Jane "I have is all" on Bittersweet

Jane "I have is all" on Bittersweet

Thank You

We will keep it to the headlines today as there is a lot to talk about.

First and foremost, Killington caught the northern edge of the Nor'Easter which has been raging havoc in coastal communities on the east coast. At the inn by noon we had received about 7 inches of new snow, covering ground that had gone green with the warm temperatures we had experienced this last week. Snow has continued to fall all afternoon.

The new snow, combined with colder temperatures allowing the resort to resume snow making operations, should result in a large jump in available trails at the resort for skiing and riding this weekend.

We had the opportunity this week to ski 4 days. Overall conditions were late winter on the top of all of the peaks, with late spring conditions around all of the base lodges. Todays new snow and colder temperatures should return the mountain to mid-winter conditions through out.

Birch Ridge Inn covered with new snow. Taken March 2, 2018

In other news, Powdr, the resorts owner, announced last night at a Killington community wide meeting their summer plans to continue their investments in the resort. Overall, $16 Million dollars has been committed for improvements at the resort to be completed in the summer of 2018 in time for next years ski season. Included in the plans are :

1. New Snowdon Lift. A high speed, detachable, 6 person, bubble chair. The chair is set to cut the time required to reach the top of Snowdon from approximately 12 minutes (on a good day) down to 4.5 minutes. In addition to the new chair lift, a chair barn will be built at the base of Snowdon to protect the new chairs from inclement overnight weather with the goal to improve overall reliability of the lift.

2. Completely refurbish the K1 Gondola including brand new gondola cabins and a new gondola haul rope (the cable used to lift the gondolas up the mountain). In addition, the current open air barn used to protect the current gondola cabins from inclement weather overnight will be replaced with an enclosed heated barn. As in the case of the new barn at Snowdon the intent is to improve the overall reliability of gondola operations.

3. New South Ridge Lift. A fixed grip quad will be installed along the South Ridge section of the resort, replacing the old triple lift "giggle chair" which was removed several years ago. The new quad will not have the signature left hand mid station turn that the former "giggle chair" was famous for, instead following a straight line path along the route previously used as the return line for the old lift.

4. Moving the Poma Lift on Bunny Buster to Swirl on Rams Head. Also moving the KMS skier training course from Bunny Buster to Swirl. The goal here is to allow Bunny Buster to be open everyday to the general public with KMS training moved to one of the lesser used trails on the mountain.

5. Multiple ski tunnels around the resort. In an effort to improve skier safety, open up more top to bottom terrain, and live up to the founder Pres Smiths vision of having top to bottom green trails from each peak in Killington, multiple ski tunnels are to be installed on various trails at what are currently now high traffic cross overs. Included will be tunnels at the Stash, Sky Burst, and Bunny Buster to name a few.

6. The resort is moving to an RFID system for all season passes and lift tickets. The current system of hand-held bar code readers is being replaced with a fully integrated electronic gate system accessed thru RFID technology (think EasyPass). The goal is to both make the lift boarding process at the resort a little more friendly, and more efficient, at the same time.

7. In addition to the above, snow making extensions and some trail work will be completed to support the new additions and to continue to improve skier/rider flow across the resort.

The resort also announced a list of summer events, which many years would be dominating the conversation but which I will return to in another blog when more information becomes available.

If you are coming to Killington this weekend, drive safe. Prepare to have several days of good hard skiing. If you can't make it to Killington, there is still time as this snow should stay around for a while.

Wherever you may be, get out and play!.... Think Snow!