Ben, 'The Bagel' and Ken on Superstar

Ben, 'The Bagel' and Ken on Superstar

Finally! A bright, sunny, day.

Today was just about the perfect mid winter ski day at Killington. Temperatures were in the mid to upper 20's; there was an imperceptible breeze; the sky was bright blue with a few high clouds; and the sun was burning brightly. Just perfect for a run or 20...

Today we started our runs from the K1 Gondola. At 9:00 AM Highline was all lit up in the morning sun, just calling us for a lap. While taking the K1 to the peak, there was a delay of about 5 minutes where we think they were unloading supplies for the Killington Peak restaurant. That delay was just long enough for the resort to close Highline for race training...hence we were banished to Mousetrap and a run down Lower Bunny Buster. Fear not...they were nicely groomed. Aside from a quickly forgotten disappointment for not being able to ski Highline, Mousetrap and Lower Bunny were very suitable first run alternatives.

From there we traversed across the top of the resort to Bear Mountain. The first run down Bear Claw was fairly quick, as we were basically the only ones on the trail at 9:15. There were 8 of us so we formed a small pack. But it would still be about an hour more before we would see any significant numbers of people.

After a quick ride up the Skye Peak Quad, we headed for the Stash. The Stash itself was groomed impecably. The woods between the Stash and Bear Claw were filled with nice soft "pillows" of snow, probably the result of snow coming out of the tree tops. I am not a huge tree skier, but this was a nice off piste excursion.

In the early morning set, Outer Limits looked like it was a candidate for run of the day. The Bear Chair was not running early on, so the only way onto OL was to traverse across from Wild Fire. Once on OL skiers were rewarded with nice, soft, snow over a slight rolling bump. The surface, and the number of skiers and riders on OL, was very receptive to trail edge to edge carving turns. Add in 100 percent sunshine, and Outer Limits was a treat this morning.

Killington peak in early morning sunshine with a backdrop of high, wispy clouds. Click to enlarge.

We finished our morning at Bear with the requisite runs down Wild Fire and Dream Maker. The top of Wild Fire had been groomed to remove it's bumps. A slightly firm surface was left in their place. Upper Dream Maker was icy bumps. Lower Dream Maker was set up with a number of terrain park features. While our group is not prone to do rails or boxes, the snow features including large swales and jumps provided plenty of entertainment.

We then proceeded on our normal route via Cruise Control into Needles Eye. The Needles Eye quad was running this morning, so we did a number of loops between Cruise, Needles and Bitter Sweet. All were in great shape. The sun was doing a great job lighting up Cruise Control and Needles Eye, allowing for some very quick loops. As we headed to the north side of the mountain and Bitter Sweet, some shadows came into play. The surface was nicely groomed and soft, so you could trust it. But the transition from bright sunshine to dark shadow at ski speed can be momentarily spooky.

We finished the morning with laps of the Superstar Quad. Todays run of the day was unusual. Super Star and Skye Lark were both high speed cruisers. Ovations was the surprise. The run of the day, based upon the number of do overs the group ran, was Upper Ovations in the weeds to skiers right (of all places). The area was filled with small, rolling, bumps and beautiful soft snow. The group did it at least 3 times. Sadly to say, Lower Ovation was not as friendly. Los tres caballeros in todays first picture did Lower Ovations on one of the loops. Because of its angle to the sun, it was pitch black. It was also filled with a number of large, unpredictable, bumps. They survived it, but they were not very happy and they did not do it again.

A few more laps of Superstar brought the morning to a close. By noon time, the sun was lighting up the lower Superstar headwall on skiers right, near the woods. It was just plan nice to be able to ski Superstar for a change with top to bottom sunshine. A true January treat!

......let it snow!