VT Holiday Festival ablaze in Christmas Lights 

It is a little warmer today at Killington. Temperatures at the inn are in the high 30's. The couple of inches of snow around the inn are melting, even though there is still a light snow flurry coming down from the sky. Snowmaking at the mountain has slowed down for the day with the warmer temperatures. But it is sure to resume this evening when temps get below freezing. The weather service is predicting temps below freezing for the next week, with light snow in the forecast for tonight. We can hope.

Mary and I have been threatening each other with going out on the mountain to ski. With preparation for the holidays, we have not been able to get out yet. Our ski's have been in the shop being tuned for the last 3 weeks (Our fault. we neglected to pick them up..) But, assuming the weather is nice tomorrow, it looks like Friday may be the day.

Just a tease...
The top of the Christmas Tree
at the Birch Ridge Inn 

The Third Annual Vermont Holiday Festival is set to kick off in Killington this weekend. Over 100 Christmas trees, decorated by local businesses and residents, will be on display at the Killington Grand Hotel. The trees may be viewed at the Killington Grand from Thursday December 7 through Saturday December 9th. Trees may be viewed Thursday and Friday evenings from 5 to 9 PM, and Saturday from 12 Noon until 9 PM. In addition to the trees, the festival also features a Santa's workshop for the kids, and Sleigh Rides. Historically, this has been a great family event. Mary was up at the Grand this morning decorating our tree for the festival. Based upon the number of trees being decorated, it should be a nice event to put you in the holiday spirit at Killington this weekend.

Blowing snow covering Killington! 

Hopefully there is a trend going!

For the second day in a row, light snow has been falling at Killington. Slowly but surely the ground in the region is taking on a white coat as the snow accumulates. We have not had much, about an inch or 2, but it has lifted the spirits of residents and visitors to the area greatly.

On the mountain, the resort is continuing to blow snow down the Great Northern route to the K1 base lodge. However, that is not all. On a very positive note, they have also begun snowmaking operations on Snowshed, and in the Bittersweet/Skylark area. By the weekend, they are promising to have both open, and to be running the Superstar Quad. The ski season looks like it has finally arrived!

Snow covers the Birch Ridge Inn 

What a beautiful sight to wake up too this morning! Snow!

Has winter finally arrive at Killington? Only time will tell. But at least this morning, the area took on the look and feel of winter. Light snow fell on the region aver night. The ground outside the inn is covered with about an inch or so; not much when you think about the calendar, but given the early season we are having it is downright cause for celebration.

Snow rising from guns at Killington 

With the early season weather we have had it is hard to get your expectations up, but it does look like winter will finally make an appearance this week at Killington. Temperatures all day at the inn struggled to get to the mid 30's. Killington has had their snow making system fired up all day. Snow showers are forecasted by the weather channel every day this week. We can hope, can't we???

The Killington resort re-opened for skiing and riding today on 11 trails. Killington has published statements to local businesses that they will have the snow making system turned on all week, with the intention of breaking out of the rut and expanding available terrain.

For those of you who may have noticed, the snow stake at the right of the page disappeared a couple of days ago. It turns out, that when I designed the software for the blog, I added a function to the snow stake software to remove the picture if there have been no updates in 20 days. I originally designed the software this way with the intention that the snow stake would disappear automatically in the spring. I never imagined a November at Killington without snow. Since the last picture for the snow stake was published on November 8th, the software dutifully removed the pictures from the right of the screen. If the weather channel is right, you will see the snow stake return this week.

Lone skier poaching a run under
the snow guns on Rime with dog,
Saturday December 2, around Noon. 

Snow making operations resumed today at Killington. Temperatures in the area range from the mid 20's to the low 30's under bright sunny skies.

The remnants of last nights violent storm have started to clear the area. At the inn last night we experienced a very violent (and unusual for December) thunderstorm in the mid evening hours with high winds. The whole area lost power around 1:15 AM. Power was restored at the inn around 3:30 AM. Much of the North Sherburne section of Killington is still without power as I right this at 2:00 PM on Saturday afternoon.

The resort has put out a statement announcing that they will re-open for skiing and riding on limited terrain on Sunday. They also announced plans to expand terrain all week, as forecasted temperatures will allow them to continue to ramp up snowmaking.

Sorry for the black "bunting", but today is a "dark day" in Killington. The Killington Ski Resort was forced to suspend operations because of the high temperatures this week and the heavy r@!n storm being experienced today in the region. The Following message was received from the resort:

"Killington has suspended operations for Friday due to weather conditions and we will re-evaluate based upon snowmaking progress the possibility of resuming operations for Saturday.

Killington's snowmaking crew is ready to fire up the world's most extensive snowmaking system Friday night. We currently have hundreds of snow guns in position, and based upon weather conditions, expect to have snowmaking operations resume Friday night and throughout the day on Saturday resurfacing our open trails.

As far as the weekend goes, Sunday is shaping up to be one of the best days of the season so far after our snowmaking crews attack the mountain with every available gun and our system operating at full power."

The storm here has been quite "entertaining". We have experienced some high winds which, combined with the wet soil, have succeeded in bringing down some trees around the inn. Nothing major from the standpoint of disrupting the inn's operation, but it will require spending Sunday with the chain saw in hand to clean it all up.

In other news, I have been remiss in posting this week because of all of the activity at the inn. Mary has been furiously decorating the Christmas Tree in the Great Room. It will make it's first public appearance tonight. In addition, yesterday we did a TV shoot at the inn for a program to run on the Fox channel in the Boston area starting at Christmas. Fox has been in Killington all week shooting scenes at various locations. I was interviewed as a 'Travel Expert" on country inns. In the process, I got a chance to talk about the Birch Ridge Inn, as well as several other inns in Killington. It is impossible to tell how the piece will look until it is all edited together, but we had a fun afternoon and evening filming at the inn.