Mary's "Golfing buddy" Nina at Killington Peak.

Mary's "Golfing buddy" Nina at Killington Peak.

While I manned the inn, today was a day of skiing firsts for my partner Mary. It was the first time she had skied with her golfing buddy Nina. It was the first time she has skied top to bottom from Killington Peak to the Route 4 Sky Ship Base this season. It was the first time for Mary to try out the new Bakery at the Snow Shed Base Lodge for a little warm up coffee break.

Mary's friend, Nina, a retired Inn keeper from the Killington area, used her $24.00 pay as you go season pass for the first time today. Finding people to ski with on a regular basis if often a challenge for Mary. Simply put, the boys ski hard and fast, and many of the ladies are drifting away from skiing every day. It does present a challenge to Mary as she has a but few hours most days to get in her skiing quota. While she loves to chase after the boys (we do push her) skiing today with Nina turned out to be a good match up.

Mary reports today that conditions were not quite as good as yesterday. Bear Mountain was not groomed, so yesterdays soft bumps took on a lot choppiness. The Glades area, which we did not ski yesterday, was a little scratchy. The runs off of Snowdon were in good shape. And the run down to Route 4 on Great Eastern was excellent, with the one possible negative that they could not stop for their planned warm up at the Route 4 base lodge because there is no coffee or hot chocolate service there on Thursday.

After the run down Route 4, Mary reports that she and Nina took a brief warm up stop to visit the newly done over Snow Shed Base Lodge. Mary wanted to see if anything was different from last year. The furniture in the main restaurant area had been upgraded. Friends had mentioned the bakery was nice, so Mary and Nina headed there to scope it out. They report that pastries looked interesting but, properly watching their waistlines, they were good and just headed to the hot beverage section. Six dollars later, they had a cup of coffee and a hot chocolate. Mary thought the price seemed steep, but hey...it is a ski resort in mid winter. All in all, the environment at the Snow Shed base lodge was nice and, being mid week, it certainly wasn't crowded.

One final first for Mary this season....she was on the mountain until 2:00... a full four hours of skiing, that's a good thing as she deserved some time on the hill.

Let it snow!