Killington Peak and Sky Peak in the clouds as seen from Bear Peak

Killington Peak and Sky Peak in the clouds as seen from Bear Peak

Happy New Year!

For the first blog post of the new year, Mary and I would like to give a warm thank you to all of the guests who visited with us, and dined with us, during the holiday season. We appreciate your continued support. Also, a big thank you to our staff, without whom we would not be able to continue to provide a high quality of service for all of our guests...

With the holiday season coming to a close, I was able to had out to the mountain this morning to take in the slopes. A lot has changed since my last adventure on skis 10 days ago. The biggest one, of course, is the snow. Prior to the holidays, the resort was in an all out assault to make snow to open terrain for holiday visitors. Since Christmas, we have had abundant cold temperatures, and constant small snow storms passing through the area. It all adds up. With the exception of some double black diamonds (Outer Limits in particular) the Killington Resort enters the new year with all of it's base lodges open, and nearly all of its terrain available for skiers and riders. Based upon what I saw on the mountain this morning, someone's Christmas wish got granted.

I spent my ski morning checking out terrain I have not yet skied this year, primarily on Sky Peak and Bear Mountain. Overall, conditions were packed powder. The majority of the trails had 1 to 2 inches of fluff over a machine groomed base. On a couple of the crests, the wind had exposed a crust. In the more sheltered areas, it was not unusual to hit 4 to 6 inches of light powder. No face shots, mind you, but plenty of snow to go around.

From an individual trail stand point, Upper Bear Claw was firm. Upper Skyeburst had nice snow, a little deeper on the edges of course, but even the middle was nicely soft. Upper Wildfire was ugly icy bumps. (After working round the clock for the last 2 weeks, all I really wanted to do today was some nice cruising). Lower Wildfire was nice past the pinch point. Lower Skyeburst was well snow covered. The new snow cannon at the junction of Lower Skyeburst and Dream Maker was operating. It had made an impressive mound of snow at the bottom of Dream Maker.

Cruise Control, Needles Eye, Bitter Sweet and High Road were all in nice shape. We took a break down at the Skye Ship base on Route 4. Great Eastern had some of the softest snow on the mountain on the way to Route 4. Clearly the trees sheltered the area from the wind of the last couple of days, allowing accumulating snow to stay in place.

The last run of the day was down Superstar. The headwall had a little scratch to it...but the big problem was it was in the dark. The sun this time of year does not get high enough to light the headwall up even at noon time. Middle Superstar was just a beautiful cruiser. Nice snow across the trail supporting broad sweeping turns. Everyone in our group thought Lower Superstar was also nice.

Light snow is due in the forecast pretty much all week. That should keep surfaces at Killington nice for a while. It should be a good week for skiing and riding at Killington.....let it snow!