From the top of Superstar looking towards Killington base

From the top of Superstar looking towards Killington base

The wintery mess that we had Sunday night into Monday exited the area overnight with sharply colder temperatures and heavy snow. Temperatures at the inn this morning, before heading off to the mountain, were in the single digits. 6 inches of newly fallen snow covered the ground that had basically been laid bare Sunday night by the torrential r@!n that had swept thru the area.

Killington peak this morning was still covered in a driving snow storm. We took the K1 gondola to the peak just after 9:00 for a few runs in the North Ridge area. 6 plus inches of new untracked snow greeted us on skiers right on Upper East Fall. Under the snow, the base was a little funky, consisting of a loose (almost wet) granular with a few larger chunks thrown in to keep you awake in the early morning air. Evidently the weather turned to snow so rapidly on Killington Peak that the wet snow created by the storm Sunday and Monday had not had a chance to set before being covered up.

Rime, Reason, and Upper Double Dipper were all in nice shape, with lots of untracked snow along the edges to carve into. Regular East Falls was slick in places, with a little thin cover exposed at the choke point midway down the trail. Highline was full of soft bumps down the lower headwall. Thin cover once again predominated the entrance to Highline, but once reaching the area near Racers Edge, Highline was deep with new snow.

In mid morning, I headed to the Superstar Quad. Mary stayed over at Snowdon. She reports that Chute was well covered with a few slick spots. Mouse Trap was more of the same, with the back side of the snow whale created by the tower mounted fan gun being particularly "special".

On Superstar, it was like being at a different resort. The blowing and drifting snow of Killington Peak was replaced with brilliant sunshine at the top of the Superstar Quad. The upper headwall of Superstar was groomed perfectly flat; set nicely for carving down the steep pitch. The snow whales on Superstar were also groomed. A large amount of powder accumulated on skiers right between the whales and the woods. It was good for more than a few nice pow turns.

Skylark was near perfect, although it did have a funky sound to it in places. It was probably groomed in the early morning hours. The corduroy was covered in most spots with an inch or 2 of fresh powder. On the upper section, the sound was like the trail was hollow underneath. Perhaps this was another artifact from the wet storm of the late weekend. Lower Skylark was nicely covered, although it had a pinch point in it which could have been nasty. The rocks on skiers right were exposed by the storm. A freestyle training course was roped off on skiers left. As a result, all traffic funneled into a 20 foot wide segment on the lower half of the trail.

Upper Bittersweet was being assaulted by snow guns. Lower Bittersweet was really nice; similar to Skylark but with a little more fluff on top. There was some weirdness at the bottom of Bittersweet this morning that was typical of the kind of weather the resort was experiencing. While the top section was in bright sunshine, as soon as you made the left turn to head back to the Superstar Quad you were greeted with the leading edge of the blizzard which was covering Killington Peak. It made for a strange push against a heavy wind into blowing snow to get back to the quad, but the Superstar, Skylark, Bittersweet combination was worth several laps in the late morning, before ending the ski day and heading back to the inn.

Let it snow!