Snowmaking continues on Killington peak on a grey twig season day.

Snowmaking continues on Killington peak on a grey twig season day.

The Killington Resort Team is trying really hard to open the resort for limited skiing and riding this weekend. That is the impression I got this morning when I visited the Killington Base Lodge to view the activities taking place to ready the resort to open. That being said, the team is fighting an up hill battle. (no pun intended) Mother Nature is making it difficult at best, and may still put the kibosh on the whole thing.

Snow Guns in front of K1 Base Lodge. Click to enlarge.

The resort posted on their website this morning that they will make the decision to open for skiing and riding for the weekend on Friday morning at 10:00 AM. The hesitancy in the web statement is well placed. They have gotten into a proverbial dammed if you do...dammed if you don't situation. The Killington Resort Team wants to put out a high quality product for their customers. And there is is the rub. If they don't open, they don't have any customers...a rather simple business paradigm. But if they do open, will the product quality be there given the desire for top to bottom skiing and riding? The Resort has pulled out all the stops and they are going for it. So it will be interesting to see how the call comes down tomorrow.

Fan Gun pointed toward the K1 Gondola. Click to enlarge.

I walked around the K1 Base Lodge this morning around 10:30 AM. Snow guns, both the normal air pressure guns and the new fan guns, were surrounding K1 in a blizzard of snow. I ran into one of the senior managers. He told me that they had been making snow continuously thru the night at K1. But the conditions were marginal at best. About 2 inches of wet snow were on the ground in front of the Killington Ski Club. The temperature in my car where I parked was 34 degrees. On the mountain side of the K1 Base Lodge it was noticeably cooler; the water evaporation from the snow guns was creating their own microclimate.

"Snow guns leading down from Lower Bunny Buster near the K1 Triple Chair. Click to enlarge.

Around the building, towards the K1 Gondola, a moveable fan gun is set up to blow snow towards the lift area. If the resort opens, skiing right to the lift probably is out of the cards, as the ground is not frozen. But the resort is trying to set it up so people can get close.

Snow guns were clearly visible all along Great Northern down to the K1 Base. Snow Flurries are in the air, but for how long remains to be seen. The microclimate that snow making operations are creating is probably worth a couple of degrees in temperature near the snow guns. But that effect was in the process of being swamped out as the temperature in the overall Killington Basin area is heading into the mid 30's this afternoon.

Snow guns coating Lower Bunny Buster. Click to enlarge.

At this point, all we can do is watch and wait. The resort team is really trying to get the job done, and they deserve credit for that. They should be able to keep the snow guns running at the top of the mountain all day, which will provide a nice product in the North Ridge area to kick the season off. However, it remains to be seen if they can make enough snow on the lower parts of the mountain to offer top to bottom skiing and riding this weekend.

By this time tomorrow we will know........let it snow!