Tag Archives | bolton

Bolton Questions Answered

By Adam Terko on 19 November, 2020 in Uncategorized

Note: whenever you are skiing at Bolton, please stay safe and socially distance, and abide by any current VT guidelines for COVID-19. Thanks!

With a lot of new activity and skiing opportunities at Bolton this winter, now is a good time to address some questions. Hopefully this post will provide some key info and point readers to new helpful resources!

When can I ski at Bolton? Do I need a pass?

The requirement of a pass technically does not begin until the resort opens. The alpine and nordic operations begin in tandem: that is, the Nordic skiing will not be officially “open” until the alpine skiing is.

Until then, you can ski at Bolton without a pass requirement, however understand that you are assuming any and all risk.

Where can I get a pass? What does it include?

All MNC Members can purchase discounted passes for Nordic, Backcountry, and Uphill skiing. Bolton is offering our club a special $93 (incl. tax) weekday pass or a full week pass at the pre-season rate of $161 (incl. tax), either of which can be purchased on our registration page. Input your MNC Membership number and select either the midweek club discount pass, or a full week season pass.

MNC programs that take place at Bolton (BKL, Juniors, Afternoon Masters) have a registration option to purchase the pass bundled with programming, or just programming itself if you already have purchased your Bolton pass.

Where do I see conditions?

Before you email, text, or message coaches, take a peek at the Bolton Snow Report on Twitter. This account is maintained by MNC coaches who will make every effort to keep updates current. You can also find this report as a feed on the right-hand side of the MNC homepage.

Bolton itself maintains a condition report page, but do not rely on this to always reflect the most current or accurate conditions.

You can view alpine webcam from the base area and top of Vista lift here.

How do the lights work?

First off, thanks again to Green Mountain Electrical Supply for the materials and expertise involved with lighting an entire 1.4km trail.

The lights are powered by a generator and they are not on a set schedule until MNC programs begin and/0r the resort officially opens.

Always have a headlamp if you are skiing after dark, lights notwithstanding.

Operation of the lighting system is limited to MNC lead coaches, Bolton Valley Nordic staff, and coaches from teams training at the facility. When night skiing is in full effect, plan on the lights turning off around 8pm.

Before the resort opens, we will announce on the Bolton Snow Report Twitter if we will be offering night skiing on particular days. If there is snow and skiing to be had, remember to check that page!

Who does the grooming?

Bolton does not own a snowmobile or Nordic grooming equipment for use with a snowmobile (funny for a Nordic center, right?) but they do have access to large Pistenbully groomers. These large Pistenbullys are great, but they cannot groom without at least a foot of snow.

MNC sled and groomer, new (to us) for 20/21

To fill the gap in grooming quality and consistency, MNC is purchasing a snowmobile and Tidd Tech groomer and tracksetter for this season. It is currently being worked on but should be operational by the first significant snows. MNC will be doing all grooming at Bolton when the snow is at low levels. We are able to groom not only the low-snow-enabled and lighted Picnic Loop but other trails as well. Please note this is all done on a volunteer basis by Coach Adam.

Our aim is to groom as much as possible, regardless what day of the week it is. We want Bolton to be a great Nordic center for everyone at any time! However please realize that Coach Adam and other possible groomers are all coaches first and snowfarmers second, but we will do our best to create awesome skiing conditions.

Bolton: 1st ski on the MNC lighted loop!

By Adam Terko on 5 November, 2020 in Uncategorized

Well, the Picnic trail at Bolton has existed for quite some time, so it’s tough to call it the first ski on this loop. BUT, with the immense amount of work our club has put in over the past 2 months this loop is starting to feel more and more like a new home for the club.

Without the rock removal, bridge building, weed trimming, branch cutting, and grade levelling MNC members carried out, there is no way we would have been able to ski groomed laps this week. With the exception of two large rocks that we’ll need a real excavator to remove, the loop is about as fine-tuned as possible for low-snow skiing and grooming, and we got the perfect initial test of that this week.

Human grooming!

6 inches fell Sunday into Monday, and on Monday night my friend Ben and I, along with Mike Millar, were up and in business with some homemade grooming devices. Nothing like a good strength workout of snowshoeing a few laps tugging an unweighted groomer, followed by a couple laps with rocks in the back to pack things down further!

On Tuesday, we woke up to even more snow as a further 8 inches hit Bolton. For those curious, the base area is at 2000′ so even with barely an inch in Burlington there was a full-on winter scene up on the Nordic trails. More grooming was in order, and on Tuesday afternoon the Juniors had an awesome training session. As night fell and we donned headlamps (read on to learn about how you can help install the lighted system THIS SUNDAY) masters skiers from MNC and just the surrounding area in general

began to appear. This was really happening!

