Snow making operations on Superstar seen from Snowdon Quad

Snow making operations on Superstar seen from Snowdon Quad

Killington is continuing to aggressively make snow to expand terrain as we enter Thanksgiving week.

Today on the mountain, conditions were generally soft packed powder. Most of the surface is man made, but Mother Nature has been cooperating with snow flurries overnight. On the mountain, it is hard to believe it is only November.

Rime, Reason, (Upper) East Fall, and Great Northern sustained moderate weekend crowds quite well. These trails were all groomed overnight. All are covered with considerable base depths of man made snow. Highline was groomed overnight as well. The surface was much firmer than the North Ridge area, but quite skiable.

I am torn on the run of the day between Skylark and Superstar. Skylark was groomed soft and sweet to the High Road cut off to Lower Bittersweet. Mary and I did this a couple of times. But each time up the Superstar chair, I was eying upper Superstar. Snow guns were pumping out snow, but there were a lot of obvious lines down the trail that you could see from the lift. When Mary called it a day, I gave it a try.

Snow guns have been operating for days on the Superstar Upper Headwall and along middle Superstar. Large whales had formed, as they trail has not been groomed out. The whales formed huge mounds in the middle of the trail. I had a great time skiing up and down them untill I got to the High Road cutoff. The last whale dropped off like a cliff. The good news is I saw it in time so I could make a couple of turns to get around it. Otherwise, it would have been some pretty big air, which would not have been pretty this early in the season. For people who like skiing in the snow, Superstar was it... For eveyone else, you could not beat Skylark today.

Killington is continuing to aggressively expand terrain. Ropes were dropped today on East Fall (yes.. the real East Fall not the renamed East Glade) Snowmaking was continuing all along it and on the run out back to the K1 Base Lodge. Snow making was also taking place on Upper and Middle Bittersweet. When we left around noon, Upper and Middle Bittersweet were not open to skiers and riders. But, I would guess it is only a matter of time.

In the mean time, all of town is abuzz about the coming storm. Weather forecasts in the area are all over the place, as it appears that the storm will be NCP (non-crystaline precipitation...we never mention the r word during ski season) in the Rutland area. The big unknown is the temperatures in the mountains. Local forecasts call for temps to be hanging right around freezing. We will know soon. The weather forecast for the rest of the week is calling for constant snow flurries and snow showers, after the main front passes Tuesday.

Given the amount of snow the Resort has made, and the number of trails they have covered, no matter what happens in the next 36 hours, Killington will go into the Thanksgiving Holidays with more terrain open in a long time. To put it in perspective, today was my 6th day on ski's in November. Since we moved to Killington full time 12 years ago, I don't think I have ever skied 6 days in any previous November. And the snow guns are still making snow as I write this.......let it snow!