Shoveling snow with my Ariens Snow Blower - NOT! 

Heavy snow spread across the Killington region last night, following up a small clipper system that passed through the area late yesterday afternoon. To listen to the weather forecasters, you would think that a snowy version of Armageddon was going to take place today. While the snow fall has been significant, at least at Killington the total amount thus far has not lived up to the hype generated on weather channels great and small.

At 11:00AM this morning, the snow stake at the inn stood at 24 inches. This is a net increase of 6 1/2 inches from the Monday reading of 17 1/2 inches. The snow stake reads the actual snow on the ground, not the snow accumulated by any individual storm (except for the first storm of course!). 6 1/2 inches of net new snow read at the the inn's snow stake could translate into several more inches of snow measured on a virgin snow measuring platform used to measure snow fall from individual storms. In addition, snow accumulations on Killington Peak are also usually larger to due elevation increase. The snow stake at the inn is at 1850 feet, whereas the peak of Killington is 4241 feet.

While it is fun to know the total snow fall amounts from individual storms, the total snow on the ground is the real number that is important to skiers and riders.

You will notice in todays picture I am using my 2 year old 9HP Ariens snow blower to move the snow around....NOT. The snow blower was purchased from Home Depot in Rutland in December 2008. The snow blower came with a 3 year warranty. Ariens warranty policy for purchases from Home Depot was to return the product to Home Depot, which I did on December 29th, 2010. Home Depot in Rutland sent the snow blower to a repair depot in Massachusetts, where it still sits waiting for a part from Ariens, which was supposed to ship from the factory on January 31st. At least I am getting some good exercise on my upper body to keep it strong for golf this summer. You have to look at life from the bright side...so it goes!

....Let it snow!

Snow making operations in full swing on Superstar 

We made it through the entire month of January with the ground being continuously covered with snow. Other than a brief warm up on New Years, we barely had a hint of a January thaw, resulting in great ski conditions all month....and what a month it has been!

Today on the mountain, the sun made a spectacular appearance with barely a cloud in the sky. Of course, the penalty for bright sunshine this time of year is usually cold temperatures. While not bitterly cold, when we started the day skiing (at the crack of 9) the temperatures were in the single digits. But with little breeze and bright sunshine, it was quite a nice day to be on the mountain.

Today we did an excursion on a broad number of trails, ranging from the North Ridge area, to Highline, to Outer Limits and everything in between. Cold temperatures tightened up the surfaces on most trails, leaving groomed packed powder as the order of the day. Depending upon when the trail was groomed, there was anywhere from a dusting to a couple of inches of light fluff to be found on most trails.

Some trails were beautiful, fast cruisers. Highline, Bitter Sweet and Cruise control come to mind. Some trails were a little crunchy with some golf ball sized relics of grooming left on the trails to play with. Outer Limits, Lower Wildfire, and Upper Sky Lark all featured little chunks that required a turn or three. Others were just a mid winter lark. Dream Maker with the new terrain features was just sweet.

Snow making operations are ongoing at various places around the mountain. The most visible is on Superstar. The snow banks are starting to approach the tops of some of the lift stanchions. With tripod mounted guns and tower guns all going at the same time, the resort is being really serious to cover Superstar in a lot of snow while the weather cooperates.

You will find a picture galleries of some shots of todays excursion around the mountain, before my camera battery froze, on the Birch Ridge Inn's Facebook page. The todays gallery is located under Ski day at Killington, January 31, 2011..

Meanwhile, we are all holding our breath watching the weather forecast. The first storm predicted for the area is supposed to move in tomorrow. It should be a light, fluffy, powder storm given the cold temperatures. On Wednesday, forecasters are calling for Killington to hit the jackpot. Of course, this is New England. Forecasts tend on the capricious side, so all bets are off till we measure the snow stake on Thursday morning.

In the meantime... let it snow!

Ruts and Gary exiting the Super Pipe at Bear Mountain 

It took a while, but Killington is back together after the Dew Tour.

The mega-features for the slopestyle events on Skye Burst have been removed. In their place are some of the biggest piles of snow on Skye Burst you will ever see. Skiing well into the spring should be a lock.

All of the hits that were on Skye Burst have now been moved to lower Dream Maker. A full park has been set up with the usual assortment of boxes, rails, and jumps. The park was open this morning and it was in great shape.

Overall ski conditions today featured groomed packed powder. Most of the trails had seen grooming overnight. Snow surfaces were soft, especially at the edges of the trails. Un-groomed trails, like Lower Sky Lark were firm with slick spots. I was able to negotiate lower Sky Lark quite easily (well tuned equipment plus multiple ski days on my legs), but I did see a few visitors having some problems getting down the trail.

