Winter's Swift Revenge and the Photo Spectacular

Welcome to a very special episode of the newsletter, Bolton Friends—the Annual Photo Spectacular*. After taking a week off for the Newsletter All-Star Break, we’re back with fewer words and more pictures. One thing’s certain: this has absolutely nothing to do with me skiing all day yesterday in almost a foot of fresh snow instead of writing the newsletter. Rather, it’s because I’ve learned a fundamental truth: a single picture can say more than a thousand words. Unless what you’re trying to say is “I think I’m on fire,” or “I have no idea how those rare monkeys got into my trunk”. Then, you should definitely use words.

In this issue:
~ Weekend Projections: A Miraculous Recovery
~ Friday 2-for-1 Tickets: The First Sign of Snow Madness is "Deals"
~ Full Moon Snowshoe: Now Almost 100% Werewolf-free
~ Contest: Open Captioning

Weekend Projections: A Miraculous Recovery 
No one noticed last month when I slipped the following line into a Senate omnibus bill: “Also, you guys, from now on, all January thaws must last no more than one and a half days, and be immediately followed by nearly a foot of fresh snow.” But my corruption of democracy paid off this week. After Monday’s reprehensible warmth, Tuesday night brought a surprisingly determined snow event to the mountain that left behind 9-11” of welcome powder. The early part of that storm was fairly heavy, wet snow that bonded well to the frozen surfaces underneath, and served as an excellent canvas for the flakes that followed. More importantly, it provided a stunningly rapid recovery from the mess that began the week, and gave us a legitimate powder day:

I should probably mention that all of these photos are from this week...after Monday's thaw. Statistically, we went from 10 trails Monday, to 52 trails Wednesday—and we expect to be at 100% capacity for the weekend, with all 64 trails, all 3 parks, and all 6 lifts. This has me so fired up that, instead of a jacket Saturday, I’m just going to wear 15 of our long-awaited “100% in 2010” t-shirts. I’ll be the world’s most disappointing nesting doll. Note: Friday and Saturday will actually be rather cold, with highs in the single digits, so please don’t wear t-shirts. And Saturday night will bring another installment of the newest mountain sensation: Bolton After Dark. It’s not only the rumored title of the next Twilight sequel, it’s also our weekly Saturday night party, featuring $19 evening lift tickets, $2 pizza, $2 draft beer, and an 8pm movie that, following last week’s negative feedback, will actually be a theatrically-released movie this time, and not a compilation video of my best jams on Guitar Hero. To be fair, a few people have told me my Axl Rose costume is movie-quality. Now here’s a rockstar-quality power turn:

I wasn’t sure if this Photo Issue idea was going to work, or be kind of weird. And after that awkward Guns N' Roses segue, I have my answer: it’s working awesome. For daily updates, sign up for our Snow Report here. And if once a day just isn’t enough, you can now follow Bolton Valley on Facebook and Twitter.

Friday 2-for-1 Tickets: The First Sign of Snow Madness is "Deals"
I’m not a doctor, no matter what my business cards say. But even I, a barely-literate non-doctor, can recognize that we’ve gone quite mad with Powder Fever on the mountain after that surprise Tuesday night storm dropped nearly a foot of lovely snow. Here's an obvious case:

The symptoms have been rampant around here: public happiness, abbreviated newsletters, and a rash. At least I assume that’s what’s causing it. Sadly, more snow is expected today and into the evening hours, and prolonged exposure to Powder Fever can have lasting effects. There was a stretch at the beginning of last February that brought 6 feet of snow in a week. Scientists who’ve studied the event say that week made everyone who experienced it a better person by an average of 15%. Well, we can’t risk that. And here’s our experimental treatment: get as many people up here as possible and diffuse the effects. It’s the only way. Towards that end, we’re offering 2-for-1 lift tickets tomorrow, Friday, January 29th, in the Year of the Ox, Two Thousand and Ten. All you have to do is print out this coupon, bring it to the ticket counter in the Base Lodge tomorrow, and enjoy two lift tickets for the price of one. A week that started off grim is ending with a grin, so prop up a mannequin in your office chair, grab a friend, and spend Friday sliding down a snowy mountain. Like these guys:


Full Moon Snowshoe: Now Almost 100% Werewolf-Free
This seems unnecessarily reckless, due to the increasing prominence of werewolvery in advance of the upcoming “Wolf Man” movie. Nevertheless, the Nordic Center will offer a guided snowshoe tour this Saturday evening, beneath the mysterious, transmogrifying light of the full moon. It’s suitable for beginner or intermediate snowshoers, as well as experienced monster hunters. If you’re interested, and why wouldn’t you be, then call (802) 434-6876 for more details, or to tell them that you're coming so they’ll know how many silver bullets to bring in case of another…incident. It’s also a good idea to tell them the contact information for your next of kin. No reason. Look, do you want to ask more uncomfortable questions, or do you want to look at this picture of Josh nailing a sweet jump on Wednesday:


Contest: Open Captioning
As expected, last week’s anagram contest drew an impressive number of responses. Probably because people love to spell, and not because there are many, many websites that instantly solve anagrams. Responses included a glorious wrong answer from Hannah Rounds, who translated “Pro Knit Duel” as “Peggy Dow’s” because of that time Peggy Dow killed a guy with a knitting needle. Understandable mistake. The “correct” answer was Old Turnpike, and Melissa Mielens was chosen the winner by a process of applied whimsy. “Applied Whimsy” is also the name of the modern dance troupe I tour with. For her efforts, Melissa will receive a voucher in the mail for a free Bolton Valley lift ticket, good any day this season. At Bolton Valley. Where things like this happen:

For this week, we’ll keep it simple. You can’t do a Photo Issue without a caption contest. If you’ve ventured into our Photo Gallery or clicked through our photo albums on Facebook, you’re aware of the importance we put on captions. Every picture requires an equally stirring sentence or two (except Wednesday’s pictures, which I haven’t gotten to yet). It’s an art form, and I’m sure you’ll treat it as soberly as we do. So, take a look at the following epic photo and craft an epic caption to go with it:

Send your most inspired work to me at jthibault@boltonvalley.com, and we’ll send one of you a free lift ticket. But keep in mind: captions containing personal insults will not be eligible for awards. Unless it’s about Josh, or is otherwise amusing to me.

That’s it for the Annual Photo Spectacular*, Newsletter Team. I was supposed to use as few words as possible, and just let the snowy images wash over everybody. Obviously, I failed miserably. The point is: the mountain almost certainly has way more snow than your backyard, and every trail will be available for weekend carving. We also have more chairlifts than your house, and more terrain parks than your kitchen. Sorry. I don’t know why I get so competitive sometimes.

Justin

* Neither annual, nor spectacular.