Killington, November 17, 2007, 10:30 AM

Killington, November 17, 2007, 10:30 AM

Light snow continued to fall in the area overnight. Snow accumulations were not significant (around 1 inch at the inn). However, white ground is a stark contrast from last weeks r@*n soaked hibernating grass. It does give one the feeling, at least momentarily, that winter has arrived at Killington.

Being a Saturday, I did not ski this morning. It's that work thing...However, I did go up to the mountain to look around briefly around 10:30.

From my visit, I was left with 2 impressions... First, the number of people on the mountain seemed lighter than prior years. There are a lot of possible reasons for this. The KBL parking lot was nearly full. The positive explanation, remember I am an optimist, it that there is so much open terrain at Killington that the crowds were spread out around the mountain and not visible from the base lodge area. There are a lot of other possible explanations as well including the fact that other ski areas are also open in Vermont (why would anyone want to ski someplace other than Killington???) which would dilute the crowd. And then of course there are the darker reasons for less people ranging from resort changes to concerns about the economy. But I am an optimist so that is enough of that.

The second impression my visit to the mountain this morning left me with was that snow guns seemed to be going everywhere. Guns were running along East Falls including the run out back to KBL. Guns were also running along Bittersweet and Skye Lark. A portable fan gun was running at the Superstar chair. A terrain expansion push to open more expert and intermediate terrain is underway for the upcoming Thanksgiving weekend. It should be fun to ski on it all next week as the trails open.

Let it snow!