Main content

My lunchtime cross-country skate ski at Bolton Valley

Posted Thursday, January 6, 2011
— Bolton Valley, Cross-country skiing

Limited trails, but good skiing at Bolton Valley today.

I was jonesing for some outdoor exercise, so I looked at the snow reports for my area nordic centers and found that I needed to "go high" to find some trails that were doing OK after last week's thaw. And none are higher than the Bolton Valley nordic center. So off I went for a lunchtime skate.

I saved this tidbit about elevations from a recent Bolton nordic newsletter:

If you are looking on the NOAA.gov weather site, Bolton is located at approximately Lat/Lon: 44.42°N 72.85°W and Elevation: 2276 ft. The Bolton Valley base area elevation is 2150 ft., Bolton Lodge on Broadway is at 1600 ft., Bryant Cabin is at 2690 ft., Harington's View is 2600 ft., Raven's Wind/Catamount Trail Intersection is 3100 ft.

Why is this handy? Because when the weatherman says there will be x amount of snow above 2,000 feet, you have an idea that Bolton is going to have snow on their trails.

Today I found 8 km of groomed trails to ski on. You could tell that under the one to two inches of fluffy snow on top, the groomed snow surface was very firm. Liz at the cross-country center said they opened as much as they could considering the recent thaw-then-freeze weather.

I was enjoying that cool kind of weather that alternates between sunny and flurries. The coverage was good on Maple Loop, Broadway and World Cup, and just a little rough on Picnic Loop. As Liz said, "It's amazing how thin the snow is, but how good the skiing is."

Share This Blog Post

 

Post a Comment

No Account Needed! To post a comment without any kind of account, you can type in a name, nickname or trail name and an email (which we do not collect or use) then select "I'd rather post as guest." We'd love to hear from you!

Link to get a Protect Our Winters membership

 


Fresh snow in the woods

Thank goodness the snow is back!

Posted 3/13/24

Thanks to a rather long-duration storm, some of Vermont's higher elevations saw 2 feet of snow through Monday. This was a very welcome development! The first wave of snow was heavy and wet, while the…

Skier in pink makes a turn in knee-deep powder

Enjoying some fluffy new snow in northern Vermont

Posted 2/18/24

So grateful for new snow! At higher elevations in northern Vermont, we've seen quite a bit of fluffy new snow in the last couple of days. Above 1600 feet or so there's often a decent, frozen base, as…

Late-afternoon Nordic ski in soft snow

Posted 2/9/24

With Saturday looking like it will hit 45 degrees at 2,000 feet with possible rain showers in northern Vermont, it was time to hit the cross-country trails today! We took a late-afternoon ski at…