Skye and Killington Peaks covered in clouds from the 2nd Green on the Killington Golf Course.

Skye and Killington Peaks covered in clouds from the 2nd Green on the Killington Golf Course.

Springtime in New England. Mary and I were just getting to appreciate the light brown lawn trying to turn green around the inn when late yesterday afternoon...wham...here comes the snow. Around the inn, a couple of inches of wet snow fell, covering the back yard with a bright white blanket to soak up the morning sun. By late morning, the combination of sunshine and wet ground underneath had melted most of it away, revealing a mottled lawn with bits of snow cover, interspersed with brown and green grass.

The inn is at just under 1900 feet. Higher elevations saw significantly more snow fall. At our chef's house in Mendon, at around 2400 feet, he reported about 6 inches of new snow on the ground. The Killington Resort reported 7 inches of new snow at Killington Peak. A nice bit of white to cap of a strangely quiet weekend at the resort.

Friday there were a string of announcements in the ski industry in New England. Killington announced that they would continue to operate beyond their April 19th planned closing date. The new closing date planned for the end of the 2008/2009 ski season at Killington is May 2nd, "weather permitting" of course.

South of Killington, Mount Snow announced that they will be suspending operations this week. Currently they plan on re-opening Easter Weekend (next weekend) to close out their ski season. Okemo in Ludlow will be running all week, but they also plan on ending their season next weekend.

To the north, Mad River of the "Ski it if you Can" mantra is done for the year. They closed up shop today due to a combination of poor snowfall during March combined with the warm temperatures and wet conditions of the last couple of weeks. At Sugarbush, Mt Ellen is also closed. Lincoln peak is still operating, and plans to continue as long as snow conditions allow.

With Killington now announced that they will stay open until May, it will be interesting to see which is the last resort open between Killington and Sugarbush.

Around town, it was pretty quiet this weekend, which is strange considering this was Bear Mountain Mogul Challenge weekend. The BMMC has been a signature spring event at Killington for 28 year. I am sure that there will be plenty of head scratching taking place trying to understand what happened to the 29th edition of "The biggest party in the east centered around a full day of mogul skiing" to lift a quote directly from the resorts website. Historically, thousands of people have mingled at the BMMC festivities over the years (Search google...you will find plenty of videos and pictures of past events). This is of course the second year that Killington Pico Ski Resort Partners (KSRP a partnership between Powdr of Park City Utah and SP Land 2 of Killington Vermont) have run the event. I spoke with some of this years contestants, who were excited to participate. But there was also some disappointment that only a handful of people turned out to watch the event.

It is simplistic to say that the changes to the event that KSRP has made have caused the decline in audience participation. After all, KSRP made significant investments into skiing and riding at Bear Mountain this year with the construction of the new Skye Peak Express Quad and the Burton Stash. Overall through out the ski season, Bear Mountain has been the place to ski this year at the Killington Resort. That being said, the party still died.

The changing demographics of snow sports, combined with todays economy and very poor weather for skiing the last couple of weeks, clearly would have an impact on event attendance no matter who were running the this years Mogul Challenge. But it is also clear from this years event, that for the Mogul Challenge to survive another 29 years it needs to be seriously retooled to generate some excitement in the North East skiing and riding community. And that is something that KSRP will need to address, if it wants to take the Bear Mountain Mogul Challenge into the future.

In the mean time, with the announced closing date of the resort May 2nd, there is still plenty of time to come to Killington to take the last turns of the ski season. So... Let it snow!