Christmas Trees on display at the 2004 Vermont Holiday Festival 

With the return of skiing and riding at Killington for the 2005/2006 season imminent, and the busy Thanksgiving holiday weekend in sight, Killington businesses are also deep into preparation for the return of the Vermont Holiday Festival in early December. The festival is a weekend event, scheduled this year from December 8th through December 11th. Businesses in Killington are busy preparing to participate in the Festival of Trees at the Killington Grand Hotel, considered by many to be the highlight of the weekend. Many Killington businesses donate and decorate Christmas Trees to be displayed at the event. (My partner, Mary, is already plotting with several of our employees to design the tree to be displayed by Birch Ridge at the festival.) Key elements of the festival include Santa's workshop and horse drawn sleigh rides, live reindeer, and special story readings. Once again the year, the popular White Lights Festival will also return. Businesses and residences in Killington will be aglow in the evening with light displays on many properties.

Admission to the festival is $5 for adults; children ages 12 and under are free. Admission includes entrance to the Festival plus free sleigh rides, hot chocolate and cider. In addition festival goers may purchase raffle tickets for a chance to win their favorite tree. A drawing will be held on Saturday night for each tree, and the random winner will have the opportunity to take home a completely decorated Vermont Christmas tree. Guests may purchase tickets throughout the weekend to boost their chances of winning. All proceeds will go to local charities in the Killington area. For more information, a weekend schedule of events or for reservations, visit vermontholidayfestival.com or email info@vermonthholidayfestival.com

Rime and East Fall Junction at Killington, 11:00 AM, November 12, 2005 

Today is a beautiful reprise from the grey "Twig Season" that we have been experiencing the last several days. At 11:00 AM, the temperature I measured at the Ki Base Lodge was 39 degrees, with bright sunshine and a beautiful blue sky.

Snow making on the upper slopes of Killington is quite visible. In todays picture, you can see the junction of Rime, East Glades and East Fall. From what I could see on the mountain, it looked like snowmaking had been suspended for the day with rising temperatures. However, I am not certain of this, as I could hear a very loud and constant release of compressed air coming from the Royal Flush Area, and compressors could still be heard turning near the base.

In town, many weekenders have arrived to open up their houses and condo's for the season. I spoke with a few who had hiked up to the peak for a few turns earlier in the morning. (You can actually see footprints in the snow on the picture) According to the people I spoke with, a few more days of snow making, or some natural snow, are needed before the Glades area is ready for prime time. That being said, there is an air of excitement around town as people get ready to launch the 2005/2006 ski season.

Killington Peak, 9:00 AM, November 11, 2005 

All eyes in the Killington region were on the top of the mountain this morning. As promised, the Killington Resort restarted the easts largest snowmaking system last night. From the attached picture, you can see a wisp of snow blowing across the mountain at the crossover between Cascade and Double Dipper. From what I could observe, snowmaking was confined to the peak and glades areas, terminating in the vicinity of upper Bunny Buster. Killington is clearly trying to lay down a base at the upper elevations, where it is forecasted to stay cold. One would assume that they will move lower sometime in the next few evenings. There is no official word yet on a re-opening date. The unofficial word around town is pointing to Tuesday November 15th if good snowmaking conditions persist. Okemo in Ludlow has announced that they will try for an opening on Friday November 18th. Killington will definitely beat that date.

For you to consider today, the Eleventh day of the Eleventh month : Veterans Day. During the Vietnam era, my draft number was 266. At the time, I was considered one of the fortunate ones who was not drafted. Many of my friends were either drafted of "enlisted" (if you had a low draft number in those days, enlistment was a better alternative than being drafted because you could choose which branch of the military in which you could serve). Without being too pithy, please remember the men and women who have served, and who are serving, in the military. While we all serve our country in different ways, these men and women have put , and are putting, their lives on the line to protect our freedoms. Thank You!

Killington Peak, 9:00 AM, November 10, 2005 

or is it the "Wizard of Id"......When I went up to the mountain to take this mornings picture, I had this very weird feeling. It was only reinforced when I got back to the inn and read this mornings Rutland Herald.

First to the mountain... it is another classic "Twig Season" day; cold, blustery, dreary,grey. The heavy rains last night have given way and been replaced with a chill that sinks into the body. A very loud sleet/hail/ice particle shower is happening at the inn, bouncing off the slate roof and windows. At 9:00 AM, Killington Peak had a 'Where's Waldo" character to it. Heavy Fog/Clouds shrouded the peak, half way down Double Dipper. The Killington resort has told us that they intend to restart their snowmaking system this afternoon. My guess is that the fog will need to dissipate substantially before that will happen.