But the real treat was Wednesday morning, when the skied-in and groomed-in snow had another cold night to set-up. Skiers for the 8am training session had nearly perfect mid-winter conditions. With a little creative shoveling, the loop held on for the afternoon session as long as you were ok with dodging the occasional grass patch.

With the loop in the best shape it has ever been in, and the first real skiing able to happen, we were able to glean some first impressions from what will become our new lighted loop:

Both the sunrise and sunset skiing is beautiful. With a western-facing high-point to start the loop off, you’re treated with beautiful light and views of the Adirondack sunset for the whole first half of the loop.
The loop flows well, especially in the general counter-clockwise direction. There is a sharp downhill curve to the right, and hairpin to the left, with your reward for this tricky section being a smooth and snaking V2 section that feels like true “hero skiing”.
The climb is tough, but perfect for this kind of loop. There is a steep climb out of the low-point, and once you reach the end of the steep section that parallels the access road, you are rewarded with smooth undulating grades that we are amazing for classic striding!

The sunsets are no joke here

While the snow is gone for now, the little taste we got makes us all the more excited for this winter.

You can check out on-snow photos from these couple of days in this album

You can check out the trail work before-the-snow in this album

Interested in installing the lights with us? Our mission will be to put up the remaining light posts on trees and then run this wire (below) to all of the posts as we prepare to flip the switch!

Join the club at Bolton this coming Sunday, 11/8 at 9AMto help complete this big project! Bring work clothes, gloves, and some water!

Bolton Trail Work Day 10/24

By Adam Terko on 18 October, 2020 in Uncategorized

Join us this coming Saturday, 10/24 at noon for another work day at the Bolton Nordic trails! The overhanging branches have been cleared, the bridges have been built, and many rocks have been removed.

With the leaves falling off the trees at around 1200′ and above, the next step is to do a final clearing of the trail. This means:

-Continuing to remove as many big rocks as possible/fill in holes with fresh dirt

-Leaf-blowing and raking off the leaves on the trail

-Clearing the leaves and sticks out of the drainage ditches

-Weedwhacking and mowing the grassy parts of the trail a final time

Some tools like rakes, shovels, and wheelbarrows will be provided. Bring a weedwhacker if you have one and we can really motor.

Aside from the rock situation, these are all relatively light tasks and it speaks to our collective effort that we’ve gotten this far already! In subsequent years, light work like this will be the only thing required to keep this trail in the pristine shape we’ve brought it to currently.

Speaking of “light work”…nothing can entice some trail work like an image of our first light post, constructed and completed by Lionel Welch at Green Mtn Electrical Supply! You can expect to be skiing under the lights of these beautiful, efficient LED bulbs and wiring systems…thanks SO MUCH to Lionel, Nate Laber, and the folks at GMES for making this lighted loop a reality.

Week of Soreness 2018

By Adam Terko on 30 July, 2018 in Junior Blog

You know you just survived an intensity week when every step out of bed brings groans, ever reach downward to put on a shoe or ski boot feels like a gnarly hamstring stretch, and washing your hair sends sharp pain through your shoulders.

Here is a step-by-step guide on how to achieve all desired soreness from your intensity week:

1) Start off with a double pole test, then more intervals on top of that, and then go to the gym to do a Canadian Strength Test

The double pole test was an absolute destruction-zone of previous PRs and fast times. The archive showed a massive improvement for so many in the group, and after a long period of time it is exciting to announce that the records have fallen! Olivia set a new women’s club record, while Elliott Ketchel, Will, and Greg ALL went under the previous course record which had stood since 2014.

DP Test Historical Archive

PRs for Ben C, Will, Aidan, Kai, Magda, Julia, Marika, Hanna, Meredith, and Ava…phew! We also got a lot of footage since GMVS joined us for the test. Colin, Andy, and Perry all had the cameras rolling so most skiers have clips of beginning, middle and end!

But we weren’t done after the DP test. We then went to the gym and took on the Canadian Strength Test. This is a test used by many of the college ski teams and Juniors around the country (and, I can only assume, in Canada as well). The test is simple but brutal: one minute on, one minute off, for ten minutes. As many of the following as you can in each respective “on” minute:

-Pullups

-Situps

-Pushups

-Box Jumps

-Dips

Everyone partnered up and pushed hard. Ali, Aidan, and Magda will do this test as part of the National U16 Camp they qualified for in a few weeks, so part of the plan was to get a test in so it’s not such a shock at the main event. But of course, we all should take part in the fun (including Adam and Sara). Here’s a spreadsheet of results. MNC Juniors or Masters, if you want to do this test on your own just have a partner to validate and send in your scores to add to the sheet!

