Backcountry Skiing Tips
By: Bolton Valley · 2025-12-20
Bolton Valley Resort is a ski area in United States, at about 663 m. Its mapped area is about 4.0 km across, with 80 marked runs and 6 lifts (about 32 km of piste in all).
Over the last twelve winters the ERA5 weather model gives it 169 cm of snowfall a season, 1,427th (tied) of 3,069 worldwide and 141st in the United States. It swings a lot from year to year: the biggest winter, 2022/23 (209 cm), brought more than twice as much as the leanest, 2015/16 (103 cm). March still brings 40 cm on average, close to January, its snowiest month.
Below is a link to its official live camera.
Snow depth and the seven-day outlook appear here once snow starts to fall. Until then, the long-run record comes first.
Temperature
9.4℃
Max wind
32.9km/h
Elevation
663m
Across
4.0km
Elevation of the ski area’s centre point, taken from a digital elevation model. It is not the base-to-summit range.
We do not show a snow depth here. The weather model we use reports snow lying on the ground — it knows nothing about grooming or snowmaking, and it is not the base depth a ski area publishes. In Japan we can check our figures against 234 weather stations. Outside Japan there is nothing to check them against, so we do not print a number we have not verified. Snow report on the official site ↗
How much snow it gets
Measured by us across 3,069 ski areas by one identical method. These are not the resort’s own published figures.
Seasonal snowfall
169 cm
per season
Worst of 12 winters
103 cm
A typical winter: 179 cm. The best: 209 cm.
World rank
1427
of 3,069 worldwide
Rank in country
141
of 534 in United States
Elevation rank
232
Highest to lowest, of 534 in United States. The centre point sits at 663 m, 135 m above the national median.
Compared with what is nearby
Within 50 km straight line. Measured the same way, so the ranks compare directly. Ski areas a few kilometres apart share a weather grid cell and can return the same figure.
| Ski area | Distance | Seasonal snowfall | World rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trapp Family Lodge | 9.6 km | 177 cm | 1348 |
| Cochran's Ski Area | 11 km | 130 cm | 1954 |
| Camel's Hump Nordic Ski Area | 12 km | 151 cm | 1652 |
| Stowe Mountain Resort | 13 km | 170 cm | 1416 |
| The Nordic Center at Edson Hill | 14 km | 173 cm | 1389 |
When it falls, and how winters differ
Month by month
Month by month, the most snow falls in January. March brings 85% of January’s snowfall. That is in line with the median for ski areas in the United States (85%). In amount, March brings 40 cm, more than the median of 30 cm.
41cmDec
47cmJan
41cmFeb
40cmMar
Winter by winter
Across the 12 winters measured, the average is 169 cm, and 5 of them fell short of it. The leanest was 2015/16 with 103 cm; the biggest was 2022/23 with 209 cm (2.0 times as much). For 33% of the 534 ski areas in the United States, the leanest winter was the same 2015/16: bad winters tend to hit a whole region at once.
103
209
14/1515/1616/1717/1818/1919/2020/2121/2222/2323/2424/2525/26
Snowfall each winter (December–March total). The dashed line is the average; the numbers mark the leanest and the biggest winter.
Runs and lifts
Counted from the runs and lifts drawn on OpenStreetMap, within the boundary of the ski area. These are not the resort’s own published figures.
Marked runs
80
Run length
32km
Lifts
6
Vertical
474m
Top 950 m · base 475 m
Run map
NoviceEasyIntermediateAdvanced Lift
The shape of the mountain
Longest run on the map1.7 km
Steepest pitch27°measured over at least 30 m
Average gradient of the runs10.6°
Which way the slopes face
North 28%
East 0%
South 6%
West 66%
Only 28% of the vertical on the runs descends to the north or east. More of the terrain faces the sun.
By difficulty
Novice 1
Easy 30
Intermediate 27
Advanced 22
Lift types
- Chairlift5
- Rope tow1
See past trail maps on Skimap.org ↗
Source: OpenSkiMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0). How finely ski areas are drawn varies by region, so treat the counts as indicative. Vertical is the difference between the highest and lowest points of the mapped runs and lifts.
Live Cameras
Footage remains the copyright of each operator. JAPANSNOWLINE neither stores nor redistributes it.
See the snow in motion
Videos remain the copyright of whoever filmed them. JAPANSNOWLINE stores no video and plays everything through the standard YouTube player.
Map
Where it sits relative to nearby resorts. For a piste map, see the official site.
Official piste map ↗ Coordinates: 44.4176, -72.8501
More places to look
Guides covering United States
- Which Famous Ski Resorts Actually Get the Most Snow? 24 Names, Measured Niseko is 526th in the world for snowfall. Zermatt is 554th, Jackson Hole 924th, Aspen 1,201st. Measured identically across 3,069 ski areas, the names everyone books and the places it actually snows turn out to be two different lists.
- A Black Run in Colorado and a Black Run in Austria Are Not the Same Thing. The Maps Prove It. Across 2,888 ski areas: 39% of American runs are graded advanced or harder, and 9% of Austrian ones. Nobody thinks Austria is four times gentler. The grades are measuring different things.
- Niseko vs Whistler: Whistler Is the Outlier, Vail Is the Rule Whistler is the world's 29th snowiest ski area. Vail is 1,335th — and 288 Japanese ski areas get more snow than the resort that defines American skiing.
Updated: 8 Oct 2026, 00:52