Resorts & Mountains > Bolton Valley
Did you know Vermont has more colleges per capita than any other state? It's true. And all those students are now cramming for one of the most important assignments they will have this year: selecting a season pass from a range of college ski pass deals.
Here in northern Vermont, St. Michael's College students actually receive season passes to Smugglers' Notch as part of their tuition packages. Regularly Smuggs sells its college passes for $319.Champlain College provides full-time students "in...[Read more]
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
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Filed in: Alpine skiing, Ascutney, Bolton Valley, Burke, Jay Peak, Killington, Mad River Glen, Season pass, Smugglers' Notch, Stowe
Ski Vermont, an advocate for the Green Mountain State's ski industry, is offering a limited number of Ski Vermont 3 Passes and Ski Vermont 5 Passes for the coming ski season.
I've never bought one, but here's the scoop: You can purchase this pass now and ski at three different Vermont resorts during non-peak days this winter. The participating ski resorts are: Ascutney, Bolton Valley, Bromley, Burke, Jay Peak, Killington, Mad River Glen, Magic Mountain, Middlebury Snow Bowl, Mount Snow, Okemo,...[Read more]
Thursday, October 9, 2008
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Filed in: Ascutney, Bolton Valley, Jay Peak, Killington, Mad River Glen, Okemo, Smugglers' Notch, Stowe, Sugarbush, Ticket discounts
Ah, nearly Labor Day. It's about time to lock in to the best deals available on season passes and skiing discount cards in Vermont.
The Skimeister and I are planning to ski around Vermont resorts and the backcountry a lot this winter, but we also want to ski Smugglers' Notch at least eight times or so, so we looked into the the Bash Badge Plus. The best price is had when you bag the badge before Labor Day.
This discount card allows the holder to buy $25 ski tickets during the season. The...[Read more]
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
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Filed in: Alpine skiing, Bolton Valley, Burke, Cochran's, Jay Peak, Mad River Glen, Season pass, Smugglers' Notch, Stowe, Sugarbush
OK, you've got to check this out: NOAA reports there are 98 inches of snow still left on the summit of Mt. Mansfield, here in Vermont. 98 inches on April 7!
I got out on the trails at Bolton Valley yesterday and enjoyed some super spring skiing in the bright sunshine. And I wasn't alone. It was Bolton's last day of operation, despite having abundant snow, so everyone was getting their last rides on the lifts. They even kept the Vista Quad open until 5 p.m. for the die-hards.
The corn snow...[Read more]
Monday, April 7, 2008
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Filed in: Alpine skiing, Bolton Valley, Spring skiing
I think I mentioned before that I'm spoiled rotten. Well yesterday the Skimeister and I made the most of a blue sky afternoon by skiing from 2 to 4 p.m. at Bolton Valley. We knew the weather was looking rough today so we moved around our work schedule to accommodate the sun! (It's now raining/snowing in Burlington, Vt., but it is supposed to be all snow over 2,000 feet.)
The spring skiing was quite good. The snow had turned into soft corn snow in most places. We really set our edges in the...[Read more]
Friday, April 4, 2008
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Filed in: Alpine skiing, Bolton Valley, Spring skiing
The sun was deceiving on Saturday morning. If you looked at the calendar and the blue skies, you would have sworn it was going to be a spring skiing day. You would have also been wrong.
It was windy and downright cold in the mountains. At Bolton Valley ski resort, someone said it was zero degrees at the top of the lift early in the morning. Brrr.
While the Skimeister took to the lifts, I headed for Bolton's lower backcountry trails. I was intent on generating my own heat on this chilly day....[Read more]
Sunday, March 30, 2008
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Filed in: Backcountry skiing, Bolton Valley, Food, coffee & aprés
With sunshine in the forecast for today and early Tuesday, and mixed precipitation called for later this week, the Skimeister and I took the afternoon off to go play at Bolton Valley, Vt. I took my Völkl skis out for some exercise and he sharpened up his Burton snowboard.
I knew the scenery would be terrific because of the clear skies and the ice-covered trees I had seen the day before, but I thought the skiing would be only mediocre. On this point I was pleasantly surprised. There were up to...[Read more]
Monday, March 17, 2008
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Filed in: Alpine skiing, Bolton Valley, Food, coffee & aprés
Weird. That's the best way to describe today's ski tour on the backcountry trails at Bolton Valley today. Other words that come to mind are frozen, crusty and otherworldly.
While the high trails picked up some snow over the last week, they also got the deep-freeze treatment. Ice was everywhere. It coated trees at nearly an inch in thickness.
During our ski on Heavenly Highway, Birch Loop and Gardiner's Lane, the Skimeister and I navigated around many limbs and trees that were downed by the...[Read more]
Sunday, March 16, 2008
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Filed in: Backcountry skiing, Bolton Valley
I love checklists. It gives me great satisfaction to tick things off as I complete them. Yesterday I had the pleasure of checking off the Bolton-Trapp Trail on my skiing to-do list for this season. It was the first time I had done this backcountry excursion and it was tiring, but extra snowy and fun!
The Skimeister, his step-mom and I dropped a car on Nebraska Valley Road in Moscow (a section of Stowe), Vermont, before driving to our starting point at the Bolton Valley nordic center. The car...[Read more]
Sunday, March 2, 2008
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Filed in: Backcountry skiing, Bolton Valley, Trapp Family Lodge
I hate to rub it in, but I just had a great Friday afternoon of skiing in powder and packed powder conditions at Bolton Valley, Vt.! And, now wait for this, it was a bluebird day to boot!
