What a difference there is in snow from the bottom of the Bolton Valley access road to the top! We arrived Friday afternoon to witness snowy white peaks emerging from puffy mountain clouds. It definitely looked like winter up there.
We skinned up to about 2,800 feet in the Bolton backcountry trail network as the sun shone through the trees. It was really lovely and a perfect break from the real world.
We skied through 3 to 5 inches of new-ish snow over a solid crust base. The recent snow had become rather wind-slabbed and reminded us of styrofoam. In shady areas it was softer. On low-angle, shady pitches I sometimes could float through the snow doing shallow telemark turns. Whee! On steeper hills or in areas that the sun had hit, you had to be aggressive.
Bolton Valley is reporting two inches of new snow over the last 48 hours and 11 inches over the last week. Things are looking good, except for some persistent water hazards and open stream beds. Genuine winter temperatures could help that! We have a link to the data for the depth of the <link internal-link internal link in current>snow at the stake on Mt. Mansfield on our Vermont Snow Reports page. It's now at 53 inches!