When I got back to the inn, my 'Where's Waldo" feeling was reinforced by another installment of the "Mouse that Roared" in the Rutland Herald. On the front page, the Herald described a meeting in New Hampshire of the "New Hampshire Killington Incorporation Commission". This 3 person commission, created by the New Hampshire legislature, has been tasked to work with the Vermont legislature to hammer out the details between the states to allow Killington to secede from Vermont. The New Hampshire commission is writing a letter to Vermont political leaders including Vermont Gov. James Douglas, Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie, Sen. President Pro Tem Peter Welch and House Speaker Gaye Symington to encourage them to get Vermont moving to resolve Killingtons secession efforts. While having little news value, the Rutland Herald article once again provided a little poke at Vermont for failing to address the problems of Killington created by the tax structure of the state. The full article can be found at the Rutland Herald. (Editors Note: At the last two Killington town meetings, I have voted to allow the town of Killington to pursue secession from the state of Vermont. The tax structure of the state is very damaging to citizens of resort towns in Vermont (in my opinion)...The Vermont legislature has shown no desire to correct the inequities, and why would they as they can continue to shake the money tree and only affect a very small percentage of the Vermont electorate. However, they are in danger of killing the goose that laid the golden egg.... but this is another story altogether. I am sure that you will read more about it in the future.)

Killington Peak, 9:20 AM, November 9, 2005 

UPDATE TO STORY (Posted at 10:00 PM EST)...Since just before 3:00 PM this afternoon, we have been experiencing heavy rain, driving winds, and periods of freezing rain. It would appear that conditions on top of Killington are very unfavorable at this time to attempt to make snow. The mountain issued a press release after 5:00 PM today saying that they planned to turn on the snowmaking system late Thursday afternoon. While temperatures are supposed to drop in the evenings the next few nights, unless there is a miraculous change in the current driving rain storm to snow, it is unlikely that Killington will open for skiing this weekend as planned. The press release said that they would try to re-open the mountain "next week...as soon as we can provide a quality top to bottom skiing and snowboarding experience"... It's time for all of us to break out our favorite snow dances to get this season started. A symbolic sacrifice to the god of winter, Ullr, may also be appropriate...END OF UPDATE....

Dreary, cold, and damp. That best describes today at Killington.

I went up to the mountain this morning to see if the resort managers had turned on the Killington snow making system. Temperatures at the inn last night were below freezing. When I left for the mountain to take the picture at 9:30 AM, it was still just 32 at the inn. Much to my surprise, and disappointment, there was no snow on the top of Killington.

The resort is still making optimistic noises about being open for skiing and riding this weekend. Snow, sleet and freezing rain are predicted for the area this afternoon and evening. Colder temperatures are forecasted for the area thru the weekend. We will keep an eye out for the sign of snow being blown on the mountain, which would be a leading indicator of the resort attempting to open.

Summit Resort and Grist Mill Restaurant at Killington 

Congratulations are in order for long time Killington resident Bill Bauer. Bill, who for years has been the manager of the Summit Resort, has recently completed purchasing the Summit, and it companion restaurant, the Grist Mill from Ken Budzyna.

Ken, who happens to be the only other full time resident on Butler Road besides my partner and I, has been a principal owner of the Summit for 35 years. He built the Grist Mill in 1984 as a companion to the Summit. He plans on continuing to live in Killington, but he is also looking forward to spending some time in Costa Rica

In addition to being manager at the Summit, Bill has also been heavily involved in the community at Killington. He was previously on the towns Select Board, and had been an out spoken advocate for the town in the creation of the Green Mountain National Golf Course.

Both the Summit and the Grist Mill have been local favorites for years. We wish Ken a happy "retirement". And good luck to Bill as he puts his stamp on two of Killingtons best know institutions.

Killingtonblog.com supports RSS 

Over the last couple of days, some of you may have noticed some different little symbols and links appearing on the blog. Thats because I have been working to integrate a RSS feed into the blog.

RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication". It's actually quite a few lines of software, so programming it was interesting, but for you, the reader, it introduces several nice features. If your computer (I develop on an Apple Dual G5 so I refuse to call it a pee cee) is equipped with a modern web browser like Apple's Safari, or Mozilla's Firefox, or Opera, you can subscribe to the RSS feed from Killingtonblog.com and get notified automatically when a new entry is posted. You can also get a standalone RSS reader to do the job, or subscribe to one of several Blog Syndication sites (for instance if you have a My Yahoo account, you can configure a content box to point to www.killingtonblog.com/rss.xml) . I have been using RSS to scan many online newspapers. If you have not used RSS before, it's actually very useful.

For those of you without RSS capability but curiosity gets the better of you, if you click on the RSS button on the menu, you will see a page of computer code, which is actually the RSS feed in a web language called XML (or Extensible Markup Language for those who want to know).