The Thunderbolt: Better late than never

When the second of three -- or is it four? -- nor'easters came through the Northeast in mid-March, the prognosticated highest snowfall was on the northwest corner of Massachusetts, where lies Mount Greylock and the Thunderbolt trail. I tossed around the idea of going there after shoveling out, but my wife talked some sense into me: It's a drive of nearly three hours one-way.
Lo and behold, though, a Facebook friend -- you know who you are -- made the even-longer drive from his home farther west in the hinterlands. His pictures showed deep powder on this storied trail. My disappointment in having missed the chance to ski in this fresh snow was mitigated by knowing someone who had gotten into it. He highly recommended it.
So when a free day and good weather aligned, I told the wife I could pull it off, and break up the drive back with a rendezvous with an old work colleague and friend who lives in the Albany area. It was a good plan.
Details come later, but here's my synopsis: The Thunderbolt is a great all-around non-lift-served destination when it has good snow. It's fairly easy to get to, well-marked, near civilization if you run into a problem, has just enough challenge to be interesting, has little or no avalanche danger, and can be climbed in a couple of hours without a a long slog in or out over up-and-down terrain with multiple water crossings (are you listening, Adirondacks?). The big caveat, though, is that first part: When it has good snow. The Berkshires aren't high or in a snow belt, so sufficient snow cover isn't a given in most years, and because it's easy to get to, it gets a good bit of traffic.
Bottom line: I'd go again, and recommend it without hesitation.

The Burrows Pipe Trail, aka, the skin route up. Don't posthole!

The Mount Greylock summit, the top of Massachusetts.

The start of the Thunderbolt from the top.

The top of the trail winds through what looks like an orchard. And I want to ski that power line.

Google Maps estimated my drive would be 2:34, but with a gas-and-food stop in the Thruway it was fully three hours. No worries. The Thunderbolt is on the generally east side of Mount Greylock, with the trailhead near the intersection of Thiel and Gould Roads. That Facebook friend had recommended parking at the end of Gould, but David Good man (you know, the guy who gave away everyone's favorite stashes and brought out the hoi polloi) says park at the end of Thiel Road. That's what I did. A few other cars were there, including some folks taking dogs, babies and toddlers for a walk, as the Greylock Reservation is apparently a locals' park, too. In theory, I could have skinned from the car, but I could see a break in the snow cover up the road, so I opted to boot in the first 100 yards or so. Then it was skins on.
I couldn't immediately find a "Thunderbolt Trail" sign, but the route was fairly obvious. A few hundred yards in there was an intersection and a sign for the 'Bolt. Cover was thin but sufficient. The trail is about 10 feet -- kind of a wide hiking trail, but not steep so I wasn't too concerned about skiing down. I was concerned about thin cover but that proved unfounded after just 15 minutes, as the snow quickly got deeper. It was still soft.
The skin up is unremarkable, your typical Northeast medium-density woods, not terribly steep. About a half-hour in I spotted someone up ahead of me, and I eventually caught up with him. We were at an intersection, and we discussed the better route. He hadn't been here before, either. I told him I thought the etiquette was to take the Burrows Pipe Trail so as to not skin up the Thunderbolt itself. Plus, the map showed that the BPT took a more gradual route up some steep spots and would likely be the easier route to skin. He thought he'd prefer to skin up what he'll ski, and we parted ways.
Fifteen minutes later, though, he was up the Burrows Pipe. I was heading out from a break at the lean-to to wolf down my sandwich and put some moleskin on a hot spot when he came up and said, "You were right." It was too steep.
The BPT continued up. I followed someone else's skin track switchbacking around a couple of steep spots. I kept encountering postholes. I heard voices down the trail. It was a threesome of high school or college-aged guys with alpine gear on their backs. Two were in snowshoes and the third in hiking boots. I would later see them at the summit monument. They looked like good skiers, but it was dismaying to see someone postholing. The postholes from previous climbers were all over the place, and while they didn't cause me trouble on the way down, they were disconcerting and I did have a couple of close calls. I just don't get it: If you don't have equipment for it, don't climb in the snow. It's hard work and can ruin it for others.
End of rant.
The Burrows Pipe Trail eventually rejoins the Thunderbolt proper maybe a quarter-mile from the summit. The trail here is plenty wide, though, for skinning up along the sides. It goes through an astounding stand of birch (?) trees that looks like an apple orchard -- maybe they are apples; my winter identification skills are meager at best. Then it arrives at the summit, where there's a road for summer tourists; it was packed by snowmobiles. I snapped some pictures, including of the summit monument, and headed down.
Mount Greylock is just high enough to have its summit weather affected by altitude, and it was cold up there. For skiing, this meant the snow had set back up. It was firm but edgeable. Out of caution from skiing alone -- the other man had just made it to the summit as I was heading down -- I skied slowly. I didn't want to get outside the packed strip and into the crusty and rough edges.
A cool thing about the Thunderbolt is that sections have names, complete with signs. There was the Big Bend, the Dumps, Needles Eye. The Big Bend is a double-fall-line bumped-up spot with a right turn. The Dumps is where the snow started to soften again and I presume named after a spot where racers used to dump speed before heading into a narrower portion of the trail, and where where the trail has some permanent moguls over rocks.
There's one spot that's uphill, but I had some momentum to carry me up, then did a few herringbones; I was fine. It's over a steep embankment that leads to a brook, and the route is hiking-trail wide, so it's just as well it's not a fast downhill at this point.
The trail sort of dies out at the intersection of the Root Trail. You can go back to Thiel Road or Gould Road. I opted to retrace my tracks and wound up where the snow gets thin on the trail proper. I left for the woods, but they're too thick; I should have stayed on the trail. Eventually I de-skied and walked out.
Some folks were taking dogs for walks. One man asked how it was. He said it was awesome Sunday -- that day with bluebird skis and warm temperatures. It made me wish I could have been there then, but it was also heartening to know that locals ski the Bolt, too.
As I was heading to the car, a young man in AT gear was headed up. H asked
me how it was. I told him good but crusty. He carried on.