Snow making in full swing on Superstar 

It's not mariachi bands and umbrella drinks. Nor is it a fur clad buxom bartender at an ice bar with a bottle of vodka. This is Killington after all. And that means hot chocolate with extra marshmallows if you were on the hill this morning.

After a little light snow overnight, a dome of high pressure settled over Killington this morning providing the area with bright blue skies and chilly temperatures. The sunshine was a welcomed companion to skiers and riders at the resort today. The chilly temperatures...not so much. But even then, an extra layer this morning was all it took to ward of the chill.

Because of the sunshine, we started our day skiing at Killington Peak. Highline was resplendent in the early morning sun, and as there was no race training taking place, we hopped on that first thing. The traverse down Great Northern was unusually choppy, as it appeared that a bunch of snow mobiles had been on the trail prior to the resort opening for skiing. But once through that, Highline was groomed in great shape.

Cascade was next up. Upper Cascade was medium firm corduroy. With the morning sun it was set up nicely for a little cruising. Lower Cascade was firm but soft enough to set an edge. Skiers right was tighter than the middle and skiers left. (Gravity was clearly causing the chopped up snow to flow down the compound fall line.) Overall it was in good shape, but not good enough to elicit a do over.

Traversing across to Bear Mountain, we hit Bear Claw and Lower Wild Fire. Upper Bear Claw was relatively soft. Lower Wildfire was firm with a granular coating.

Outer Limits was groomed flat, with the manufactured bumps course starting about a third of the way down the trail. Some in our group did it a couple of times, although there were a few comments about the pinch point at the top of the bumps course.

Todays motley crew at the top of Highline. Click to enlarge.

Upper Wildfire is best left with the term "interesting" It was groomed flat with a lot of firm spots covered with a fine snow dust. The lower third at the Bear Claw junction could only be described as ice. The only choice on that section of the trail was to point the skis downhill and hope that a) you did not meet anyone coming down Bear Claw and b) that you could find enough snow on Bear Claw to check your speed and stop. In all fairness to the resort, this was the only spot on the mountain where we encountered any ice. While there were a few places where we discovered wind blown hard pack, we did not encounter any other icy bits on our morning excursion around the resort.

Skye Burst top to bottom was nicely groomed. Upper Skye Burst was a mixed granular surface over a firm base. Lower Skye Burst was much softer, the result of snow making last week which was blanketing the trail.

Dream Maker, Cruise Control, Needles Eye, Bitter Sweet, and High Road were all in excellent shape. We did several passes off the Skye Ship in the Needles area, taking advantage of the Skye Ships enclosed cabins to warm up a little.

Once again I finished my morning on Superstar. Snow guns have been making snow on Superstar for the last 3 days. The surface was a combination of deep man made powder on top of large snow whales with a fair amount of skier created bumps thrown in for good measure. With the snow guns kicking out a huge amount of snow, and the bright sunshine over head, Superstar took on a yellowish hue as one picked your way through the bumps. With the exception of one snow gun, every gun on Superstar was cranking out beautifully light powder. The rogue in the mix was putting out ice pellets, the temperature was in the single digits after all, which left you skiing with a candy coating. All in all, Superstar under the guns turned the morning into an aerobic work out. And that was a nice way to end the morning at the resort.

......let it snow!

Rut's Skis - Hell freezes over! 

Lots to talk about in no particular order. The short version...Today was chilly at Killington. Conditions were firm, flat and fast. And Ruts was on skis so we know hell has frozen over.....

Today was atypical for this ski season, but fairly normal for a late January day in Killington. Temperatures are in the single digits. The mountain is being bathed in bright sunshine. Moderate winds are creating wind chills well below zero. But, carefully timed runs on the Skye Ship and the K1 Gondola, combined with a hot chocolate stop, made for an enjoyable morning on the mountain.

Since I last skied on Wednesday, the resort has continued their grooming and snow making operations. Every surface we skied on this morning was groomed flat, with the exception of where snow making was taking place.

At Bear Mountain, Skye Burst, Bear Claw, and Wild Fire all skied very nice, with the exception of lower Skye Burst. The resort was making snow on Lower Skye Burst. Combined with yesterdays snow squalls, and a strange wind, the surface on Lower Skye Burst was very mottled and sticky. A run through with a grooming machine will make it all nice for the weekend.

