Mary - First day out of the 2006/2007 season

Mary - First day out of the 2006/2007 season

Lot's to talk about today....We are skiing! We got Snow! We are Ready!

First the details...Last night Killington experienced a reasonable snow storm, dropping about 3 inches of snow around the inn. The mountain probably received more, but with all of the snow guns going it was hard to separate real versus man made. We had been talking yesterday about going skiing today, but there was still the possibility that we would take a pass. For those of you who remember your physics, one of Newton's laws of motion states that a body at rest stays at rest unless acted upon by an outside force. Well 3 inches of light fluffy snow outside the inn was just enough of a force to cause us to gather up all of our equipment and head to the mountain.

We arrived fashionably late for us, getting to the hill around 9:30. The parking lots were packed. People from all over responded to last nights storm and decided today was the day. After taking a boost from the K1 gondola, we did laps up on Rime. The snow was a collection of really nice, soft little bumps. The kind of set up that March legs would relish, but December, first time out, legs got a work out. It was very cool up on the mountain, probably high single digits, with a combination of the Killington Cloud and snow guns causing the sun to play hide and seek.

Top of Skyelark Guns going at entrance to Bittersweet

After fooling around at the North Ridge area (formerly the Glades), while Mary went in to take off her boots, I took off to try Skye Lark and Bittersweet. I took the Superstar quad up. Superstar looks like they could get it open with about 24 hours of snow making, but I am sure there are other priorities. The resort was blowing snow on the Superstar Headwall near the lift terminal. When I got off of the lift, a severe case of vertigo set in. The Wind was whipping up slope, causing a large portion of the snow output from the snow guns on the headwall to fall just to the left of the lift terminal. I doubt I could see my ski's, it was sooooo thick. I saw several people push off to the right towards the Skye Peak gondola station. I kept telling myself to go left, and eventually I found my way to the top of Skye Lark. But it was a pretty hairy couple of minutes.

Skye Lark had guns going from just below the top all the way to the bottom. The snow being produced was fairly light and dry, so there were no problems with it sticking to equipment, but the new high efficiency guns put out so much snow that again there was no visibility. I skied down to Lower Bittersweet. There were still a few guns running there, but most had been turned off.

"Toyland" The Birch Ridge Inn Christmas Tree at the Vermont Holiday Festival

Bittersweet had not been groomed, so there were huge snow whales where ever the snow guns dropped their snow. My December legs were warmed up enough by this point that I enjoyed skiing up and down the whales. I would bet, however, that Killington will have lower Bittersweet groomed out tomorrow to help manage skier traffic. Even though the mountain was busy, because of the snow guns, there were only a few people in the Superstar area.

All in all, it was a very nice first day out skiing for the season. Now if work does not get in the way.......

One final note, last night we went to the Killington Grand to take in the Vermont Holiday Festival. Over 100 trees are beautifully decorated and on display for the general public. If you are in Killington this weekend, you should go to the Grand and vote for your favorite tree.