Dean at entrance to Summit Glades at Pico

Dean at entrance to Summit Glades at Pico

Just like unrequited love, today was an unrequited powder day at the Killington Resort.

Yesterdays snow storm ended with howling winds overnight. To prevent the snow from blowing away, the Killington Resort had their groomers out all night stabilizing the surfaces. Today, Mary and I split. I went to Pico to ski with some friends, Mary headed to Killington for a girls day out. We found remarkably similar conditions at both.

At both Pico and Killington, virtually every primary trail was groomed. Even with grooming, surface depths were impressive, and the trails were quite soft. Where grooming operations happened early, wind blown packed powder slabs developed. Some of the wind created cornices were feet high, leaving an interesting impression on you mind when you skied over them. In other places, the wind had scoured away the powder, revealing the hard packed base.

At Pico, gladed runs like Birch Glade and Summer Glades were covered with about a foot of firm wind blown. There were no face shots today, unless you were bitten by the proverbial snow snakes hiding amongst the slabs of snow. Open runs like 49er and Lower Pike were covered with several inches of wind blown. While it was nice to carve turns on, it was not the powder day everyone was anticipating when the storm first arrived in the region Wednesday morning.

But, even though it was not a powder day, the new snow will add hugely to base depths across the resort, leaving both Pico and Killington in perfect shape for February ski vacations........let it snow!