Bolton Trapp Traverse

My dad told me – if there is any xc ski that you do while at school, you better do the Bolton-Trapp Traverse. I have been getting into the xc skiing pretty deep, doing everything from Mt Cardigan to the Scond College Grant, but every source we talked to warned us of the most epic of epic traverses. Dangerous, isolated, and long were all descriptors that followed the traverse both in written reviews and first hand accounts. With all of that layed down, Hannah and I felt intimidated, but determined to do this epic trip, from Bolton XC Ski Center all the way up and over to The Trapp Family Lodge of The Sound of Music  movie fame.

 

 

On the morning of the trip, we finished packing the last of our survival items and food, and started driving. It was 8AM – a late start, we thought. We started on the trail at 10:30 after picking up a map, and more warnings against the length. We started just chugging – thinking that we were in for the longest day of our lives when before we knew it, we were at the summit of Bolton Mountain. Since the people we talked to had done the trail, it had been transformed from the least marked trail to the most. It was almost overwhelming. On the way up to the summit, there was a marker on every other tree. After a few photo ops, we started on what was the most fun I have had on skis in a long long time. The trail went straight down, over roller-coaster bumps then sharp turns, keeping us on our toes (and faces) the whole way down. Before we could wipe the perma-smile off of our faces we were already at the parking lot 3 miles from the Trapp Lodge. We arrived at the lodge barely over three hours from when we started. Both excited and surprised, we thought about turning around and schussing our way back, then had a moment of better judgment and took a nap in front of the lodge’s fireplace instead. I would say that was a win.