Bolton Valley land sale

I'm surprised to hear how much Bolton relies on local business. They seem like a great destination resort that is "right sized" for families and intermediates. I've only skied there one and only earned turns, so I really haven't skied the mountain at all. But I got the impression that it would be an awesome family destination resort with fairly mellow terrain and not too spread out.

I haven’t seen any updates in this thread since the summer, so I wanted to pass along the latest news on the preservation of the portion of Bolton Valley Nordic & backcountry land discussed in this thread. The entire $1.85 Million was raised as of March 20[SUP]th[/SUP], and the final purchase of the land is expected to happen this spring. So, unless something changes, it looks like the public access to the trail network and all that great backcountry skiing terrain will be persevered indefinitely:



This also seems like a good time to provide a Bolton Valley update as of this point in the ski season. The final operation of the lifts was the weekend before last, and they closed with essentially full coverage as has been the case for a lot of resorts. Snowfall this season was most definitely on the lean side at just 245 inches (78.5% of average), but not nearly as bad as last season, which was incredibly low at around 50% of average.

November was pretty typical, with some decent mountain snowfall (35 inches at Stowe, so probably similar at Bolton), but it didn’t really carry over into the season because the first half of December was nearly snowless, and much of that early snow didn’t stick around. Snowmaking terrain was doing really well because of cold temperatures, but that’s sort of a given, and not really related to getting the backcountry in shape. On December 16[SUP]th[/SUP] though, it was like a switch was flipped, and snowfall came roaring in. Stowe picked up over five feet of snow on the upper mountain in those last two weeks of December, and that’s a pretty good indicator of what would have fallen in the upper elevations of the Bolton Valley Nordic & backcountry terrain. With the dramatic pattern shift in the weather, the notable 24-inch mark for snow depth at the Mt. Mansfield Stake was reached within a few days, on December 22[SUP]nd[/SUP]. That date is shown by the green star on the plot below – it’s certainly a bit on the late side due to the slow first half of December, but within one standard deviation (thin vertical bars) of the mean (thick vertical bar), and not nearly as late as last season, which is shown by the red star:



I suspect that the skiing on the backcountry network would have been a bit limited at the 24-inch mark, (perhaps some trails on the network were good to go, but probably not much off piste), but this season it hardly mattered, because the 40-inch mark was hit the very next day, on December 23[SUP]rd[/SUP]. The backcountry skiing would definitely have been going by that point. Jumping from 24 to 40 inches of snowpack at the stake in one day is a pretty good rise, and speaks to just how great the skiing was during the holiday period this season. We never actually got out on the backcountry network during December, because the Timberline Quad was down during the period for mechanical issues, and that sort of became our de facto sidecountry spot to go for powder. While we knew that the backcountry network would be there all season, we also knew that Timberline would eventually switch over to lift served skiing, so we spent a lot of time there while the option existed.

That stretch of fantastic skiing lasted through the first week of January, and then the snowfall really shut off. That brings us to the main reason for the low snowfall this season - poor snowfall in January and February. Synoptic storms were at first not happening, and then they were missing to the south, and that also meant missing out on some of that famous upslope snow for which the Northern Greens are famous. As long as some storms with appropriate tracks come through the region, the upslope will typically tack on that Green Mountain bonus, but if big storms cut out to the east too soon, the northern and western mountains in the Northeast can miss out on the entire storm cycle. January and February are a couple of big, snow-producing months around here, so they definitely make a big difference in seasonal snowfall. To put it in perspective, Powderfreak indicates that at his 3,000’ snow plot on Mt. Mansfield, close to two feet of snow should be falling each week during that part of the season. With that much snowfall each week, it’s easy to see why there’s almost always powder available in the backcountry during the heart of the ski season. Low snowfall doesn’t mean no snowfall, but it typically means slower building of base depths. I don’t have the specific stats for the higher elevations of the Greens up above our location, but relative to average, my snowfall data from the house are usually on track with the mountains, and snowfall was just 55.7% of average in January, and 74.6% of average in February. With low snowfall and a couple of January thaws thrown in, the natural base depths at Bolton below the 2,000’ level (Timberline area) never really got to where I’d expect them to be. Fortunately, most of the terrain on Bolton’s backcountry network is above 2,000’, so base depths there were ample, even if somewhat below average for most of January and February. I had my first outing on the network on January 19[SUP]th[/SUP], with the snowpack at the stake around the 40-inch mark and about a half foot of recent powder up at Bryant Cabin at the 2,700’ elevation. Fortunately, the weather pattern began to shift near the end of February, and the snowpack finally crept above average.

The recent good news is that March and April have been fairly decent – snowfall hasn’t been outrageous, but at least more typical, and there haven’t been any huge thaws. That’s left the snowpack a bit above average, and the snow depth at the stake has been hanging in the 70-80 inch range for the past month. With that kind of snowpack, I’d expect most areas on the backcountry network to be doing fine in terms of snow. I last visited Bolton last Sunday, and you could still ski natural snow all the way down to the Timberline Base at 1,500’, although Friday was pretty warm so I suspect you’d need to stay higher now.

I’ll finish off the update with a couple images from Bolton’s backcountry network this season, a couple maps from those tours showing some of the route possibilities, and links to some of this season’s reports in the Bolton Valley backcountry. There are also dozens of trips reports with the usual maps of the routes at our backcountry page. When things wind down this summer, I’m planning to make a full season summary like I did last year, but hopefully this update has been helpful for folks that might want to explore the newly-preserved backcountry terrain next season.

Bolton Valley Nordic & Backcountry, VT, 19JAN2013
Bolton Valley Nordic/Backcountry, VT 27JAN2013
Bolton Valley and Backcountry, VT 16FEB2013
Bolton Valley and Backcountry, VT 18FEB2013
Bolton Valley and Backcountry, VT 02MAR2013
Bolton Valley and Backcountry, VT 09MAR2013

Update: land has been transferred to the Vermont Land Trust

http://www.fox44abc22yourvoice.com/story/22587938/bolton-backcountry-now-belongs-to-state