Bear Claw being prepared for the Chevrolet US Snowboarding Grand Prix to be held at Killington March 15 and 16.

Bear Claw being prepared for the Chevrolet US Snowboarding Grand Prix to be held at Killington March 15 and 16.

Today was a beautiful ski day at Killington. Temperatures were in the high teens to upper 20's. Sunshine was almost 100%. Snow surfaces are continuing to improve from last weekends r@*n.

We started out this morning on the K1 Gondola with a couple of quick loops down Highline and Cascade. Both trails were well groomed but firm, as the mornings sun had not had a chance to soften up the surfaces. After Cascade, as the K1 Gondola was getting crowded (it is Canada week in Killington), instead of staying in the Canyon area we decided to ski across the top over to Bear Mountain.

Terrain at Bear is somewhat limited as the mountain prepares for the Chevrolet US Snowboarding Grand Prix this coming weekend. Lower Bear Claw and Dream Maker are closed off to allow the mountain to construct what can only be described as huge terrain features for the event. Never matter, though, as Wildfire and Outer Limits were in nice shape and worthy of several do-overs.

Upper Wildfire was flat and firm. Groomers had worked the surface over fairly well so there was minimal ice, but it was still firm under foot. Lower Wildfire was starting to corn up in the sun. It was not warm enough to get much melting going, but because of the concentrated ski traffic on Lower Wildfire, the surface was starting to break up heading towards a beach sand consistency. Outer Limits, in full sunshine, was also getting very loose. The trail was groomed flat, but skier traffic was chopping up the surface even more, turning over all sorts of "death cookies" and other artifacts.

From Bear we took several loops through Cruise Control, Needles Eye, and Bittersweet. All were nice. I finished my day with a couple of runs down Superstar. From the lift, Superstar looked like it might be a little slick, but at noon time the surface was quite nice. The headwall was very firm, but I found some loose granular on skiers right. Middle Superstar and the lower face were flat and fast. They were very receptive to carving turns while offering loose granular in natural high traffic sections.

All in all, a nice ski day at Killington. And we have a little snow in the forecast for tonight and tomorrow to keep things nice.

Let it snow.