For years, I’ve had my eyes on these ski tours from the book Best Backcountry Skiing in the Northeast, considered the “bible” for regional off-piste:
1) In northern Vermont, the 9.4-mile tour from Bolton Valley to the Trapp Family Lodge — “one of the most popular backcountry adventures in Vermont” because of the reliable powder stash and “chance to traverse a wild landscape in the heart of ski country.”
2) In the Adirondacks, a 10.6-mile tour through the High Peaks to Avalanche Lake — “one of the most spectacular ski tours in the Eastern United States,” the highlight being a “narrow half-mile-long passageway hemmed in by cliffs that rise straight out of the ice.”
I did both tours in February — just before the coronavirus quarantine. Despite a meager snowfall in southern New England this winter, I found waist-deep snow in the northern woods.
Bolton Valley to Trapp Family Lodge
As I skinned up the Bolton-Trapp Trail in northern Vermont, a sign read: “Trail is steep, long, and unpatrolled. Do not ski alone. Experts only.”
The words were unnerving, as I was alone and I am not an expert telemarker. With each shuffle toward the 3,310-foot shoulder of Bolton Mountain, the highest point on the 300-mile-long Catamount Trail, I built up a little more anxiety for the ski down. But I was too psyched to turn back, and I also knew that I wasn’t really skiing alone, as I’d already passed a handful of AT skiers taking advantage of the bluebird day.
The trail had begun on the groomed paths of Bolton Nordic Center and continued onto the blue cat’s paw blazes of the Catamount Trail.
The trail wound beneath candy cane-shaped pine trees bowing under the weight of accumulated snow. The temp was around 20F and there was fresh powder from an overnight flurry.
After about an hour of skinning up the side of Bolton Mountain, the trail dead-ended. Ski tracks pointed down the mountain’s steep flank through narrow glades, so I flipped down my risers, switched my bindings into downhill mode, and tightened my boots.
Quickly, I lost track of the Catamount Trail’s blazes and followed random ski tracks down the steep glades, hoping they’d eventually lead me back onto the trail. After about an hour, with plenty of falls as I navigated steep drops and linebacker-like pine trees, I rejoined the Catamount’s hard-packed path for another mile of more gradual downhill skiing to Nebraska Valley Road.
I walked 100 yards up the road to continue on the Catamount, skied a half-mile through the woods, walked another 200 yards up another road, and then skinned a final 3 miles to the nordic trails of the Trapp Family Lodge, where I met back up with my chauffeur (Jenna) for beer and lunch at the Von Trapp Brewery.
Avalanche Pass
Two weeks later in the heart of the Adirondacks, after another dump of fresh snow, I skied through “the dramatic high-alpine world of rock, ice, and snow on Avalanche Lake and Lake Colden.”
This time I had the company of my friend Sasha. We both wore cross country skis, although I saw about a dozen other people wearing more beefy backcountry, telemark, and alpine touring setups.
Our ski tour began on Meadows Lane, an unplowed road near the Adirondak Loj, which I’d visited six years earlier before hiking up Mt. Marcy in winter.
The trail was fairly flat and rolling to Marcy Dam, where we got our first glimpse of the High Peaks and spotted a couple adventurous skiers speeding down the flanks of Wright Peak.
About a mile beyond Marcy Dam, the trail became narrowly lined with birch and evergreen trees, rising steeply through switchbacks for a mile before topping out at Avalanche Pass — so named because of an avalanche- and landslide-prone cliffside that once buried the trail in several dozen feet of debris.
The trail swooped downhill to Avalanche Lake, which was flanked by icy cliffs rising up to Algonquin Peak (4587 feet) and Mt. Colden (4715 feet).
We skied across Avalanche Lake and then another half-mile through the woods to Lake Colden. By now we’d been skiing for about 2.5 hours. The 5.3-mile downhill return would take half the time.
We bombed down the hard-packed skier’s trail below Avalanche Pass. On the steep, curving switchbacks, I even managed a few knee-bending telemark turns on the metal edges of my xc skis.
The ski tours in northern Vermont and the Adirondacks lived up to the hype. Bolton-Von Trapp was the more exciting and extreme for its steep downhill glades through deep powder, while Avalanche Pass was the more stunning and beautiful with its alpine vistas of the High Peaks and towering ice cliffs.
I had no way of knowing those would be my final skis for the season. While I had thought I was lucky to find snow, I was really just lucky to get in the tours before the erupting coronavirus pandemic discouraged travel and shut down places like the Adirondak Loj and Von Trapp Brewery for the season.
