Superstar at Killington. Ready for the first snow.

Superstar at Killington. Ready for the first snow.

Change is in the air at Killington. With all the fall colors around town, the pace of preparations for the ski season is quickening at the Killington Resort.

Intermixed with the fall foliage, the ski resort has been manicuring the ski trails. "Manicuring" might be too strong a word, but I was actually surprised over the weekend when I went up to the mountain and saw how closely cropped the grass was on some of the ski trails. Clearly the resort has set up many of their trails to be very receptive to early season snow. (With the grass cut short on a trail, it does not take a lot of snow cover to support skiing.)

Work is also continuing on getting lifts and snow making systems ready. Workers were turning the Superstar Chair today. Portable compressors are scattered around the mountain running pressure tests on snow making pipes. And the footings are being dug for the new fan guns the mountain received over the summer. If the weather cooperates, I was told that concrete would be poured later this week for them.

Fall foliage colors in the immediate Killington area are quite pronounced. Weekend guests commented that the color in the mountains around Killington was more brilliant than along Route 100 north. Why is anyones guess(probably due to the local microclimate). But with peak foliage colors yet to come, the mountains around Killington will only get prettier over the next few days.