This week’s daily snowfall in Northern Vermont continued last night with Bolton Valley taking top honors in New England with 7-10″ in the past twenty four hours. While a few inches overnight would have been par for the course this week, almost a foot of snow was a complete surprise. A surprise I learned about when I groggily reviewed my phone this morning and found out that I had set my alarm to the wrong day of the week, oversleeping an hour. This error would later prove to be both painful and serendipitous.

My usual fuel sipping driving style was left at home and I made the 2.5 hour drive in just over two hours thanks to empty back roads. You can’t get there from here my ass. While scrambling to take care of business in Bolton’s woefully inadequately sized base lodge, I managed slam my right middle finger HARD into an unnoticed stairway railing. I could move and bend it and squeezing all points caused no pain. Pressing on my fingernail yielded a white spot. I didn’t think it was broken. Game on!

I contemplated the odd’s of running into fellow blogger J.Spin of J&E Productions. The odds seemed ludicrous. But in accidentally over sleeping an hour, the timeline was arranged perfectly and I skied into line behind J.Spin and family just as they were about to load the Timberline Quad. Introductions were made at the top of the chair and we dropped into the rolling and open trees of Adam’s Solitude much to the delight of his two younger rippers.

Bolton Valley is not on The List. But for practical purposes, it probably should have been. My only previous visit to Bolton was seven years ago in October of 2005 for the first skiable snowfall of the season. It was my first season since moving to Vermont and I was about to have an incredible season, at least before I broke my elbow and after I had recovered. But in the meantime, I skied one run from the top of Vista Peak in six inches of slop up top that had all but melted at the base by the time I got down. Hardly a comprehensive evaluation of the mountain.

Being late to the party, I knew Bolton’s delayed lift opening schedule would be beneficial. Timberline opens an hour after Vista starts turning with Wilderness following a half hour after that. I skied a meandering run from the top of Vista down to the bottom of Timberline with an occasional dabble into the trees. I found decent snow on Tattle Tale and Brandy Wine before stumbling upon J.Spin and company. After wishing them a good day after skiing Adam’s Solitude with them, it was on.

I found AMAZING snow skier’s left on Spellbinder where the wind was blowing and creating excellent drifts. I found out why someone on a previous lift abandoned ship at the mid-station and I followed suit with two reruns. Boot deep untracked lines top to bottom with occasional knee deep drifts. This was surfy goodness of the highest order. I wanted to explore more but I didn’t feel satisfied until I took three laps down Spellbinder. By that last lap, it must have been at least 11:00 A.M. yet untracked was still plentiful. I took a few tree runs from the Timberline Quad before my stomach and bladder refused to be denied. I fulfilled the request and decided to see what Vista had to offer since Wilderness was on wind hold.

Vista Quad was turning despite massive wind and gusts near the summit. Thankfully the wind was going straight up the line, unlike Wilderness, allowing Vista to keep turning. I wasted no time diving into the woods of which there were ample lines from Vista Peak. I found some quality lines but they all suffered from being a touch too short and dumping out into a long run out utilizing a mish mash of beginner trails lacking identity and clarity. Just when I found a quality line, it was over soon after not many turns. Thankfully, untracked turns were still readily available without too much branch bashing.

I spent a lot of time in the trees around Preacher and Devil’s Playground. Preacher starts off as a wild, bumpy, and rocky narrow trail that really appealed to me. But the tree shots branching off of Preacher appealed to me much more. Most of these shots were narrow and steep softwood lines that reminded me a lot of some of Cannon’s finer offerings, just half as long. The snow was excellent and the turns were really sweet. There was even a nice moderate pitched opening near Spillway that continually yielded boot to knee deep untracked run after run. I kept thinking about exploring more but I kept coming back to try a different line. This area of trees was totally right up my alley and I kept coming back for more.

When I purchased my Bolton Valley voucher before the ski season, my original plan was to alpine ski half a day and then rent a pair of waxless touring skis and spend the second half of the day in Bolton’s famed backcountry touring center. I’ve been on the fence about buying a waxless setup to ski near my house where an alpine setup would be beyond overkill. Unsure if I would take to waxless gear with a free heel, I wanted to try before buying. That will have to wait for another day as the powder was just too good and I was really enjoying my explorations of Bolton. I was disappointed that I didn’t get over to the Wilderness area but now I have more explorations to look forward to the next time I ski Bolton.