Highline from the K1 Gondola.
The shadows are the back sides of snowmaking whales left from newly blown snow. Click to enlarge.

Highline from the K1 Gondola.
The shadows are the back sides of snowmaking whales left from newly blown snow. Click to enlarge.

Empty trails and fresh snow. What more can you ask for?

Well maybe the heat could be raised a degree or two, but other than being a little chilly and dark today, ski conditions at Killington were excellent. And the chilly (low teens) and the dark are a good thing, because a light snow has been continuously falling at the resort for the last couple of days.

I did not get a chance to get on the hill yesterday. When I was out this morning, I was impressed with the amount of snow making the resort has been doing. They must be doing it at night when the temperatures are cooler, because there were no guns going any where I could see today. But the piles of newly made snow were all over the mountain this morning, waiting to be groomed out for this coming weekend.

When I started out this morning and I saw Highline from the K1 Gondola, I knew that needed to be my first run. From the K1, it looked like it was covered with multiple inches of freshly fallen snow. I noticed some shadows in the snow. As the light was dim, I did not think much of it while riding in the K1. But when I got to the top of Highline, I was in for a surprise.

The snow surface was still pure, only a single boarder had made it to Highline by 9:05. And the surface was covered with 2 to 3 inches of new fluff which had fallen during the night. But the shadows I saw from the K1 turned out to be very large mounds of snow blown last night from the tower snow guns along the trail. My cruise in fluff down a moderately steep trail, turned out to be a cruise in fluff over snow cliffs on the backside of whales. It was fun mind you, but it was not the warm up run I was expecting when I got on the K1 this morning.

After Highline, I took the box again and did Cascade and East Falls. (Double Dipper was roped off at the time.) Both trails felt like some new man made snow was down on them underneath the natural supplied by Mother Nature. The mounds were more pronounced on Cascade, but they were noticeable on East Falls as well. By this time I was feeling pretty impressed that the resort was continuing to make snow to refresh the trails, given we have had a continuous light snow fall all week, so I headed over to Bear Mountain to take a look.

I started out on Upper Skye Burst to Middle and Lower Dream Maker. Really, really nice. The park and pipe on Dream Maker were in great shape. Perfect companions to slow the pace down slightly after the cruise down Skye Burst. Bear Trap/Bear Claw again seemed like some new snow had been made. The junction of the trails just above the Viper Pit and Anti Venom were clearly worked on, but this makes sense as this is a high traffic area. Lower Bear Claw had a large mound of snow, staked off with bamboo, at the very bottom, probably positioned to groom into the lift mazes on the Bear Chair and Skye Peak.

After looping through Cruise Control and Needles Eye (both nice), I took a few laps on Bitter Sweet and Skye Lark before calling it a day. Both had plenty of snow cover and were set up well for the final run out to the K1 Base Lodge.

Overall, it was not a long day on the hill, but I must say that I am impressed that the conditions, created by the resort continuing to make snow, and the new stuff that has been falling from the sky all this week, were so good. Now if we could get a little sunshine please....

Let it snow!