Snow making was actively taking place on Upper Wildfire and Superstar. A lot of snow was being laid down on both trails.

Outer Limits was probably the run of the day for my short time on the mountain. A low cloud made the visibility at the entrance a little tough, but once you were below it the trail was a soft, steep groomer. I held a line down skiers right where snowmaking was taking place earlier in the week. Really nice snow.

Light snow is currently falling at Killington as I write this. We don't anticipate much, but it will keep the area looking fresh and skiing fun..so....Let it snow!

Mary and Nina at the top of East Falls 

We have been fairly lucky at Killington this year. With the exception of last weekends short cold snap, and some warm temperatures around the New Years, skiing and riding conditions at Killington have been great. And other than no sunshine, today was no exception.

We started today's festivities in the Stash. Being the only ones on the trail, I hit all the humps and bumps all the way down to the merge with Wildfire. With soft snow all along the trail, it was a lot of fun.

Snow making was taking place along Upper Wildfire to the junction with Anti-Venom. Lower Wildfire was groomed. Not having skied the last couple of days, I would guess that the resort had made some snow on lower Wildfire, as it was much softer than the last couple of weeks.

Bear Claw, OL, and Skye Burst were all groomed. Snowmaking was taking place on skiers right on OL. Heavy equipment was working to dismantle the features on lower Skye Burst. They will probably be a couple of more days before they are done. All of the rails and boxes have been moved over to lower Dream Maker, where work is underway to construct a new park.

Upper Dream Maker was not groomed. It was filled with soft bumps. Middle Dream Maker to Cruise Control was a flat groomed cruiser. Little snow bumps were developing on lower Cruise Control.

Needles Eye did not appear to be groomed overnight. It was set up with some nice, very small, bumps, other than Panic Button which had a slick spot or 2. You needed to pay some attention to your turns, which was a definite change from the high speed cruising of Sky Burst, Dream Maker and Cruise Control.

Bitter Sweet, Skye Lark and Superstar were all soft and care free. The lack of crowds allowed us to do sweeping side to side turns. If you did not know us, you might think that we knew how to ski!

On the Killington Peak side of the resort, today was the day to do the Canyon Triple Play. The Canyon Quad was running, eliminating the need to traverse back to the K1 Gondola. With the temperatures in the mid 20's and no wind, it was a perfect morning to ride the quad.

East Falls, Double Dipper and Down Draft were steep, smooth and soft. The run of the day was definitely Down Draft. It was beautifully soft from top to bottom, right straight thru the junction with Double Dipper. Just a beautiful, challenging run.

All and all, just a really nice day on the slopes.....Let it snow!

Light snow continues to fall at Killington building up the base. 

Life has a habit of catching up to you; and this week for us has been no exception. Nothing major, just some flotsam and jetsam of living in a ski resort, in a small town, with snow constantly falling in the background. I was spoiled the last couple of weeks, being able to get on skis on the mountain 4 days each week. So far, not this week.

Did you "Do the Dew" last week? I though the Killington Resort came across on NBC TV very well. The local population of Killington is now going through a gnashing of teeth process trying to figure out if the event was "profitable" for the region. They are also trying to figure out what is the "future value" created by international television exposure. Both of these items, as any marketing person with any experience will tell you, are intractable numbers to derive with any accuracy, especially where the revenue stream created by the event and exposure is spread out across hundreds of businesses. But estimates and guesses will be made.

I accept that it was a good event for Killington. The national/international exposure is but one step in the rebuilding of the Killington Resorts reputation as the Beast of the East. It can't be viewed as a single point, but part of a dynamic process to bring glory and honor to the great ski resort many of us love.

(For the record, our bookings last week for lodging were up 50% from last year. Last year, of course, we were in the depths of an economic meltdown. This year, we are in a nascent economic recovery. The bookings increase brought our lodging occupancy for the week up to traditional levels, versus last years economically depressed situation. Were the bookings increase because of "The Dew" or because people want to ski again and can afford to visit Killington? It does not really matter. People visited Killington and had a great time. That's what we "Do".)

The "Dew" dynamic is but a subset of living in a small ski resort town. Yesterday I was asked by multiple people to attend last nights select board meeting. It was a warm up for the Town Meeting in March. Town budgets for the EDTC, the Green Mountain National Golf Course, and the General Budget were discussed and voted on by the Select board to allow them to be published in the upcoming town report.

It was an interesting meeting. The new found civility being reported by the press concerning national politics sadly has not filtered down to the local level quite yet. Killington, like many small towns in the country, has some financial problems that need to be resolved. Looming large among them is the debt service for the Green Mountain National Golf Course. The problem did not create itself overnight; it has been known for years; the current select board and golf course staff were not responsible for originating the problem; everyone agrees the problem needs to be solved; yet I think some people just like the attention of the argument, versus fixing the problem. It's really too bad and very negative, especially in contrast to the positive experiences created days earlier with the "Dew Tour" activities.

