Traveling with Kids: Bolton Valley Ski Resort

This past fall was a challenging one and in November I decided that I needed to figure out how to approach the holiday season in the sanest, most positive way possible. I decided to try something radical and make it impossible to get sucked into unnecessary, excess holiday crazy by leaving town right before Christmas. And I couldn’t have asked for a better place to fulfill my chill than Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont. Today I want to share 11 reasons why I think you should plan a ski trip to Bolton Valley.

1. The Mountain

Bolton Valley includes 3 peaks with 71 trails (34% easier, 38% more difficult, 28% most and extremely difficult), 300 acres of trails and glades, and 3 terrain parks. The view from the top (more on that shortly) is simply spectacular. And even though only one of the peaks (Vista Peak) was open during our visit, we had no problem having fun on the variety of open trails for the 4 days we were on site!

2. Easy drive (even for people who hate driving!)

Listen, driving is not my favorite, and that is probably why we have prioritized visiting ski destinations in southern Vermont. I imagine some folks similarly may overlook Bolton Valley in favor of more southern mountains but one delightful logistical discovery from our trip to Bolton Valley was how easy the drive is! The resort is about 3.5 hours north of Boston and aside from the mountain access road to Bolton Valley, it’s pretty much a straight shot on highways 93N and 89N, making for a super easy drive. Seriously, compare the Google map drive times from your house to other central Vermont ski resorts and you’ll see that Bolton Valley doesn’t take much longer to get to, thanks to the easy highway access!

3. Chill vibe

One thing that I have learned over the past few years of skiing is that every mountain has a vibe. I have been asked if that comes from the staff or skiers, and I would say it is some combo of the two, in addition to the feel of the facilities. We arrived at Bolton Valley as the sun was setting on the property and the lights for night skiing were twinkling into action. I exhaled deeply and that feeling of happy chill persisted through the entire weekend. This is not to say there isn’t tough terrain to tackle (Jon and Laurel did some black diamonds) but my point is that there is zero pretentiousness at Bolton Valley; just happy skiing and really nice people.

The view from the check-in desk at Bolton Valley Ski Resort in Vermont

4. Pricing

One of the biggest barriers to entry that I hear from folks regarding skiing is cost, and I love that Bolton Valley offers several options to help people access skiing at a lower price and I want to share about three of them (check out their winter deals + ticket pages for further details and options). First, the big one—especially for parents who are unsure if their littles will even like skiing—is that kids 6 and under ski free at Bolton Valley. This is pretty major because our first couple of years trying to get Violet on the slopes, she was just not into it so her lift tickets were basically a waste. Second, Bolton Valley offers night skiing from 4-10pm for $25/day, which is an amazing value. Third, you can get $29 lift tickets every non-peak Monday. Definitely join their mailing list as I’m sure they push out other specials via e-mail.

5. Sunset views

I have long been a chaser of sunsets, and if you are as well, you will simply delight in standing atop Vista Peak (and presumably Wilderness Peak, which was not yet open) and taking in the breathtaking sunset with views of Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks. Skiing at sunset on the winter solstice felt like an immense gift.

Skiing at sunset on the winter solstice at Bolton Valley = supremely awesome!

6. Hours (Night Skiing FTW)

I have already mentioned the chill vibe, and one of my theories about Bolton Valley is that its extended hours contribute to that chill in that you do not feel like you need to rush in the morning and through meals to maximize mountain time. On Sundays and Mondays, lift hours are more typical (9am to 4pm), but Tuesdays through Saturdays hours are 9am to 10pm. There was no way we were going to ski 13 hours a day so we didn’t fret about getting right out there first thing in the morning. It was also different to not be hustling to catch the lifts spinning at 8am (as is the start time at many mountains on the weekends), and I was into it! Also, it was a first for us to arrive on a Friday (around sunset) and have the ability to head out to the slopes. (Jon and Laurel went night skiing while Violet and I cozied up in our room.)

