Lower Bunny Buster from the Snowdon Triple

Lower Bunny Buster from the Snowdon Triple

Winter is here....finally!

It was a balmy 4 degrees at 8:55 this morning when I parked the car in the K1 lot. Wind was cruising at a comfortable 10-15. Snow guns were kicking up snow everywhere you looked. And some real white stuff was falling from the sky. If you ignore the fact that there was no sun to be found, it was a perfect day.

The resort was running the K1 Gondola, the Snowdon Triple and the North Ridge Triple this morning. The Superstar quad was spinning in preparation for the weekend. The Canyon quad was being cleaned off. It looked like some work was being done this morning on the Snowdon Quad, but it was hard to tell.

In general, all of the terrain on the Killington Peak side of the resort through Snowdon was accessible. With the exception of an oops, everything was covered with 2-3 inches of nice fluff over a packed powder surface. Where skier traffic was more pronounced, nice soft little piles of snow were developing. Just the right thing to get early season legs working.

The oops of the day was the true East Falls. It is hard to tell exactly what happened, but a combination of the grooming and the wind left it chuncky and devoid of surface snow. It was in marked contrast to Rime, Reason, and Upper East Falls, which were beautifully soft with powder puffs everywhere.

The other interesting trail was Highline. Highline was filled with medium sized soft bumps down the headwall, and ankle deep powder on lower skiers right all the way to the junction with Spillway. The medium bumps will be delightful if they are there in 6 weeks, as my legs will be more receptive to their charms. But this is still pretty early in the season, and my legs let me know about it on Highline.

The run of the day was Chute down to Lower Bunny Buster. It is not often that this would be the run of the day, but Chute was covered in really nice ankle deep fluff the whole way down from the top of Snowdon. Even with the cold and the slow chairs, it was worth a do over.

The resort is poised for a major terrain expansion over the weekend. Look for Snowshed and Superstar to be open this weekend, along with all of the terrain on Killington Peak and Snowdon. And with constant snow flurries predicted, surfaces should continue to stay nicely soft for some great early season skiing and riding.

......let it snow!