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A deep, white backcountry skiing tour today in northern Vermont

Posted Thursday, January 20, 2011
— Bolton Valley, Backcountry skiing

Lots of snow on the backcountry trails at Bolton Valley.

I've figured it out: I am a right-turner. At least when it comes to my skinny backcountry skis, I tele turn to the right much better than to the left.

I figured this all out on the backcountry trails at Bolton Valley at lunchtime today. There is a lot of snow up there! It was gorgeous.

On top of all the snow we've been getting for a week or two, I found a thin, fluffy layer of fresh snow from last night. It put a thin blanket over yesterday's ski tracks.

I saw photos of the Bolton-Trapp backcountry trail from Sunday and it looked great. That trail starts off of Birch Loop. But that's for another day. Check out my photos from today.

I climbed up Bryant Trail to the Bryant Cabin, then took a left onto just the very start of Birch Loop. Then I climbed another 20 minutes or so on Heavenly Highway. I passed a gladed area that I wanted to check out; I wanted to see what was higher.

I bundled up and zipped back down Heavenly Highway and went into the deep snow in the glade that leads back down toward the cabin. I hit Gardner's Lane and turned left on it and followed that to another glade called A1A. This was fun and deep!

The glade kicked me out onto the Coyote Trail and it was a pleasant schuss back toward the nordic center trails. By that time the sun broke through the lazy snowflakes and partly sunny skies. (But I noticed that the ski mountain was still half-covered by a cloud.)

I took a left onto World Cup and cut over to the Telemark Practice Slope. Again, deep stuff to make wide turns on. I fell a couple times during my outing — mostly doing left turns!

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