Vermont enjoyed a hearty helping of fresh snow this week—with more to come this weekend—so I left work behind and spent the afternoon skiing in the sunshine.
Boy, was I glad that I did.
There was still some powder to be found in Bolton Valley's glades and due to cold temps, it had remained light and fluffy....[Read more]
Friday, February 29, 2008
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Filed in: Alpine skiing, Bolton Valley
The Catamount Trail Association (CTA), the group that cares for the 300-mile trail that runs the length of Vermont, got some good press a couple of days ago in the Burlington Free Press.
The article is not online (sorry, the Free Press site is extremely lame) but it reported that the organization is hosting the most ski trips and events this winter than ever before. About 30 individuals are leading nearly 60 ski tours.
The tours are rated for different abilities and you must sign up in...[Read more]
Friday, February 22, 2008
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Filed in: Backcountry skiing, Bolton Valley, Trapp Family Lodge
Late on Thursday afternoon, we headed for Bolton Valley Nordic Center to do a couple of laps of skate skiing. Conditions were firm and very fast.
It was a good workout as I climbed the hills on World Cup. Then I employed my much-practiced wedge, or snowplow, to keep things in check during the super-fast descents.
In Bolton Valley's Nordic Blog, they reported that they had tilled and groomed the snow on 20 km with an alpine grooming machine. My skis chattered on the small grooves as I wedged...[Read more]
Friday, February 22, 2008
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Filed in: Bolton Valley, Cross-country skiing, Ski gear
I'm happy to report that there is some fresh snow up in the mountains of northern Vermont!
The Skimeister and I headed to Bolton Valley's cross-country trails to do some classic nordic skiing today. The conditions on the groomed trails were pretty good and the fresh snow on the side of the trails measured to about five inches or so. Nice, fluffy white stuff. Of course, we would like much more to really cover up the ice-covered base that's under there, but this is a start!
On our skinny skis,...[Read more]
Saturday, January 19, 2008
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Filed in: Bolton Valley, Cross-country skiing, Food, coffee & aprés
With a warm, rainy week behind us at last, we headed for some groomed cross-country trails today. The Skimeister and I set our sights on the high-altitude trails at Bolton Valley, hoping there would be some decent snow cover.
We clicked into our skating skis and made our way to the World Cup loop because it had been groomed—and boy was it fast! The zippy snow made the downhill sections very exciting and the sharp corners were challenging. Still, I only hit the ground once. Not bad!
It was a...[Read more]
Sunday, January 13, 2008
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Filed in: Bolton Valley, Cross-country skiing
If those twits at Heavenly, Vail and Beaver Creek send me one more e-mail ...
Their multimillion-dollar marketing machine keeps sending me mouth-watering photos of the three to 10 feet (that is not a typo) of snow that has piled up on their totally fabulous resorts in the last week. A photo in a Beaver Creek, Colo., e-mail even showed a skier (or what you could see of him) with a snorkel.
Please don't laugh, it just encourages them.
Normally, this would not phase me, but we've been...[Read more]
Friday, January 11, 2008
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Filed in: Alpine skiing, Bolton Valley, Burke, Catamount, Craftsbury, Cross-country skiing, Jay Peak, Mad River Glen, Stowe, Western skiing
It's days like today that I praise the snowgods, and my parents for buying me my favorite pair of mittens. We had a lovely backcountry tour today, but it was darn cold.
Fortunately, I'm someone who layers up and I know when to take out the big guns (the sheepskin mittens) when I need to.
Despite temps in the single digits, it didn't take much uphill shlogging to start generating some heat and a couple of times I had to take the mittens off to cool off my hands.
Let me tell you that I've...[Read more]
Saturday, December 15, 2007
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Filed in: Backcountry skiing, Bolton Valley, Ski gear
Today I buckled into my aging, but lovable, Tecnica ski boots (this is the year that I'm getting new boots—and I mean it this time!) and saddled up my Völkl skis to remember what it means to really carve a turn.
Having grown up as a downhill skier, I feel so much more confident with my heel attached to my ski and my boots pushing back against my shins as I flex and crank out some turns.
Bring on the bumps! Bring on the powder! I've got my downhill equipment on!
The downhill runs at Bolton...[Read more]
Sunday, December 9, 2007
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Filed in: Alpine skiing, Bolton Valley
What a way to start the ski season. The Skimeister and I went up to Bolton Valley's backcountry trails today and found more than a foot of fluffy snow on the trails and weighing down the tree branches all around us. Gorgeous!
This is what skiing is all about. I love gliding quietly through the woods surrounded by snow. Skiing to a viewpoint is even better, but today the "Stowe View" was non-existent because of a snow squall. Not a problem, we said, before schussing on.
I'm still not great at...[Read more]
Saturday, December 8, 2007
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Filed in: Backcountry skiing, Bolton Valley
One of the conundrums you face as a skier in northern Vermont is deciding where you purchase a season pass or discount card—or whether you do that at all. We have a bunch of ski resorts within an hour and a half from Burlington, Vt., plus an abundance of backcountry terrain that doesn't require a lift. What's a skier to do?
Part of the reason I stopped teaching skiing about six years ago was to allow myself the ability to enjoy several resorts each season—not just the one I was...[Read more]
Thursday, October 25, 2007
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Filed in: Bolton Valley, Jay Peak, Season pass, Stowe, Ticket discounts
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