Several possibilities exist for clearing the golf course debt. The all will revolve around acquiring some financing mechanism to term some or all of the debt out. The tricky part becomes paying for it. Battle lines are being drawn between adding the payments to the town tax rolls, thereby increasing the local property tax rate, or diverting some of the money set aside for the Economic Development and Tourism Commission (EDTC) to pay off the debt. The next 6 weeks leading up to Town Meeting should be interesting.

Around the inn this week, there are several other pieces of flotsam and jetsam bobbing about. There is the ongoing issue with a snow blower being repaired. At some point I will write more about it, but I am trying to be civil. We also have an item coming up later in the week with our television service provided by Comcast. For years, Comcast has been telling us that they cannot provide digital TV service to the inn for this or that reason. Miraculously, all of a sudden they can. Not only that, by the middle of February they must! Comcast cable boxes are now scheduled to be installed in each room on Thursday of this week. What service they will provide, who knows? That no doubt will be fodder for another post.

I hope to get back out on the mountain tomorrow to try out this weeks fresh snow. In the meantime.....Let it snow!

Dew Tour Village at Bear Mountain taking shape as seen from top of Outer Limits. Village at the base; Super Pipe to the left. 

There is so much to talk about today...it is exciting.

Mary and I headed to the mountain this morning at the crack of 10. (Skiing midweek is just so civilized!) We parked in Bay 1 at the Killington (K1) Base Lodge; probably no more than 50 feet from the gondola. On with the boots, walk into a gondola cabin, and we are on our way.

At the peak, we traversed across the top of the resort for a run down to the Dew Tour village at the Bear Mountain base lodge. Last night, we met Elisabeth Stone, a production manager from Lensley Automatic. At the Dew Tour village, there are several photo kiosks, and the "Toyota Photo Booth" that Elisabeth has been setting up for the event. We stopped over to check things out.

Toyota Tent in the Dew Tour Village at Killington. Click to enlarge..

We visited the Toyota Tent. Really sweet set up. Inside a Toyota SUV that was brought up to the Village there is a photo booth that Elisabeth set up for Lensley. It's pretty goofy, just like the old 25¢ photo booths of old, except it is in a shiny new Toyota. Of course we had our pictures taken inside (that is the whole point). After that, there were a couple of very pretty girls outside with Ipads taking your email address to send you the "masterpiece". I am pretty sure the Toyota Girls were used to working events in warmer locations (with fewer clothes on...I guess I can type that). They were all bundled up in white ski parkers with special conductive gloves (to type into the Ipad's touch screen). When you think of everything that is going on behind the scenes to take a picture in a car, link to an Ipad, shoot it across the internet, all from a mobile set up less than 24 hours old, at a ski base lodge with sketchy cell phone service, in below freezing temperatures, with snow falling in the background; a geek like me realizes it is all wonderfully high tech. Did I mention that the Toyota Girls were pretty... (the car was nice too!) but I digress.

Toyota Photo Booth Pictures.... For some reason Mary always blinked when the pictures were being taken... Click to enlarge..

The Dew Tour Village has a really nice vibe to it. It just felt like it would be a nice place to hang out and enjoy the party. It was all very high energy. It had a great fun feeling... and this was on Thursday morning, just after it opened, with only a couple of hundred people milling about. Put 5 to 10 Thousand people there on Saturday and the place will be, as they say, "hopping".

Skiing today at Killington was very good. On our way over to Bear Mountain, we did the down link on Bear Claw to Wild Fire. Snow making was taking place on Upper Wild Fire (it was about 15 degrees in the shade). Lower Bear Claw was relatively soft from recent snow making, although I am sure that the traffic heading into the Dew Village will chew it up. If you are heading that way, you can also take the lower Wild Fire cutoff to the bottom of Outer Limits. This would give you another alternative to get to the Bear Mountain Base area (if you can ski black diamonds).

Outer Limits was groomed perfectly flat to support the anticipated skier and rider traffic over the weekend. The surface was relatively firm, with a 2 inch coating of mixed granular and fluff from Mother Nature. It was extremely reliable, with no slick spots (although heavy skier/rider traffic could change that.) When we skied OL this morning, there was basically no one on the trail. I was able to do sweeping side to side carving turns down OL's whole length. Mary enjoyed OL as well, on her maiden run down it for the season. It was a lot of fun on what is usually the crown jewel of bump runs in the east.

