Skylark holding up well in wet weather

Skylark holding up well in wet weather

Yesterday we and our guests had a nice day of skiing at Killington. Today... well....

The town of Killington right now is divided into two camps.... thoses that can see the mountains, and thoses that can not. Like King Kongs legendary Skull Island, the mountain is draped in a low cloud. Multiple cloud layers are restricting visibility.

The first cloud layer is at roughly 2000 feet. From the Killington Road in front of the inn, the mountain is completely obscured in the cloud. A veritable wall of cotton is obscuring visibility for all of those driving to the resort. It is not a fog layer, as at the ground visibility is pretty decent. In driving the Killington road past the Basin Ski Shop you travel through this ephemeral layer to the ah-ha moment where the mountain is revealed.

The second cloud layer, at least when I journeyed out, was around 3500 feet. The tops of Sky Peak and Killington Peak were obscurred by the clouds. The bottom of North Ridge at the top of East Fall proper was just barely visible from the K1 base lodge. While you could see snow on North Ridge, assessing it qualitatively from the K1 lodge would be out of the question due to the cloud.

What I could see, however, leads me to believe that at least for today the resort is holding up. Most of Sky Lark was clearly visible (todays blog picture). As the picture shows, it is still fully covered. Lower Bunny Buster and parts of Great Northern were visible and also appeared well covered. In a graphic display of the effects of snow making, Mouse Trap was a stark dichotomy. Skiers left, under the snow making fan gun, was very well covered. Skiers right, which we skied yesterday, was a pockmarked mess where the natural snow provided on Sunday was being eaten away.

The Resort has still not moved snow around on either Caper or Vale with large snow making whales clearly visible. This is clearly a strategy the Resort took to preserve their snow making product. I am certain it will be spread around and flattened out once this spell of wet weather breaks.

We will be watching each day to see how the mountain manages during this period of El Nino derived weather just before the holidays. If today is any indication, the strategy of the Resort to lay down a considerable amount of man-made snow rolled compressed flat on the slopes by grooming machines appears to be the right one in the face of the inclement weather of today. We will just have to keep our fingers crossed to see what tomorrow brings.

Where ever you may be, we hope your holiday preparations are going smoothly. Think Snow!