Snow making looked like it was going strong in the Stash, so we decided to take a pass. Outer Limits has a bumps course set up on the bottom 2/3rds of the trail. The course created a pretty tight pinch point. While the trail was groomed, and looked nice, we also bypassed it in deference to others.

On Skye Peak, upper Dream Maker was beautiful. The icy bumps of the last couple of days have been groomed. Snow making was taking place on Middle and Lower Dream Maker. Cruise Control and Needles Eye were set up perfectly for edge to edge high speed cruising, as was Bitter Sweet and Skye Lark.

Our run of the day once again was Superstar. From the upper headwall to the run out to the quad, Superstar was covered with corduroy complimented with some loose granular and fine snow. Even though the Superstar Quad was a little cold in the wind, trail conditions demanded a do over in the mid morning sunshine.

Todays picture shows an unusual sight. Many regular readers and friends will recognize "The Bagel" and Ruts in the picture. But if you ignore the Bagels circa 1980 one piece disco suit (it was cold today after all and one piece suits tend to be warm) you will notice that Ruts is not on his trademark snow board. All season, Ruts has been threatening to get on a pair of skis, and today was the day. It has been almost 20 years since Ruts went to the dark side. Since he had fun today, it will be interesting to see which way he goes the next time he is on the hill.

.....let it snow!

Nina at North Ridge 

Today, Mary hooked up with some of her friends for a morning out on the mountain. I dutifully manned the inn while Mary enjoyed the slopes. Fear not, however, I have a group of buddies up on Friday. We will be there early to scope the mountain out for the weekend.

Mary reported that mountain conditions were continuing to improve. We have now gone through several grooming cycles since the weather problems earlier in the week. Compound the grooming with snow making by the resort, and a constant snow flurry coming out of the sky, and conditions are just getting better by the minute.

Mary did the usual loops through Bear Mountain and Skye Peak. All were similar if not better than Wednesday. Mary also spent some time on the Killington Peak side of the resort. She was quite pleased.

North Ridge was, of course, worked over nicely by the resorts groomers. Mary also reported that East Fall and Cascade were also quite nice. She said she was on Cascade around 11:15 this morning. Snow conditions were soft overall, with plenty of loose granular to perform sweeping turns.

This afternoon at Killington we have had a number of snow squalls go through the area. I took the snow stake picture at around 11:00 AM this morning, before they hit. Just before we started dinner service at the inn this evening, I shoveled between 3 and 4 inches of snow off the walks around the inn. There is a pretty good wind blowing outside, so how much of that snow will accumulate in an open field is uncertain. But it certainly will do a lot to replenish the snow cover in the woods around the resort.

.....let it snow!

Mary on upper headwall of Superstar this morning. 

Bravo! The Killington Resort has done a great job recovering the mountain for skiing and riding. The deluge earlier this week should have knocked them for a loop. But their strategy of making tons of snow earlier in the month when the weather was right for snow making has left the mountain in great shape for skiing and riding.

Mary and I got to the mountain this morning around 10:15. We parked in Bay 1; 2 cars down from the K1 gondola. By 10:20, we were on the top of Killington Peak with skis on the ground. Killington Peak was cloud covered, with a fairly stiff breeze, so instead of taking a couple of runs in the North Ridge area, we decided to head directly to Bear Mountain.

At Bear, we found Bear Claw, Bear Trap, The Stash, Wild Fire, Skye Burst and Outer Limits all nicely groomed. The middle of Skye Burst had a section cordoned off for Killington Mountain School race training. We stopped for a few moments and watched some of the kids scream down Skye Burst, taking air as they crested the Viper Pit.

KMS student going around a gate on Skye Burst during race training. Click to enlarge.

During our time at Bear, it became obvious which trails had seen multiple passes with grooming machines. On most of the terrain, snow surfaces were loose granular mixed with fresh snow, which was falling continuously during our morning on the mountain. In the Stash, however, which is usually perfectly groomed, we did run into a stretch that had numerous golf ball sized chunks. Another grooming pass and skier traffic will have these broken up nicely for the weekend. But it did get our attention in a couple of places. On the flip side, we found very little evidence of ice on the trails. There were a few wind blown patches on some of the trails, but there was nothing remotely visible that was either clear or blue!

Snow making was also ongoing on many of the Green trails leading to Bear Mountain. We really don't ski them, so I can't tell you their condition, but we did see snow making operations, on both Bear Trax and Bear Cub. The new fan gun, installed on lower Skye Burst at the junction with Dream Maker was also making snow this morning.