We experienced the same conditions on Dream Maker, Sky Burst (upper), Cruise Control, Needles Eye, Sky Lark and Super Star. All of the trails were beautifully soft, supporting high speed carving turns down their length. We saw one woman on a carving snow board with hard boots lay down edge to edge on Needles Eye. We hooked up with her in the Skyship Cabin and just had to tell her how graceful she looked carving down the trail. With few people on the trails, and superb, soft snow, it was easy to look really good on the mountain today.

Old Superstar in it knarly glory. Click to enlarge..

Once again, after a few laps on Superstar, I finished my day with a run down Old Superstar. The soft snow just keeps piling in. Unlike trails with snow making on them, Old Superstar is "au natural". It's all the work of Mother Nature. The tops of many bushes and small trees are still exposed, forming the bases for little bumps down the trail. The little pine tree at the far lower right of the frame got me today. I got a little to close to it resulting in a full 360 in the soft snow. It was actually quite funny, taking me a minute or so to stop laughing at myself. The rest of the trail was just a beautiful shallow pitched, soft, bump run. It got the heart pumping, and the legs working; reminding me that skiing is not all about cruising down groomers at high speed. It's about being outside, enjoying the mountain, and learning about yourself in the process.

If you come to Killington this weekend for the Dew Tour, have a great time. Dress warm, as it is Vermont in Mid Winter. And above all, enjoy the show!

.....Let it snow!

The Super Pipe at Bear Mountain is all dressed up for this weekends Dew Tour. 

Between yesterday and today, I have spent about 3 hours at the resort skiing. Mary is down south visiting her elderly parents. Life goes on up here in Killington, and that includes skiing. Roughly an hour and a half each day. Kind of like going for a jog in the city, only with a couple of thousand dollars worth of equipment attached.

The two days could not have been any more different. Mondays excursion was in a driving snow storm. Tuesdays was in the snow storms aftermath. Both days had some really nice skiing.

Monday I met up with some Killington friends. With visibility being poor, and wind conditions uncertain, we stayed on the Killington Peak side of the resort. My time on the mountain before heading back to man the inn was pretty simple: a couple of runs through the North Ridge Area followed by some laps on Snowdon. Snow on Monday was soft, the result of continuous precipitation the whole morning. About 11, the group I was skiing with bolted off Snowdon for other parts of the resort. I called it quits while I was ahead and went back to work (somebody has to do it!) at the inn.

Today was totally different. After cooking breakfast for inn guests, I was on the mountain at the crack of 11:00 AM. I parked in the Vale parking lot for a few hard runs to get some excercise. I started out with a simple traverse to the quad on Snowshed. From there, I went to the Superstar Quad to access the rest of the mountain.

My first real run was through the Stash. Yesterdays snow got progressively denser as it fell over the course of the evening. It never really turned to sleet, but it had a high moisture content. Where skiers and riders had been, dense snow piles were building. Not light the fluff bumps of last week. Todays snow piles were firm. They let you know when you hit them. Areas that still had the corduroy from last nights grooming were silky smooth. The surface was not quite wet. But it was definitely pliable (hence the firm snow piles).

I exited the Stash to Bear Mountain via Lower Wildfire. The Dew Tour Village is dramatically taking shape at Bear Mountain. Tents are being erected all over the place (some in ski lanes, although there is fencing around them). The Super Pipe is carved. The light poles and TV towers on the Super Pipe are impressive. Lower Skye Burst is being sculpted for the Snow Cross events. Huge features are visible from the Skye Peak quad.

But I was here to ski, not gawk, so from the Skye Peak Quad I took Skye Burst to middle Dream Maker to Cruise Control. All were nice surfaces; fairly fast, with small bumps at regular intervals. As I exited Cruise Control, I was faked out by the resort. The Needles Eye Quad was running. When I got to it, there was a rope across the entrance with the dreaded "Lift Closed" sign. So I headed over to the Skyship Stage 2 for a boost to the top of Skye Peak.

From here I took a top to bottom run down Skylark. Skiers right from the top to the middle was relatively untracked. Lower Skylark was bumped in several places, with a couple of slick spots thrown in to keep things honest.

I lapped the Superstar chair (because it was there). Superstar was basically flat and fast. Some skier made bumps, but nothing of consequence. I finished, so I would be both warm and not bored, with a run down Old Superstar. Bumps, soft snow, untracked sections, and lots of bushes to turn around was the order of the day. There is so much character in Old Superstar, it was a fun run for my last of the day.

From there, it was a quick ride down the lower headwall of Superstar and a traverse across the resort to the car. I was warmed up, my body got some exercise, and I was reminded once again about how nice it is to live in Killington and be on the mountain.

.....Let it snow!