermont 200 (had a rocky ice section to kind of avoid, I think I have a photo of that below).
Good day, good vibes at Bolton, felt physically pretty good despite still coughing up a lung and blowing my nose.
Next day was Sugarbush. Woke up feeling pretty run down, bad sleep and the cold was still kicking. I could have not skied today and had no regrets, held on to my passes. But we were up there, so we went.
Heard 2 guys at the coffee shop on the way over there say "Sugarbush is all ice right now". Encouraging; I doubted them.
First run we did was Downspout to Heavens Gate chair, then up that to Paradise. Paradise was largely bumped, firm moguls, some slippery spots in between and this was a little challenging for my wife understandably, a little challenging for myself as well and thus I broke a sweat on the first run-- did not want to do that as the sweat chilled me.
Ended up realizing the conditions were not as good as we had skied at Bolton yesterday, harder pack, icy spots, ski-killingly thin woods, in other areas frozen granular. If it was day 1 or I was not still sick would have gone at it harder. As it was we made maybe 10 runs, tried a bit of everything and by 1:30 we were in the Castlerock Pub and we knew that was that.
Was glad to have skied on a basically free voucher, definitely softens the blow of a less than amazing day on the hill.
TL;DR .. Bolton has more and better snow and I like it better
My wife in VT 200 at Bolton
Paradise at Sugarbush
Due to holiday weekend and blackout dates, and my determination to ski as cheap as possible, I was able to use a Bolton 4 pack ($25 each, no blackout dates) at Bolton for Jan 1 and I had a Warren Miller movie Sugarbush midweek pass which was not blacked out January 2nd.
I would have gone to Jay Peak at least one day, believe me, if not for my 2-for-1 deals being blacked out through the 2nd.
Due to being sick it was easy to not party/ go to bed early on NYE. So got to Bolton and on the chair just around 9:00. First run was Preacher > Playground. This was exciting but the icy conditions on "that section" of Preacher and, like, exposed logs and similar unskiable obstacles on Playground made it a one and done.
What was groomed at BV skied very nicely, there was no ice or even really hard-pack to be found on the unbumped trails. Some fast confident cruising. Wildnerness chair opened up and the stuff over there was really nice. So spent half of the day lapping cruisers and the rest checking out TNT (crusty bumps and some stuff to avoid, but fine), Hard Luck (firm and fun) and Vermont 200 (had a rocky ice section to kind of avoid, I think I have a photo of that below).
Good day, good vibes at Bolton, felt physically pretty good despite still coughing up a lung and blowing my nose.
Next day was Sugarbush. Woke up feeling pretty run down, bad sleep and the cold was still kicking. I could have not skied today and had no regrets, held on to my passes. But we were up there, so we went.
Heard 2 guys at the coffee shop on the way over there say "Sugarbush is all ice right now". Encouraging; I doubted them.
First run we did was Downspout to Heavens Gate chair, then up that to Paradise. Paradise was largely bumped, firm moguls, some slippery spots in between and this was a little challenging for my wife understandably, a little challenging for myself as well and thus I broke a sweat on the first run-- did not want to do that as the sweat chilled me.
Ended up realizing the conditions were not as good as we had skied at Bolton yesterday, harder pack, icy spots, ski-killingly thin woods, in other areas frozen granular. If it was day 1 or I was not still sick would have gone at it harder. As it was we made maybe 10 runs, tried a bit of everything and by 1:30 we were in the Castlerock Pub and we knew that was that.
Was glad to have skied on a basically free voucher, definitely softens the blow of a less than amazing day on the hill.
TL;DR .. Bolton has more and better snow and I like it better
My wife in VT 200 at Bolton
Paradise at Sugarbush
