Snow guns firing on Bear Trap

Snow guns firing on Bear Trap

The heavy snow fall of the last several days has caused the new owners of the Killington Pico Ski Resorts to rethink their plans. Today, for instance, Bear Mountain opened for skiing and riding a full 2 weeks earlier than the announced plan.

Virtually all of Bear Mountain was open for skiing and riding on ungroomed, natural snow fall. Snow guns were running on Bear Trap to build up base, but I did not see guns operating elsewhere. Bear Trap was covered with wind blown packed powder interspersed with snow making whales. I had my first "eject eject eject" of the season today, as my left ski got buried under some crust on Bear Trap, literally ripping the ski off my leg. I came to a stop about 40 feet away, upside down, in what seemed like waist deep powder. Of course today I had my all mountain skis on, not the powder skis... so it goes.

Outer Limits was open with all natural snow. There was no evidence of any snow guns being used on Outer Limits. The trail was ungroomed with several interesting exposed rocks. A lot of people had already challenged it. After looking at the rocks from the chair, we decided to pass.

The Killington Peak side of the mountain was primarily groomed flat. All of the trails we skied on were nice machine groomed packed powder. Great for making gentle carving turns with very little surface vibration. Cascade was still showing a little ice on the lower headwall, but I found it easily avoidable. Superstar was splendid, as was Skye Lark and Bittersweet. Cruise Control had not been groomed, but the skier traffic from yesterday left some very nice, soft bumps. The same held true for Needles Eye.

We left just before Noon. The Killington cloud had appeared turning off the sun shine of the early morning. But it did bring with it some snow squalls which will only help to keep things nice and fresh for tomorrow.

Let it snow!