The Unbearable Tyranny of Endless Sunny Days.

It's another newsletter, Bolton fans, and there aren't that many left. The days are getting longer, the air is getting warmer, and the sun is getting sunnier. Which means the ski season is nearing its homestretch. And which also means that all of us on the mountain are suffering from a little "senior-itis". It's a devastating affliction--one that I had for four years of high school, and four more years of college. Between this ridiculously sunny March, soft afternoon snow, and college basketball, I don't even know how a newsletter got done this week. Wait...yes I do: a 2-liter bottle of Mountain Dew, a windowless room, and the threat of violence.

In this issue:
~ Weekend Projections
~ Events: Ride & Ski New England, Vermont Adaptive, Race Club
~ Deals: Season Passes, Free Waffles
~ Contest: Snowfall

Weekend Projections
The Sun. It won't go away. I think it's taunting me. I don't know how it is that we've managed to have sunny skies for 8 of the last 9 days, and I don't think I want to find out. I assume it involves a genie, an ancient lamp, and a horrible twist-ending that teaches us all a lesson about being careful what we wish for. That's why, any time I'm given three wishes, I always make my first wish for "no darkly ironic consequences". My second wish is always for a fist made out of lava and diamonds.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, we'll have sunny skies again Saturday, with warm highs around 40F and calm winds. I can't go through the math now, but that adds up to an outstanding day of true spring-skiing on the mountain. Which can only mean one thing: slope-side barbecuing. I honestly don't know if anyone else cares, but I can't get enough of that. We're in the spring corn cycle now, where cool overnight air firms up our surfaces for morning carving, followed by sunshine and rising temperatures yielding soft corn snow in the afternoon. I'm sorry if that's already common knowledge, but explaining things makes me feel clever and important. And hungry. Sunday may see some morning snow showers with, you guessed it, sun in the afternoon. More sunny skies are on tap for Monday and Tuesday. I don't even know why I do this anymore. For the weekend, we plan to run all of our lifts, serving about 52-55 trails. Some of our steeper and ungroomed terrain may have delayed openings each day, while Patrol waits for the snow to soften. Almost all of those open trails will get groomed each night by our excellent snowcat pilots, leaving behind surfaces of primarily firm frozen gran in the morning, and softer spring conditions in the afternoon. Our weekend operations begin at 8am when the Vista Quad fires up, joined soon after by the Timberline Quad at 8:30--and we'll host night skiing until 8pm Saturday because my idea to have night skiing from midnight to 4am still hasn't gained any momentum. To get the daily Snow Report e-mailed to you each morning, sign up here.

Events: Ride & Ski New England, Vermont Adaptive, Race Club
We have a surprising number of events, and I have surprisingly little information about them. I was probably sent memos on these things, but if it's not "Twittered", I'm not reading it. This Saturday we have Ride & Ski New England Day, where people who have the "Ride & Ski New England" card get 2-for-1 lift tickets. I don't know what that is or how you get one, so it's probably worth checking the details here. But, even if, like me, you've never heard of this, you can go to the après party from 2-5pm in our James Moore Tavern, for live music, free prizes, and general merriment. Who I believe fought at the Battle of Antietam. I'm prepared to wait here as long as I have to for someone to find that amusing.

Then on Sunday, we have our Vermont Adaptive Ski-A-Thon. I feel like that capitalization isn't right, but there's no time. As someone who's read and re-read each of these newsletters, you've no doubt already noticed my pattern, wherein I briefly mention a deal or an event, and then go on to talk about weird and irrelevant stuff because I have no attention span. But the partnership between Vermont Adaptive and Bolton has been a really nice thing this season, and the fundraiser this Sunday ought to be a worthwhile event. You can find the details here, but basically, there will be a 2-hour ski-a-thon Sunday afternoon where people will try to take as many runs as possible between 1pm and 3pm. Which, because I'm overly competitive, is pretty much how I ski every day. There will also be an après party, live music, a 50/50 raffle, and dinner. I keep asking, but they insist that the dinner will not be a 2-hour race to see how much food you can consume. Officially. Let's just say my throat will be coated with olive oil to assist in speed-eating.

