Ruts and Bagel at the top the
Little Pico Chair. Notice the wind blown snow.

Ruts and Bagel at the top the
Little Pico Chair. Notice the wind blown snow.

Today was a study in contrasts in the Killington area. On the one hand, ASC has sold another resort, and it is not Killington. On the other hand, the Valentines day blizzard is still with us, and there is a lot of untracked powder in it's wake.

We woke up today to the news that the American Skiing Corporation has sold 2 New England Resorts. No, the resorts were not Killington and Pico, but Mount Snow in Vermont, and Attitash in New Hampshire. The sales price is approximately $73.5M. if you want more information on the sale you can find ASC's release on the Security and Exchange Commissions website. How this impacts the rumored sale of Killington is anyone's guess.

Now back to Skiing and Riding... Almost!

Because of the Valentines day storm, some friends of mine from our old ski house decided to come to Killington a day early. Usually they ski the weekends. But they decided to come up and ski Friday to try to bag some fresh powder. Because of very high winds, most lifts at both Killington and Pico were not operating on Thursday, leaving the promise of untracked powder. Because of lighter crowds, we decided today we would head out to Pico, and run the trails off the Summit Express Quad from the top of Pico Peak. Fresh, untracked powder was waiting...and it still is!

We arrived at Pico to find that not only would we not be skiing the summit, but that only 3 chairs were operating; the Little Pico Triple, the Golden Express Quad, and the Bonanza Double. We basically had 1/3rd of a mountain to ski... and we covered it all.

Off the Little Pico Triple, A slope was very wind blown and boney in places with some exposed rock. B slope had some nice coverage, but it too was wind blown. There was a 30 MPH or so wind at the top of Little Pico which was packing the snow down pretty good. I was on my powder ski's, some Volkl Vertigo's. They are about 6 inches wide with no side cut, great for skiing deep stuff but a lot of work in small wind blown bumps... so it goes.

The terrain off the Golden Express Quad was in nice shape. The best run was probably Gold Rush. It was a toss up on Swinger and Lower Pike as you neared to bottom. All of the trails had some nice powder on the edges, if you did not mind knocking some tree branches out of the way. Just to tease us, the Summit Express Quad was running ever so slowly. The lift attendants were cleaning it off to get it ready for the weekend. If you are at Pico early on Saturday... remember.. fresh powder at the summit!

We stayed out about 3 hours this morning at Pico. When I got back to the inn, I had a message that Bill B and Howie had called around 9:30 requesting a breakfast meeting at Johnny Boy's. It appears that while I was staring at a closed Summit Express Quad at Pico, they were staring at no operating lifts at Killington. They did not even put their boots on at the Killington Base Lodge before heading out for breakfast. So I guess Pico was the right choice this morning after all! Let it snow!