7. Inn at Bolton Valley

If you love convenience and the ability to park and not move your car all weekend, I definitely recommend you stay at the Inn at Bolton Valley. The slopeside lodging is so convenient and we had a family suite arrangement that was just perfect; essentially side by side rooms where one room had a kitchen, bathroom, living/dining area including a Murphy bed and the adjacent room had two beds and a bath.

8. Food options

One thing we really enjoyed was how cozy and contained the resort was. (We did leave the property once to visit with friends in the area, but had we not done that we wouldn’t have moved our car for 4 days!) We brought a bag of food from home, but the inn’s rooms sit above food, shops, and rentals. Food options include a small deli/market (that I frequented for coffee and other provisions), as well as the James Moore Tavern (sit down), Fireside Flatbread (a relaxed gourmet pizza and microbrew vibe), and slope-side cafeteria (which you guys, even had tuna poke bowls...I was admittedly slightly concerned about eating raw tuna in central Vermont but it was delicious). We sampled everything and were happy with everything. You basically didn’t really need to leave the property if you didn’t want to, which I always love!

Tuna poke bowl at the Bolton Valley cafeteria #impressed

9. Family-owned + women-led

Given my passion for family-owned and women-led everything, it’s important that I mention that Bolton Valley is both! Bolton Valley was founded/built in 1966 by Ralph DesLauriers, who operated it through the 1990s, sold the property, and then repurchased it in 2017 with his son Evan DesLauriers and daughter Lindsay DesLauriers (Madame President!) in leadership roles. I was super excited to meet Lindsay during my trip, as well as their head of ski patrol, Kaitlyn Fowle (notice me holding Kaitlyn’s skis, attempting to get better by osmosis). So awesome and badass to have women in both these (typically male-dominated) roles!

With Bolton Valley President Lindsay DesLauriers and Head of Ski Patrol Kaitlyn Fowle

10. Lessons

As someone who is most definitely still a developing skier, I cannot advocate for lessons enough and the lessons Laurel and I took at Bolton Valley were great. We were both enrolled in level 4 group adult lessons but I decided to drop down to level 3 since I was nursing a bunion injury and was concerned about exacerbating it. Since there were no other level 4 adults, Laurel ended up with a private lesson with a fantastic instructor named Eric (who, it turned out, is a professor at the University of Vermont!) who helped her tackle black diamonds, among other things. She came off the mountain simply BEAMING and with her confidence up several notches…so fantastic!

For the level 3 adult lesson, I had a much newer instructor (as in, this is his first season and he had been teaching for 3 weeks!) named Lorenzo and while I was a bit uncertain of how the lesson would go—it was just me + one other woman who seemed a bit skittish on skis—it was just what I needed. I had been talking to Jon in advance of the trip that I felt like I had a mental block on how to get solidly parallel with my skis (as in, my brain knows what to do, but somehow I couldn’t execute it) and my injury wasn’t helping things. It ended up being enormously helpful to have Lorenzo focus me and the other student on key fundamentals. Notably, there are a couple of sharp, fairly narrow hairpin turns on the main green trail (Sherman’s Pass) from the top of Vista Peak and all my runs before that lesson I was definitely nervous and cautious, digging into a snowplow position, worried I was going to shoot off the trail into the woods. After my lesson with Lorenzo, I skied those turns parallel and with confidence with no problem, and I even got back on some blue trails by the end. I was so thrilled and grateful to finish on such a high note!

11. Other resort activities

My family was focused on downhill skiing but it’s very much worth mentioning that Bolton Valley has a sports center, which features an indoor skate and bike park, full bar, pool, sauna, hot tub, exercise equipment, bouncy houses, basketball hoops, and games, and through which they operate their extensive Nordic and Backcountry programs. They rent nordic, backcountry, and snowshoe gear as well as fat bikes, so, there's no shortage of stuff to do!

In a nutshell, my family loved Bolton Valley and though our winter ski dance calendar is pretty full at the moment, we’re already fantasizing about when we can next return. Definitely check it out for your next ski adventure, especially if you have kids 6 and under who are new to skiing and could benefit from the grace of the free lift tickets!

Disclosure: Bolton Valley kindly hosted my family while I explored the property for editorial consideration. All opinions and experiences are, of course, my own.