Lower Bear Claw on another bluebird day

Lower Bear Claw on another bluebird day

All told, it was another nice day of spring skiing at Killington. Although the sky was cloud covered early, by around 10:00 AM the cloud cover had burned off and we had beautiful sunny blue skies once again.

Today was a little more adventurous than yesterday as I was out with the usual guys this morning. After a couple of laps on North Ridge to wake up, we headed straight down Cascade. Cascades was groomed with a firm base covered with soft loose granular. Middle Cascades was set up for sweeping GS style turns. Lower Cascade was similar, although since we were skiing as a group most of us held to little check turns as we wiggled down the fall line.

After a few laps on Cascades, we headed to Superstar. Superstar was the run of the day. The upper headwall was a little slick, but after that there was a couple of inches of loose granular covering a edge-able base. There was not a huge amount of skier traffic this morning, so on Superstar we were able to cruise the whole way. The lower headwall was still reasonably flat with a nice soft coating. I am sure that it would have gotten skied off if there were more people, but at 11:00 AM when we were doing laps it was very nice.

We then headed to Bear Mountain off the back of Superstar. Gateway (skiers left off the backside of Superstar) was ski-able, but almost down to a single track. If you use this route to get to Bear Mountain tomorrow to view the Bear Mountain Mogul Challenge, be very careful. The trail is so narrow that any traffic on it could yield significant carnage. A better route off of Superstar to Bear would be to go skiers right off Superstar down to Great Eastern to get to Bear. Of course, with warm weather, conditions can change so use caution which ever route you take.

At Bear we found mixed conditions. Skiers right on Bear Trap was a skating ring. The surface was down to ice. Upper Bear Claw was in excellent shape with very good coverage over all of the features. Lower Wildfire had also been groomed today. I enjoyed the nice soft snow but several in our group though too many turns were required. Either way, I doubt that the cover on lower Wildfire will last beyond the weekend so if you want to ski it you should take advantage of it now. Lower Bear Claw was starting to take on the consistency of beach sand. it usually does that this time of year. With todays light crowds it was not too difficult to maneuver in. The anticipated crowds on Saturday could be another story.

Upper Sky Burst to Cruise Control was also pretty good. Skye Burst is developing some thin patches, as was Cruise Control. But both were very enjoyable. The biggest surprise of the day was the connection between the Needles Eye Chair and Bitter Sweet. It was down to a single track (about 3 ski's wide) of ice with rocks and grass on either side. 3 in our group (myself included) had no problem negotiating it. One member caught his pole some how and tumbled. The last member decided to walk the 20 feet between trails. After getting across the connection, we were rewarded however, as Bitter Sweet itself was in nice shape.

All in all, the mountain is still offering good skiing and riding on firm surfaces with a loose granular covering. Very typical for spring skiing at Killington. And with the current weather forecast for the weekend calling for more blue skies, it should be a nice weekend to be on the mountain.

Passport Update - According to State Departments official website, "Your passport application was not found. It is possible your application has not made it into our system yet." I was expecting this as an answer as the State Department website says it may take up to 10 days for expedited passport renewal information to be posted on their website....so it goes.

Let it snow!