Mary at K1 Base Lodge getting ready for skiing.

Mary at K1 Base Lodge getting ready for skiing.

This morning, our chef, Stephen, came in and covered the inn while Mary and I went out on the mountain. Like Tuesday, when we arrived at the K1 Base Lodge, there were very few people in attendance. And also like Tuesday, the skiing was great! All week long we have a continuous snow flurry. It has not amounted to much, as the snow is basically compressing to the ground at the rate it is snowing. But when you combine the natural snow with all of the snow making the resort has been doing, you wind up with great conditions.

Freestyle Park set up on Bear Trap.

Our day started out on the Superstar Chair heading over the Bear Mountain. Killington peak was covered in clouds. Skye Peak was in the sun. The local joke that Bear Mountain is warmer because it is closer to the equator was the early morning mantra, so off we went. Over the last couple of days, Killington has been building a freestyle park on Upper Bear Trap. I did a few hits on some of the ramps, nothing crazy mind you, but the park is set up for some fun so why not. The snow surface was meticuliously groomed packed powder. Really nice.

We then took the Skye Peak Chair (Outer Limits is no where near ready to open) for a run down Skyeburst. The resort has made a lot of snow on upper Skyeburst. It had not been groomed out yet. While it was quite carveable, it was a little on the crusty side. If there were more people at the resort to ski it, the crust would break up nicely and the trail would have been great. My guess is that the resort will groom this out overnight for the weekend resulting in a nice packed powder surface.

Mary in motion at Rams Head

After Syeburst, we headed to Cruise Control. It was really nice. The Needles Eye chair was running, as it usually is on a Friday, so we did a half dozen loops on Cruise, and Bittersweet. We looked at Needles Eye itself, but it had the same appearance as Syeburst. From the lift you could see people breaking through the crust, so we took a pass. I will give the resort a lot of credit, however, as Needles Eye was completely covered with snow. On Tuesday the trail was just ugly looking, but the resort has spent a lot of time all week to be able to get it into shape for the weekend.

Lone skier on Needles Eye

We then decide to just cruise around the mountain to get a grasp of conditions. As innkeepers, we do spend a fair amount of time advising our guests on where to ski. With the busy weekend coming up, we felt a little reconnaissance was in order. We decided to go down Bittersweet to Snowshed via High Road. From Snowshed, we cut under the Killington Road and went to Rams Head. We did a couple of runs under the Rams Head lift. Conditions were very nice..just right for wide cruising turns.

Sky Ship in the clouds on Cascade

To end the day we went over to Snowdon. Mary headed to the base lodge, I went up to North Ridge, formerly the Glades and did a loop. I finished up on Cascade. Other than cloud cover on the top quarter of Cascades, the trail was superb. Beautiful soft packed powder just great for ripping turns. The headwall on Cascades was in good shape as well. A couple of scratchy spots, but if the Canyon Quad was running, Cascade would have been a definite do over!

All in all a nice morning to ski. Not a blue bird day with bright sunshine and 3 feet of face shot powder mind you, but still a very nice day on the mountain. Let it snow!