Howie (on right) and I at "Johnny Boy's" 

Last night when I retired around 2:00 AM the temperature was a brisk -15 at the inn. On the mountain, there is a code for morning activities, so before I went to bed for the night, I left Mary a note telling her that if my friend, Howie, called, that Mary should find out where breakfast was going to be held. At 8:00, Howie called. He was heading out of the house to go to the mountain, so I started to put on my ski clothes. At 8:05, Howie called again and said the code words "Johnny Boy's". Breakfast was on!

Over the last several years, Johnny Boy's has become a local institution for breakfast on the mountain. Located in a small building in front of the Comfort Inn and beside Surefoot, on the Killington Road, it is a place where many locals go for breakfast in the morning, before or after skiing or golf depending on the season. This morning, the place was packed with people who were in various stages of denial about their desire to go skiing and riding today. Of course, Howie and I had no guilt at all about our decision. A county omelet was headed my way.

Killington Peak in a wind whipped cloud of snow

This morning when I headed out of the front door of the inn, the temperature was a balmy -9F. I drove up to the mountain to take a peak before breakfast. The wind on the hill at 9:00 AM was just howling. Snow was being kicked up from everywhere into a massive fog over the mountain. The K1 Gondola, Snowdon Triple and Quad were all running, virtually empty. The Superstar chair was not even prepped for operation; the chairs still encrusted with snow blown on them during the night. It was not a very pleasant sight, but it reinforced our decision to forgo skiing and do breakfast instead. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

One final note as a follow up to a posting from last week... this mornings Rutland Herald had a very nice article about Howard "Howie" Zack. It's worth a read.

Killington Peak in a snow squall 

As an innkeeper, Sundays are usually quiet. Superbowl Sundays are a little more so than usual; this one especially since there is no Northeast based team in the big game.

Inn guests returning to the inn from the mountain reported excellent conditions with light crowds. "Sublime" is how one guest described the mountain today. "The best day of skiing they have had thus far this season".

As the afternoon comes to a close, temperatures in the area are chilling down to single digits. While on our walk this afternoon, a brisk breeze was blowing, making the cold all the more biting. The sky was a dull grey, which most of the time would be foreboding, but in this case it was causing light snow to fall on the mountain. And snow at a ski resort in February is a good thing. Let it snow!

Super Pipe at Bear Mountain opens for season. 

The little storm we had overnight dropped about 2 1/2 inches of snow around the inn when it was all said and done. It seemed like more when it was coming down, as it snowed from late afternoon till after midnight, but the snow stake tells no lies. Light snow is continuing to fall on the mountain, adding to accumulations at higher elevations.

Killington opened the Super Pipe at Bear Mountain today. Occupying most of the space on the Lower Dream Maker run out to Bear Claw, the pipe was seeing a fair amount of use this afternoon. Killington is now up to 70 miles of terrain open across 7 mountains; the most terrain in the east. With snow falling every day, and lots of snow making, the resort has made a tremendous turn around in open terrain in the month of January, just in time for February and March ski vacations.

Howie and Norm exiting "Blur Heaven"
underneath the South Ridge Triple. 

Very nice ski day at Killington. Temperatures were in the mid to upper 20's. Fresh snow all over the mountain providing nice soft surfaces. Just a beautiful Friday to ski.

Where to begin on todays report is problematic. Overall, the mountain was in great shape. To get the negative out of the way quickly, the only trail that was a little scratchy was Needles Eye. Other than that it was generally soft powder or machine groomed packed powder surfaces everywhere.

Our tune up run was Upper Downdraft to Upper East Falls (formerly East Glade) to the North Ridge Triple. Downdraft was groomed sweet. Upper East Fall had nice well spaced soft carving bumps. The legs got working. it was a great start. In rapid succession we did the following: East Falls, Downdraft (top to bottom), Cascades(top to bottom). All were nicely groomed with a loose packed powder surface. After that, it was a trip down "Blue Heaven" to High Traverse for the run over to Bear Mountain.

The terrain park in Bear Claw was groomed sweet. Viper Pit and Lower Bear Claw were nice and soft. I think the trail of the day was Upper Wildfire. Beautiful soft bumps made for nice cruising turns. They were spaced just far enough that you could use the bumps like slalom gates with only a minor speed check at the bump. Really nice!

Howie on his way to the K1 Gondola

The Needles Eye chair was running today so we did the requisite laps on Cruise Control, the previously mentioned Needles Eye, and Bitter Sweet. Snowmaking operations had been suspended on Cruise Control leaving a nice soft surface with minor whales in the middle of the trail. Bittersweet also skied like it had some snow making on it in the last day of two, with nice soft snow down skier right. (It may have been the result of wind blowing snow the last couple of days, but skiers left on Bittersweet was also pretty good.) The bumps were a little tighter on lower Bittersweet, giving us a work out as we neared the end of the day. The final run was down Superstar to lower SkyeLark. The Superstar Headwall was deep with new snow. Some large but soft bumps were forming as the snow making whales were getting carved up. It was so soft, that you as long as you were not tentative you could pretty much cruise down the headwall. Middle Superstar had softened up considerably from yesterday. And Lower Skye Lark was just plain nice, with some mid sized snowmaking whales and plenty of soft snow.

