Snow grooming machine on Dream Maker building terrain park.

Snow grooming machine on Dream Maker building terrain park.

Today was a little warmer than recent days. Temperatures at the inn just before 9 this morning were in the high 20's. It was warm enough to shed a layer this morning, which is welcomed after the cold air of the last couple of weeks.

Killington is set up beautifully for the Martin Luther King birthday weekend. The copious amounts of snow that the resort has made is being pushed around the resort, offering skiers and riders really nice surfaces to to enjoy their sport.

This morning we started with a brief tree run in the Stash followed by a top to bottom jaunt down Wildfire. The woods had some firmness to them, as the snow is beginning to get denser due to compression the last week or so. Upper Wildfire, while flat, had not been groomed. With temps in the high 20's, the snow had a very "grabby" feel to it. We quickly learned that it was an anomaly, a simple artifact of the temperature gradient and the trail not being groomed overnight. For, when we got to lower Wild Fire, we were rewarded with a nice soft mix of machine groomed packed powder. Lower Wild Fire was set up perfectly as a small bump cruiser which got several well deserved do-overs during the course of the morning.

Outer Limits saw some work overnight. Small rolling bumps with a touch of firmness in places kept speeds in check. It should see plenty of action over the weekend.

Needles Eye, Cruise Control, Upper Dream Maker, Skye Burst and Bitter Sweet were all excellent. A terrain park was being built on lower Dream Maker, so it was roped off. It should be open some time this weekend.

Vertigo was in nice shape. I avoided the headwall, as the entrance was filled with large bumps, but once past it via a Needles Eye entrance, middle and lower Vertigo was filled with nice soft rolling bumps.

The only real problems of the day were on Superstar, Skyelark and Ovation. Heavy cloud cover coated the top 300 feet or so of the mountain. The first run down the upper Superstar headwall was a little tentative in zero visibility, but it was groomed soft and flat so subsequent runs were ripped top to bottom.

If you are heading out to Killington this weekend, you will find great snow and mild temperatures. Enjoy you time on the slopes........let it snow!

Note: Thursday afternoon, about a mile from the inn, across the Roaring Brook Valley, there was a serious house fire. For those of you interested in that story, you can follow the link to the Rutland Herald for more information.