Canadian Strength Test MNC

Strength Test Protocol

2) Easy days stay easy!

On Wednesday we set out for a trail run, but as you can imagine most everyone woke up feeling like they got “hit by a bus” as Jenny put it. The first few minutes of running were excruciating but luckily we made sure to do our Morning Sport exercises (mobility, dynamic stretching, and more) to get ourselves loosened up. Still, it’s worth noting that for us a nice easy trail run is about 12-14 min/mile pace and we’re just fine with that!

3) Towing and mass starts

Time for towing after an easy day Wednesday! We like to use old bike tubes and tow partners for some specific strength, and also to get the hips forward and powerful. We usually do a bit more of this in the fall, but we’ve started earlier this year and we’re already looking strong and powerful. Usually every 2 weeks in the fall we increase the length of the towing “course” and this year will be no different.

We ended the session with some mass start practice! It’s been awesome to have 20+ skiers at the Range pretty much every Tuesday/Thursday. So with a big group, how can you NOT make it exciting and work on those close-quarters mass start situations?

4) Bolton test, round 2 of Summer 18

It was a hot and sunny day for the second round of our Bolton uphill run test. About 1.4 miles of all uphill gravel terrain from the Vista base are to the summit just past the wind turbine. This test is just short enough (14-20 minutes) to mean there isn’t much pacing involved, but long enough to be a full effort on your engine for pushing the limits.

A glance back in the records show that this is the biggest group we’ve had for the test in quite some time: a good indicator of how strong the motivation is with this group, since often the uphill run test is one of the more dreaded things we do all year. We also were joined by MNC Master skier Michael Gaughan who is part of a growing group of Masters prepping for Climb to the Castle in September.

Bolton Historical Record (bottom tabs for individual tests/athlete record)

There was a PR performance by nearly everyone, and Rose smashed the course record by 50 seconds to earn a pint of Ben and Jerry’s on Tuesday! Rose and Meredith took the top honors in most-improved as well, with Dith knocking 1:24 off her previous best time and crossing the line under 19 in only her second test ever. Also PR runs from Sammie, Ben Carnahan, Dakota, Julia, Jenny, and Marika. Charles took the win in the men’s race with an impressive 14:45, going under 15 in what was his first uphill test ever!

Shout-out to the hiker who took our group photo!

Girls team gettin RAD this summer

5) Long skis and summer swimming

On Sunday we geared up again for another favorite session; our long ski in Milton down to the shores of Lake Champlain and back to the Lelito house for lunch and a swim. The girls ended up skiing 20 miles and the guys 30 on a hot, sunny day. With the combination of heart-rate monitors, vests, and water belts there were a lot of interesting tan lines after the 2-3 hours endeavor.

Kai rolling along the shoreline

Magda, Ali, Julia, Meredith on some pretty perfect-looking rollerski roads

Thanks to the Lelito family for hosting us after for lunch and a swim. Next up, be sure to make sure you’re registered for the App Gap Challenge rollerski race in 2 weeks! We’re looking to have a BIG club presence there for such a cool event. Find more HERE.

Skiing and running uphill

By Adam Terko on 28 May, 2018 in Junior Blog

Another week in the books toward summer training. Everyone is counting the weeks left of school at the start of each session and there is a lot of anticipation building toward what we hope is our best summer yet.

This week we broke out of the bike paths for our first ski on the “open road” down by the Round Church. It’s probably one of the most recreated roads in the whole county so it’s nice to feel like at least a portion of the cars actually know what we’re out there doing as we roll alongside the beautiful banks of the Winooski river with the backdrop of Cochran’s and the Green Mountains on our other side.

The footage is a bit rough but we got after it with a few repeats up the gradual hill on the backside of Greystone.

Coach Rick came out to help lead a group during the ski. Unfortunately a good chunk of the group had left when this photo was taken but the early evening lighting was too good to pass up!

On Saturday it was time for the first uphill run test of the season. We yet again headed up to Bolton to push ourselves as hard as we could for a nice little all-uphill jaunt. It was a good start to the season with Ben and Ali nearly hitting PRs, Magda having her fastest time in 2 years, and Hanna giving it her all in her first (of many?) Bolton tests.