Looking north up the spine of the Green Mountains. Clouds moving in on Snowden, Rams Head, and Pico Peaks.

Looking north up the spine of the Green Mountains. Clouds moving in on Snowden, Rams Head, and Pico Peaks.

We needed to take one last lap of the Killington Resort before the holidays. While we may try to squeeze a day on the snow in before the new year, the probability is low given the number of guests we are expecting at the inn.

Just like Friday, the resort was making snow in many places to prepare the mountains for the holidays. The cold weather that has settled across the area has been just ideal for the resort to make veritable mountains of snow. With a little luck, the resorts obvious strategy to "weather proof" skiing and riding at Killington during the holiday period will pay off. We will know fairly soon.

Today we hit most major mountain groups at the resort, including runs down Skye Burst, Cruise Control, Bitter Sweet, Skye Lark and Superstar off of Skye Peak; Great Northern, Rime, Reason, East Fall (Upper and Lower), and Ridge Run off Killington Peak; and Bunny Buster, Mouse Trap, Chute, and Great Bear on Snowdon.

Surfaces through out the resort were groomed packed powder. Bases were firm, but were basically ice free. A surface fog a couple of inches thick played tricks with visibility on Skye Burst and Superstar on Skye Peak. In both instances, the groomers had left fairly smooth surfaces going down the hill. But voids in the snow cover left depressions on the back sides of some small bumps. As they were hidden by the ground fog, when they were hit at speed the ground would literally drop away from your skiis. It is not quite like deliberately taking air, but there was a definite momentary feeling of weightlessness as you went airborne for what seemed like no apparent reason.

The resort was stockpiling huge whales of snow on Wild Fire at Bear and on Double Dipper/Cascasde at K-Peak. When and if they move the piles would be anyones guess, but they appear ready for what ever weather comes the resorts way.

My last run of the day was from the Snowdon Quad down Chute. I noticed from the chair that Great Bear was nicely bumped, so I dropped in off Chute to give the legs a final pre-Christmas work out. The bumps were fairly soft, and regular, allowing for a nice line at a quick yet comfortable pace. My pace was so quick, that I beat Mary back to the K-1 base lodge, even though she was skiing straight out. Now I usually ski faster than Mary, so that is not really unusual. What was unusual, was that I took the bump route down Great Bear. It just shows how nice the bumps were over there, and how good a line I could find and hold as I skied my way down. Every bump run should be so enjoyable!

Some weather looks like it will be moving into Killington on late Tuesday. As is usually the case this time of year, you can shop your forecast until you find one you like. While the concensus is for a wind driven r@!n storm along the Atlantic coast hitting the major east coast cities, in the mountains it looks like it will at least start out as snow before the cold air over hanging the region gets pushed out by warmer air from the south. By early afternoon on Christmas day most forecasters are predicting that the storm will be exiting the region, leaving nice weather with comfortble temperatures in place for most of next week.

Weather is as weather does. We will have a good time over Christmas no matter what Mother Nature decides to throw at us.

Speaking of Christmas, on both Christmas Eve and Christmas night the restaurant at Birch Ridge will be serving a special Christmas holiday menu. You can find the menu online at killingtonblog.com/christmas_menu.php. If you would like reservations, you can give us a call at the inn at 802.422.4293.

Where ever you may be, have a very Merry Christmas.

Let it snow!