Skiers and riders enjoying opening day at Killington.

Skiers and riders enjoying opening day at Killington.

Under a beautiful blue sky, the 2009/2010 ski season at Killington officially began today. While there was minimal terrain open, I saw nothing but smiles when I was on the hill earlier this morning.

In homage to my Orthopedic Surgeon, I did not strap on skis this morning and dive into the crowd. Instead, I got out my ski poles, put on my hiking boots, and did a walk about on the hill.

Fan Gun at base of Mousetrap dominates the scene. Click to enlarge.

My immediate impression was that the Resort was able to take good advantage of the cold window that Mother Nature gave them the last 24 hours. They were able to deposit enough snow on Lower Bunny Buster that the resort was able to groom it out. From my simple ski pole measurement, about 2 feet of machine made packed powder was along the side of the trail. (It made hiking quite the work out.)

Mom - I need a new pair of skis! One of the competitors enjoying the Rail Jam today at Killington. Click to enlarge.

The second thing I noticed is that once you get off a snow covered trail, that the rest of the mountain is just overflowing with water. Grassy surfaces on the trails on Snowdon were all very wet from the precipitation that has been falling the last couple of weeks. We will really need a good solid freeze before we will see a lot of terrain expansion in the early season.

The skiers and riders I spoke with were all happy to be back out on the mountain. There obviously was a lift line on the North Ridge Triple where most of the skiing and riding was taking place. Skiers and Riders were smoothly entering the K1 Gondola for a boost to Killington Peak with minimal waiting. There was a small amount of walking required at the base to enter the queue for the K1. But no one seemed to notice.

When I left this morning, the Back to Shred Rail Jam was just kicking off. Competitors were taking some practice laps over the features. Killington was limiting entries to the first 60 people. Based upon the number of people I saw they had no problem reaching that number.

Killington is scheduled to be open for skiing and riding again tomorrow (Sunday) before closing down for the week. The resort does plan to be open again next weekend. Hopefully Mother Nature will continue to give us a break and bring some cold temperatures at night to allow continued snow making.........let it snow!