Snow making is ongoing around the Killington Resort. The fan gun on lower Skye Burst was operating this morning. Click to enlarge.

In our usual fashion, we moved from Skye Burst over to Cruise Control and the Needles Eye area. Cruise, Needless, Bitter Sweet, and High Road had really nice surfaces. For some reason, the mountain had a couple of bamboo poles with a caution sign posted at the junction of Cruise Control and Great Eastern. While we were skiing it, we could not see anything worthy of a caution sign, but on the Skye Ship Gondola a ski patroller told us that some run off from the early week deluge had caused a spring to poke through the surface. Grooming and natural snow seemed to have covered it up, but I guess the resort was being extra careful to tell mid week skiers and riders to pay attention.

Without question, the run of the day was Skye Lark. From the very top to the bottom at the Super Star quad is was just beautifully set up. Upper and Middle Skye Lark had a soft, loose granular surface. It was very consistent. It did not have any of the chunks we experienced on other trails. Lower Skye Lark was similar, with the exception that the resort had made so much snow on the trail that it was filled with nice gentle rollers. From the High Road junction to the bottom, lower Skye Lark was a nice combination of machine groomed snow riding atop huge snow whales.

As we usually do when we are on the Bear Mountain/Skye Peak side of the resort, we finished our morning on Superstar. The upper headwall was nicely groomed. The middle of the pitch had a few wind blown sections. Skiers left was filled with loose snow just ripe for little bump style turns. Middle Superstar was a groomed flat cruiser. Pick your line and let it rip would be the easiest way to describe it. The Lower headwall was a little chunky, but when I skied it I was in bright sunshine. You just had to pick your line and make your turns. It was a nice run to end the day on the mountain.

The weather forecast at Killington for the rest of the week is calling for the snow flurries to continue. They are not amounting to much, but every little bit counts......let it snow!

Clouds linger over Killington. Cold air and snow flurries overtake the mountain. 

It was not nice in Killington the last 36 hours. But all in all, the resort weathered the storm quite well.

Torrential r@!n, an occasional clap of thunder, and gusty winds were the order of the day on Monday. By the time the storm subsided, the snow at the snow stake at the inn had been reduced by 5 7/8 inches from 13 7/8 inches on Sunday to 8 inches on Tuesday. While not good, we have seen much worse in the past.

Mary and I did not ski today, but I did have a chance to speak with several unbiased sources who did, including inn guests and our chef, Frizzie. When combined with visual observations from the base areas, it looks like the mountains strategy of making a staggering amount of snow on most trails with snow making has paid off. Our guests and our chef both reported that conditions today were softer than they expected. Temperatures overnight did not head into the deep freeze, allowing accumulated water time to drain away from the surface. While each reported a few icy spots on the mountain, probably in places where the r@!n wore away the snow to the hard base, in general they reported nice ski conditions on soft, creamy, snow.

Of course, the number of trails open today on the mountain was significantly reduced from the weekend. The basic rule appears to be if the trail was not groomed, it was not open. Natural trails and the woods were also set back, as Mondays deluge was more than a match for the small amount of natural snow which had fallen on the resort thus far this winter.

From observations and on mountain reports, limited snow making has resumed. Snow guns have been connected to the snow making system all over the mountain, in anticipation of temperatures continuing to drop as yesterdays storm completes it's exit from the area.

With luck, Mary and I will have a chance to get on the mountain tomorrow for some first hand observations. In the meantime......let it snow!

Storm clouds filtering into Killington Sunday afternoon. The Birch Ridge Inn is in the lower right corner of the frame. 

The resort is in great shape, even though we have not had a significant snow storm all season. And now r@!n...ugh...

If the weather forecasters are right, it will be in interesting 36 hours in Killington. The resort has prepared, making copious amounts of snow on every trail in an attempt to weather proof the mountain. It sounds like we will be able to see first hand if the resorts efforts are successful.

For the next day or so, the intense storm which has brought mudslides (and not the Kahlua kind) to the west coast will be transiting the area. High wind and flash flood warnings have been posted for Central Vermont. While they have a notoriously bad track record predicting these things in the mountains, the current forecasts call for 1 to 2 inches of NCP before a cold front behind the weather system puts the region back into the freezer.

So far, even with meager natural snow, we have around 14 inches of the white stuff at the snow stake at the inn. Stay tuned for Tuesdays reading to get a gauge on the impact of the storm

..........let it snow! Please!!!!

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!