That's gotta hurt.. Ruts on the giant proboscis on Mouse Run

That's gotta hurt.. Ruts on the giant proboscis on Mouse Run

Warming temperatures (it's all relative), light crowds, and great snow greeted skiers and riders to Killington this weekend. The Martin Luther King Birthday week end, usually a bell weather for the ski season, is often accompanied by manic crowds of once a season ski resort guests. This year at Killington, at least, those guests were absent. In their absence the mountain was generally occupied by experienced skiers knowledgeable of Killingtons expansive terrain.

Many of our ski house friends from a past life were out in force this weekend, as they are most weekends. However, today being a holiday, they were afforded an extra day to play in the mountains. I hooked up with many of them this morning at 7:45 in the K1 base lodge, in the same corner they have been meeting at for over 20 years at Killington.

The mountain today was much warmer than my last outing. Temperatures were in the mid 20's. The Killington Cloud was covering Killington Peak during most of the morning, so we started at Bear Mountain, which as usual was in bright sunshine. The Stash, Bear Claw, Skye Burst and Lower Wildfire were all groomed nicely. The couple of inches of light fluff that have fallen over the weekend formed a very soft cover over the base. All of these runs promoted confidence resulting in some very high speed cruising. Of course, at 8:00 AM, our group was virtually it on the mountain, so we had a great time just playing as we headed down the slopes.

Upper Wild Fire was covered in a mixture of soft bumps with slight slickness in the troughs. Our group was about a dozen people when we did Wild Fire, which made matching speeds between good skiers with slightly different bump aptitude interesting. The light on Upper Wild Fire was a little flat, due to it's aspect ratio relative to south. I liked skiers right down the trail. Several of the group took skiers left, which because it has some more sun exposure was probably a little slicker in spots.

From there, we hit Dream Maker, Cruise Control, Needles Eye, Bitter Sweet, Skye Lark, and Superstar. Lower Dream Maker, with its mix of free style terrain features was a joy. Cruise Control was in good shape, although some of the grooming left little golf balls on skiers left. Bitter Sweet, Skye Lark and Superstar were in great shape. The only downer was Needles Eye, and it was not the trail it was the lift. Twice down the trail we entered the Needles Eye Quad corral to have the spinning lift stop. After waiting several minutes, we were directed to the Skye Ship Stage II. It's not a big deal, really, but we would have done some of the trails over again if the lift were operating reliably.

The maze of trails at Needles Eye caused the group break up. With Ruts and the Bagel, I headed over to the Killington Peak side of the mountain. KPeak was still in heavy cloud, so we took the Snowdon Triple for a ride. Upper Mouse Run is also set up as a small terrain park with a collections of hits, jumps, and rails. Mouse Run, Mouse Trap, and Lower Chute were covered in nice soft snow.

We finished up on the Snowdon Quad and a trip down Upper Royal Flush and Highline. I hit a few icy patches under the snow on skiers left on Upper Royal Flush. Nothing serious, but I noticed it. Highline also had a strange look to it. The light was dim from the Killington Cloud. There were red splotches in the snow. It looked like some of the paint from the poles used in a racing course had bled into the snow. Although it had a slick look to it, the snow was quite nice. I went down the far right side near the trees. There was plenty of light fluffy snow to carve turns in. The Bagel went more towards the middle of the trail, he also reported that the surface was soft. So I guess sometimes looks can be deceiving.

The weather forecast for Killington calls for light snow pretty much all week. Assuming that forecast holds, ski surfaces on the mountain should continue to be soft and friendly......let it snow!