Bolton Valley Resort
Overview
Bolton Valley lights up more of its mountain after dark than most Vermont resorts bother to. Twelve trails are equipped for night skiing, and alongside that alpine operation the resort runs a large Nordic program: roughly 100 km of cross-country trails, 35 km of them groomed, which is a footprint well beyond what its downhill terrain alone would suggest. Between the two, Bolton Valley covers more after-dark and cross-country ground than its size on paper implies.
That size on paper is itself an odd number worth sitting with. The resort packs 80 runs into a 474.3-meter vertical drop – 475.4 meters at the base, 949.7 at the summit – averaging out to about 0.4 km per run across 32.09 km of total terrain. That’s a tightly subdivided trail network for a mountain this modest in height, more typical of how New England resorts carve up limited vertical into many named lines rather than a handful of long descents.
The resort’s history traces to 1966, when Ralph DesLauriers and his father built it from scratch at a site roughly 44.42°N, 72.85°W in Vermont’s Green Mountains. The family stayed connected to skiing well beyond running the resort – Ralph’s sons Rob and Eric DesLauriers went on to become professional skiers and co-founded the ski film company Straight Up Films. Ownership left the family for a stretch starting in 1997, but Ralph and a group of investors bought Bolton Valley back from Red Stone Properties in 2017. The mountain is also one of the few in Vermont with a westward-facing orientation, and in 2009 it installed a Northwind 100 wind turbine projected to generate around 300,000 kilowatt-hours a year, an unusual piece of infrastructure for a resort this size.
Terrain skews toward easier skiing more than the run count might suggest: 13.12 km is rated easy, the largest single band, ahead of intermediate at 9.99 km and advanced at 8.88 km, with novice trails nearly absent at 0.1 km – about 41% easy, 31% intermediate, 28% advanced, and 0.3% novice. Six lifts – five chairlifts and one rope tow – handle the traffic. Getting there is straightforward from Burlington, just 24.9 km away by airport, with Plattsburgh International a bit farther at 55.5 km and Lebanon Municipal at 98.3 km; Montreal-Trudeau (136.2 km) is the larger international option. Notably, the resort’s closest sizable population centers by the data are actually across the border in Quebec, with Longueuil at 131.3 km, Sherbrooke at 132.3 km, and Ville-Marie at 132.9 km – all closer, on paper, than most Vermont cities. Bolton Valley is also on the Indy Pass roster at both levels, Base and Indy+, worth two visits a season here.
This season’s PDF trail map, labeled for 2024-25, sits on the resort’s own site, while SkiMap.org and OpenSkiMap.org each maintain independent listings – worth checking given how many short runs are packed into the mountain’s layout.
Key stats
Official website — Last checked 2026-09-13
Lifts by type
| Type | Count |
|---|---|
| rope tow | 1 |
| chair lift | 5 |
Runs by difficulty
| Difficulty | Distance |
|---|---|
| easy | 13.12 km |
| novice | 0.1 km |
| advanced | 8.88 km |
| intermediate | 9.99 km |
Maps
View official Bolton Valley Resort trail map (PDF) →
Run & lift overview
Bolton Valley Resort: 102 runs, 6 lifts. Drawn from OpenStreetMap run and lift data — not the official Bolton Valley Resort trail map. © OpenStreetMap contributors, OpenSkiMap (ODbL).
Typical conditions by month
Monthly conditions data for Bolton Valley Resort is not yet available.
Lift tickets & passes
- Indy Base Pass — 2 All-Day or All-Night tickets per resort; blackout dates apply (exact 26/27 holiday blackout dates not yet finalized as of verified_date)
- Indy+ Pass — 2 All-Day or All-Night tickets per resort, no blackout dates
Getting there
Nearest airports
- Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport (BTV) — 24.9 km straight-line
- Plattsburgh International Airport (PBG) — 55.5 km straight-line
- Lebanon Municipal Airport (LEB) — 98.3 km straight-line
Nearest cities
- Longueuil, Quebec — 131.3 km straight-line
- Sherbrooke, Quebec — 132.3 km straight-line
- Ville-Marie, Quebec — 132.9 km straight-line
Also covered by
Where to stay
A dedicated lodging guide for Bolton Valley Resort is not yet available.
Nearby resorts
- Stowe Mountain Resort — 13 km straight-line, 711.8 m vertical
- Smugglers' Notch Resort — 18 km straight-line, 771.7 m vertical
- Mad River Glen — 25 km straight-line, 604.2 m vertical
- Sugarbush Resort — 30 km straight-line, 777.8 m vertical
- Middlebury College Snow Bowl — 55 km straight-line, 290.3 m vertical
FAQ
- Does Bolton Valley offer night skiing?
- Yes -- 12 trails are lit for night skiing, per Wikipedia, which is a substantial night-skiing footprint for a Vermont resort of this size and lets skiers extend a day well past the lifts' daytime closing.
- Does Bolton Valley have cross-country or Nordic trails?
- It runs an extensive Nordic network separate from its alpine terrain -- about 100 km of cross-country trails in total, with 35 km of that groomed, giving it one of the larger combined alpine-and-Nordic footprints among small Vermont resorts.
- Why does Bolton Valley have so many runs for its vertical drop?
- 80 runs are packed into just 474.3 meters of vertical, averaging about 0.4 km per run -- a denser trail layout than many resorts with two or three times the vertical drop, typical of how compact Vermont mountains subdivide limited terrain.
- Who founded Bolton Valley Resort?
- Ralph DesLauriers and his father opened it in 1966. The DesLauriers family later produced professional skiers Rob and Eric DesLauriers, and Ralph and a group of partners bought the resort back from Red Stone Properties in 2017 after a period of outside ownership.
- How does Bolton Valley's terrain break down by difficulty?
- Easy terrain leads at 13.12 km (about 41% of the 32.09 km total), followed by intermediate at 9.99 km and advanced at 8.88 km; novice-rated terrain is negligible at 0.1 km, making this a resort weighted toward easier and moderate skiing overall.
- Which airports are closest to Bolton Valley?
- Burlington's Patrick Leahy International Airport is closest at 24.9 km, followed by Plattsburgh International at 55.5 km and Lebanon Municipal at 98.3 km. Montreal-Trudeau, 136.2 km away, serves as the region's larger international gateway.
- Which pass covers Bolton Valley?
- Bolton Valley qualifies for two Indy Pass options as well, Base and Indy+, worth two ski-day visits per season, whether All-Day or All-Night.
- Is Bolton Valley close to the Canadian border?
- Close enough that its nearest listed cities by population are all in Quebec -- Longueuil (131.3 km), Sherbrooke (132.3 km), and Ville-Marie (132.9 km) -- rather than in Vermont itself, reflecting how far north the resort sits.
Data sources
Last verified: 2026-09-15
Base facts from OpenSkiMap (ODbL), OpenStreetMap contributors, Wikidata (CC0), OurAirports (public domain) and GeoNames (CC BY 4.0). See /data-sources/.