Killington. Battle damaged by Mother Nature....but fighting back!

Killington. Battle damaged by Mother Nature....but fighting back!

Of course I am dating myself, but many people still remember an old tv commercial for a margarine (do people still eat margarine?) where the tag line went "It's not nice to fool mother nature!." Well what about declaring open war!

I have been laid low for a couple of days with a nasty bronchial condition. A little gift no doubt from a Christmas guest. The weather the last couple of days I can only say has been awful, so being holed up at the inn was not necessarily a bad thing. But when I went to the mountain this morning, I did not know wether to cry or to cheer.

if you take a look at today's lead picture, a photo of Killington Peak from the Upper Snowshed parking lot, and compare it to the picture I took from the same place on January 3rd you will understand why crying would be in order. The damage done to the ski slopes by 36 hours of temperatures in the high 50's with a warm r@!n that sounded more typical of an August thunderstorm downpour than light spring showers is just incredible to look at.

Snowshed showing damage on skiers right.

Looking across the parking lot to the Showshed slope displays the total carnage suffered due to this weird weather we are having. But then I took a drive up to the main K1 base lodge and my optimism increased. I felt like cheering!

The Killington Resort is expending a huge amount of resources fighting to stay open. In reality, it is a fight for the life of the resort, as the last couple of winters have not been too kind to Killington.

Snow Guns Firing on Killington Peak

But when I got to the K1 Base Lodge, with the temperature in my car reading 38 degrees, I saw Killington firing snow guns all over the top of the mountain. A solid string of snow guns was firing from the K1 Gondola station at the peak, down through the North Ridge Area, building up the ski surface at the peak for the season still ahead of us. Killington was basically re-starting the ski season. I went back to a previous blog entry posted on December 2nd, and found almost the exact same picture (avec dog). Talk about deja vu all over again.

Snow Guns Firing at the junction of East Fall and Rime

I give the Killington team a lot of credit for continuing to fight this weird winter. We all know that there have been bad winters before.... but this one seems exceptional (or is that because we are living it now!). It would be very easy for the resort to throw up their hands and give up. But so far they are not. The resort seems fully engaged to continue to provide the best on snow product they can, even if it means open warfare with Mother Nature.

Mountain on fire at sunset!

One final note on this weird weather. Late yesterday afternoon the atmosphere was highly saturated with water vapor. Just at sunset, the mountains took on a eerie glow. The clouds and the sun and the moisture in the air cast a strange light on the mountain peaks to the east of the inn. The whole mountain ridge line was glowing in a strange orange. It looked like the whole mountain top was on fire, which was highly improbable given the downpours we had experienced all day. It was just another sign of this weird winter.

The good news in all of this is that while a significant snow storm is not anticipated this week, temperatures at Killington should allow for continuous snow making on the mountain. How long Killington's snow making budget will last is any one's guess. So where every you may be this week... think cold thoughts... think snow! We need the help!