All told, we were out over 3 hours this morning...a very good session indeed. Around noon time the area clouded over. We are expecting a little weather this evening with some light snow forecasted. The mountain is just getting better! Let it snow!

Winter Wonderland!
Great Eastern and Launch Pad Junction. 

I finally had a chance this morning to take a few turns on the hill today after a little adventure along the way(more on that later).

Todays conditions were mixed. Several inches of light snow had fallen overnight. In areas where the snow had blown together with the wind, the powder surface was fairly consistent. On areas where the wind had blown off the powder, those surfaces were also consistent. In between, where there was an inch or so of powder, surface conditions alternated between silky smooth and skid bumps.

I only had about an hour to ski today, as I had breakfast duty this morning and an appointment in Woodstock at Noon. I did a loop from the Snowshed Quad, thru the K1 Gondola to the Superstar Quad to the Rams Head Quad with a couple of runs at North Ridge. Chute had the skid bump effect in sections. Rime and East Falls were in very nice shape. Superstar was interesting at best.

On Superstar, snowmaking operations were taking place on the headwall. Middle Superstar was covered with whales of man made snow topped with an inch or so of natural. The surface was somewhat grabby. Edges were not necessary in Middle Superstar. Lower Superstar on the other hand was ugly. A strong up slope wind had scoured the crest of the lower headwall. Several very wet snow guns from prior days snowmaking laid down a skating rink in sections that the NHL would have been proud of. Edges were a must, but many people still wound up on their behinds and other places. As is usually the case after an extended snowmaking session, Lower Superstar had not yet been groomed. I am sure all of the sins will be taken care of once the grooming machines hit the surface.

I then looped down Skye Lark to High Road to Snow Shed, up the Rams Head Lift to Caper to the car. All of these trails were in great shape. I would have done more laps on Skye Lark if I had more time. But it was not meant to be.

Jeep sucked in by the K1 Parking Lot

For those of you who may be superstitious, we had our third car event of the week this morning. Because I was short on time this morning, I decided to park at the end of Bay 1 in the K1 parking lot, put my boots on in the car, and hop on the Snowshed quad. Nice idea... but bad execution. When I go to the parking space, the area had been freshly plowed. I pulled in even with the car beside me, and proceeded to sink the front end of the car to the oil pan. The plow had pushed back the snow bank over a drainage ditch. Five feet on either side of me was solid ground... but the jeep was stuck. A quick call to the local towing company, Habro, and 30 minutes later with a slightly lighter wallet the car was back on solid ground. Instead of 90 minutes on the slopes, I got an hour. But, as they say, it's better than working! Tomorrow is another day. Let it snow!

Birch Ridge Inn covered in light snow. 

The snow gods are being kind to Killington as we end the month of January.

Light snow continues to fall on the area keeping snow surfaces fresh and white. The weather forecast has this pattern continuing right through the weekend. While total accumulations are not amounting to much, an inch every day goes a long way towards maintaining ski surfaces.

Our chef skied at Pico this morning. He reports that surfaces at Pico were soft powder surfaces over a packed powder base. Trails from Pico Peak including 49er were in excellent shape due to the continued snow fall the area has received. Unfortunately, I did not have a chance to get out this morning as I needed to do some maintenance work around the inn. With that behind me, I should hit the slopes again on Thursday and Friday mornings. Let it snow!

Howard Zack
Photo from Rutland Herald Article 

This morning when I opened my email, I had received a sad message. Long time Killington resident and town constable Howie Zack passed away yesterday. He leaves his wife, Pat, and two children, daughter Sarah and son Joe.

The first memories that Mary and I have of "Howie" are probably shared by many "new" Killington residents. When we first came to the area, we drove high performance sports cars. Mary had a fuel injected Thunderbird, I had both a Nissan 300ZX and a gull winged Mitsubishi 3000 GT. We would be tooling down the access road, and coming in the opposite direction would be a pick up truck flashing it's lights with a hand waving out the window. It was Howie telling us to slow down as we were driving through town. Of course he was always right. But instead of a speeding ticket, Howie would give you a friendly smile, and on occasion a stern talking to when you ran into him at the post office later in the day if you were really going fast. Of course that was a simpler time, or so it seemed. Howie was definitely one of the many long term Killington residents Mary and I have become acquainted with who have made living in Killington a pleasure. He will be missed.

A funeral service will be held at 1 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 1, 2007, at Woodstock Jewish Community Center, Shir Shalom, followed by a celebration of life at 5 p.m. at Killington Events Hall at 3775 River Road in Killington. An obituary for Howard S. (Howie) Zak can be found on the Rutland Herald's web site.