Ranking the trails at Bolton Valley
A multi-part examination of our little gem of a mountain.
It’s been a minute, Stack. I’ve had lots to say and lots to feel about the events in the USA of the last few months that I could write about here, but I’ll try to be succinct:
FUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCKKKK!!!
Other than that, I’ll share that I’ve discovered an entire trove of expat Substacks.
New year, though, and I thought I’d get back to writing things in the spirit of this substack.
My favorite winter pastime is downhill skiing. I’ve been a pass holder at Bolton Valley since the spring of 2018. I met Katie later that year, and we’ve been skiing the mountain together for six years now.
In that time, and with her continued encouragement, I have moved from a dedicated intermediate skier to one who can ski almost any trail, though not always comfortably. For the past several years, we’ve made it our annual mission to ski every trail on the resort’s map. With the exception of 2022, when Upper Tattletale was only open one day we were there, but roped off just before we were going to ski it, we’ve been successful.
As a result, we know this mountain as well as almost anyone. I thought it would be fun to rank every trail on the mountain. These rankings are subjective, and reveal my biases. In putting the list together I discovered that I prefer longer trails to the shorter ones, as they tend to have more variety and features, and are also more likely to bring you to something else on the mountain that is cool. I’ve tried to keep this to the skier experience, but there are a few that will inevitably be downgraded just due to the fact that they are less reliable to be skiable in a given year.
There are 71 trails on the mountain, and 9 additional woods runs that almost every other mountain would just list as a glade run, and I will rank each of these along with a bonus non-official trail or two. Because the level of challenge involved can impact the rankings, I have chosen to organize this by difficulty level. I will start with my least favorite per grouping and finish with the best. If that method was good enough for Casey Kasem, it’s good enough for me.
Up first I’ll tackle the green (easiest) offerings. There are 24 trails rated green. Today we’ll look at the bottom 12.
24: Deer Run (Mid Mountain lift): On the one hand, it’s kind of a bummer to start off with my least-favorite. On the other hand, let’s just get it out of the way. Deer Run is the one trail of them all that feels kind of pointless to me. It’s not particularly short, but the fun quotient is low. We skied this just yesterday and it was groomed, but usually it’s left ungroomed and is only open when there is a lot of powder. This results in a slow, somewhat uphill slog, before turning to a quick downhill. The problem is that the downhill is followed by another uphill, and with a lot of powder you can’t maintain enough speed to get back up without more manual effort. To cap it all off, it doesn’t really take you anywhere that you can’t get to in a more enjoyable way. I guess I’ll give them all a letter grade; this gets a D-, which is as low as I will go because skiing is better than not skiing.
23: Lower Crossover (Wilderness lift mid station): This trail, as the name implies, allows the skier to cross over from the Wilderness peak back to the base lodge. From the Wilderness mid station, it’s considered the easiest way back. You can’t completely avoid skiing a blue trail from here, but this takes you to Fanny Hill, which is much more gradual than the other options, which are Coyote and Wilderness Liftline. Unfortunately - as is often the case with green trails - there is an extended flat/uphill section to traverse to get there, and no way to get enough speed to carry it even from the higher mountain trails. Uphill trails while downhill skiing are no fun. D
22: Spillway Exit (Vista lift): This trail really should just be a continuation of another trail like Cobrass Express, which is where it’s most easily accessed from. (You can get there from black diamond Spillway, but that comprises a left-hand turn that is easy to miss since you’re speeding down the headwall when you get there. Or you can exit from a higher point of Spillway, but that is expressly marked “not a trail,” plus that part is definitely not for beginners.) This trail is a cruise out from Cobrass Express or Preacher, but all it really does is get you back to the rest of the mountain. There’s not much to do, except climb a little if you’re not carrying speed. (Uphill during downhill is no fun, y’all!) Better for skiers than snowboarders. C-
21: Mighty Mite (Mighty Mite rope tow): This is the ultimate bunny trail, very short and very flat. There’s not much to offer the experienced skier, but it serves a purpose. The industry needs new skiers to be sustainable, and they have to start somewhere. C
20/19: Lower Bently/Lower Foxy (Snowflake lift): I’m ranking these together because they are very similar. Both are runouts from other trails (Snowflake Bently and Foxy) with similar trajectories that take you underneath the Snowflake chairlift. So there’s an uphill climb to get out unless you’re staying at one of the condos. Long enough and wide enough to have some fun little jumps and the like, but having to ski uphill isn’t going to score you any points. C
18: Timberline Lane (Snowflake): A little trail off the backside of Snowflake to take you over to the Timberline lift. Can also ski back to the main area via Lower Villager. Not much to it. C
17: Lower Fanny Hill (Wilderness): Easy flat cruise back to the Wilderness lift. Bonus points for some cool woods off to the side. Demerit for having an exit over to Mighty Mite that I mistakenly take at least once a year. I think we are into B territory here, though there will probably be a lot of Bs. B-
16: Spur (Timberline): This is a weird little side trail that parallels Timberline Run. It’s skinny and has a lot of rollers and occasional deeper divots. Skis more like a blue to my eyes. It’s more interesting than Timberline Run, but not necessarily more fun. B-
15: Abenaki Trail (Wilderness): This is the main route from Wilderness back to the base, and much preferred to Lower Crossover if you aren’t avoiding any steepness. It gets a lot of traffic, but there’s a fun jump at the intersection with the bottom of Fanny Hill, and a couple of dips and divots along the way. B
14: Work Road (Vista/Wilderness): Another thoroughfare, this gets you from Vista over to Wilderness via Swing. It’s almost always groomed, but there’s a fun dip that often has powder stashes off to the right side. B
13: Cobrass Express (Vista): As a skiing experience on its own, this is kind of meh. It’s the easy way back from Cobrass, so it’s pretty flat. This is where Cobrass Woods and Preacher dump you out as well. They always spice it up with a decent jump in the middle, and this is how you access Deer Path (not to be confused with Deer Run above), which is a fun little woods trail, so bonus points there. B
That’s it for part one. I’ll be back in a few days with the rest of the green trails, then we will start to work our way into the more difficult terrain.
You didn’t mention how much I whine when we have to do Mighty Mite just to complete the map for that season. Thank you😁