And moving on to next Saturday, the mountain will host the Bolton Valley Race Club banquet and fundraiser. There will be a GS course set up on Beech Seal that day if people want to run some gates, along with a pool party, a banquet dinner, and something called "bouncy houses" in the Sports Center. I don't know what that is, but it sounds structurally unsound. Maybe it's built on a fault? Or is it haunted? I'm not a certified architect, but in the correspondence course I took, it was repeatedly emphasized that houses shouldn't be "bouncy".

Deals: Season Passes, Free Waffles
I've talked about next year's season passes in both of the last two newsletters, and I don't know if I can bring myself to do it again. So you can revisit the magic of those newsletters here and here, or you can read about our deals on our "Season Passes" page here. The main idea is that we're selling next year's passes right now, and the early pricing is the same as last year. I haven't been given an official reason why, so I'm assuming it's either because we lost a bet, or we didn't want to re-do our Season Pass Prices chart. It's a beautiful chart, and the mountain is a compulsive gambler, so there's strong evidence for either explanation. And if you buy next season's pass now, you can use it for the rest of this season as well. Because it's important to reward foresight and planning. I'm incapable of it. I don't even know what I'm going to do after I finish this newsletter today. Maybe learn how to play the French horn. Or join the Navy .

This next bit probably should've gone in with the events, but, technically, it's also a deal and, technically, the "Events" section was already bloated. So, I'd like to tell you about free waffles. To celebrate a great season, and probably other stuff to--let's say, the invention of college basketball--there will be free waffles for Nordic season pass holders this Sunday and next Sunday in our Nordic Center. My understanding is that non-pass holders can get waffles for $5, but the actual details are here. And what a great time to buy next year's Nordic season pass. I haven't really explored the fine print of this deal, but I'm willing to bet that if you buy a pass for next season on Sunday, you can score yourself a free waffle. I'm just brainstorming here, but that seems reasonable to me. But so did growing a thick Teddy Roosevelt mustache, and that's a decision I've regretted to this day. Your 2009-2010 pass would also be good for the rest of this season, but I think that's beside the point. Which is: "free waffles".

Contest: Snowfall
Despite the fact that anagrams are neither cool (even compared to other word games), nor difficult (considering that software is freely available that will solve anagrams for you), last week's anagram contest was declared a success. By me. Just now. As any decent computer or competent cyborg will tell you, "Wry ex-fool" is a jumbled version of "Lower Foxy". The (apparently) non-cyborg Ronald Caruso is this week's winner, and a free lift ticket will be sent his way. Since April is approaching at an alarming speed, the ticket vouchers for contest winners for the next few weeks will be good next season as well. Which is nice, because otherwise I was going to stop giving them out. This week's question: "What was the highest one-day total for snow accumulation measured at Bolton so far this season?" Hint: it's greater than 0", less than 100", and was fun. If you can also tell me what day it fell on, I will be terrified of you. Send me the correct answer (in inches, one hopes--though I realize that I've now provoked someone in to sending me the number in nanometers), as determined by myself and the Bolton Valley Daily Snowfall and Yeti Sightings Spreadsheet, and I'll pick a winner from the correct responses. I'll then personally arrange to have a free lift ticket hand-delivered to your mailbox by a professional USPS mail carrier. Because you deserve it.

And "Photo-of-the-Day Contest" submissions are still welcome, encouraged, and enjoyed. It turns out that brilliant sunshine makes a very nice backdrop, and I'm certain there's a lot of web-worthy moments still out there, waiting to be captured on film. For example: carving up spring corn snow on Tattle Tale. Or doing whatever it is people do in terrain parks. Or burying evidence of massive financial fraud in Villager woods where the SEC will never find it. Those are just some ideas that my accountant came up with. Send in something, and if it makes it in to our Photo Gallery, we'll send you a free ticket. More details are on this page, and, as always, submissions can be sent to me at jthibault@boltonvalley.com.

Another sensational Spring weekend is ahead, and I'm honestly running out of different ways to say that. But we'll take it, because soft snow, sunscreen, and slope-side barbecuing always adds up to great time on the mountain. And there isn't an infinite supply of days like this. I don't mean to dwell on it, but we only have three weekends to go, and then the lift-served ski season is over on the mountain. And, more importantly, so is the newsletter season. But we'll get through this. Together. Maybe, to fill the newsletter void, we can all agree to meet up every Friday afternoon in a parking lot somewhere, and just hang out. We can talk about Bolton...and life. I'll bring my famous pumpkin muffins. The secret ingredient is love.

Justin