Howie dropping into the Superpipe
at Bear Mountain,
February 14, 2006, 10:30 AM 

I did make it out this morning for a few laps around the mountain.

Weather conditions this morning were mostly cloudy with a raw breeze and an occasional snow flake. Because of the dim light, we ignored the Canyon area and went right over to Bear Mountain. Bear Claw and Wild Fire were groomed fairly flat. Upper Wild Fire was surprisingly soft. A lot of snow had been blown onto Wild Fire last week. We are reaping the rewards of that this week.

After a few loops on the OL chair, we then went over to the boarder cross area on lower Dream Maker. The park is set up with the requisite number of hits, lips, and jumps, although this year the first few hits were a lot farther apart than last year. I found myself cruising through them, instead of hitting them for some air like like I did last year. Of course, at the bottom we had to go through the Superpipe, hence todays primary picture of Howie just after he dropped into the pipe.

Snow making was in full swing on Devils Fiddle. We skied down Falls Brook to get a better look, as there was a rope across the Fiddle at the top. It looked like the resort had snow guns going on both sides of the trail, and as you can see from the picture, more guns were being brought to the area. We should have decent snow making temperatures the next couple of days, so it would not surprise me to see Devils Fiddle open this coming weekend.

Killington during afternoon snow squall
February 13, 2006, 2:45 PM 

We may have missed the big storm which struck New York and Boston over the weekend, but we are still feeling some of the effects of it at Killington today. Conditions are somewhat raw and blustery, with a continuous light snow flurry in the air. You can see some of the flakes of snow coming down in the Snow Stake picture for today.

Although today was supposed to be a ski day, the business of running an inn took precedence. Part of my day was spent running errands in Rutland Vermont. I am always amazed at the weather differences between Killington and Rutland, even though they are only about 12 miles apart. Rutland was sunny and mild, with virtually no snow on the ground. In Rutland, you could see the wind pushing the clouds into the backsides of Killington and Pico, resulting on our localized snow flurry up here on the mountain. Hopefully, I will get a chance to test out the snow on the mountain tomorrow.

"Got Snow!" 

Oh the weather outside is frightful,
but the fire is so delightful,
and we've really no place to go;
Let it Snow. Let it Snow. Let it Snow!

Well, actually not....

The big winter storm that is dumping snow on Boston and New York was just a little too far south to drop significant snow on Killington. While we are supposed to be getting several inches of snow out of this storm, we unfortunately will not be getting the feet of snow we are seeing on the television in Central Park.

Currently at Killington we are getting light snow under overcast and cold conditions. The snow fall we are getting will continue to improve ski conditions, and assure visitors to the area a nice blanket of white for a few days, but it is not the big one we had hoped for. But there is a lot of winter left.

Let it Snow. Let it Snow. Let it Snow!

Lower Bitter Sweet
taken from Killington Golf Course Clubhouse
February 11, 2006, 1:30 PM 

While the rest of the east coast prepares for the first major snow storm of this wacky winter, Killington is enjoying beautiful sunshine with crisp temperatures.

The ski resort is continuing to pound the mountain with snow making operations. Snowmaking was in progress from top to bottom on Super Star, and Cascade. Guns appeared to be going on Double Dipper as well. Snowmaking has stopped, at least for the moment, on Bitter Sweet and Skye Lark.

Today's picture is of the headwall on Bitter Sweet. Killington had been blowing snow in this area for the last 4 days. When I skied there on Thursday, the whales were around 20 feet tall down skiers left. In todays picture, taken from about 1 mile away at the club house of the Killington Golf Course, you can get a good idea of how big the bumps on Bitter Sweet really are. If you double click on the picture to blow the picture up, you can see people standing at the top of the Bitter Sweet headwall (on the right side of the picture), with a bump towering behind them. Truly an impressive display of the results of Killington's snow making system.

Kate Reed, US Freestyle Team
Photo Credit USAA
provided by Killington Resort 

It is a beautiful sunny day at Killington. We received some light fluff last night, just enough to make everything look quite beautiful this morning in the bright sunshine.

Over the last week, there have been a lot of very good skiers and riders at Killington. Most of them have been young freestylers participating in competitions at the mountain all week, or training for the US Freestyle Championships which will be held at Killington in late March. You can see training and competing at the bump course set up on Outer Limits, and in the Super Pipe at the bottom of Dream Maker. What is impressive about many of them is the fearlessness they have. Over the last week, I have witnessed many of them going inverted on a jump in the bump course, not to mention some very big air. I know I am looking forward to seeing the freestyle event in the Olympics, set to kick off this evening.

If you are interested in seeing the US Freestyle Championship first hand, plan to be in Killington from March 22 thru March 26. You can find out more about the events at the Freestyle Championship from Killington Freestyle Website.

Killington Peak
February 9, 2006, 10:00 AM 

It is just hard to comprehend how much snow is on the mountain at Killington given the weather pattern we have suffered this winter. While we may only have a couple of inches of snow on the ground at the inn, on Killington peak, which is only 1 mile away and 2000 feet higher, the snow can be measured in feet. Today's picture is of the tree line on Killington Peak to the right of the K1 Gondola station. The trees are well beyond the impact of any of Killington's snow guns, yet they are literally buried in snow.

Mary spent the day at the inn, so I skied with Howie, Bob, and Margaret. Howie was on demo skis, so it was only right that we took him for a warm-up run straight over the peak on Downdraft. With bright sunshine today, and great snow... a sweet first run. We did our usual loops thru North Ridge (Glades), the Canyon, and over to Bear. Everything was very nice. A great morning to be on the slopes.

Killington is continuing their snow making operations. Guns were running on Cascade, Spillway, Upper Skye Lark, Outer Limits, and Cruise Control. On Skye Lark, an amazing amount of snow has been created over the last two days. The entire skier's left on upper and middle Skye Lark were huge 20 foot tall whales of snow, as the resort had not yet groomed the trail. They were great fun to play with, sailing up one side and down the back, but my ankle did remind me several times that it was still not 100%. With cold temperatures and around the clock snow making continuing, and the rumor of more snow over the weekend, it looks like it will be a great weekend at Killington.

Way to Frolic at top of Snowdon Quad
February 8, 2006, 10:00 AM 

Conditions keep getting better. Killington has continued to receive light snow over the last 24 hours. It is not amounting to much, just a couple of inches, but it is helping to continue to improve ski conditions.

This morning when we got to the mountain, we though we would try something different. We have been bombing down the mountain the last couple of days, so today we thought we would try to forget everything we knew about Killington and act like first time visitors. We give our inn guests advice all the time on where to ski. We thought, that with the busy February Holiday period coming up, that we should ski some of the terrain we tell people about.

Not to go totally crazy, we did our warm up run down Cascade. Upper Cascade was well groomed with a light fluff on the top. Lower Cascade had a few small but manageable cat tracks with death cookies, but was still very enjoyable. it was a good warm-up for our adventure.

We took the K1 up to the peak on our second run and tried to do Great Northern as it is laid our on the ski map. Surface conditions were quite nice. We did run into some missing signs where Great Northern joins Klllink, but other than that it would be a good trail for an advanced beginner to start out on. Up the Snowdon Quad next to Frolic. Many of our guests had mentioned Frolic to us, but quite frankly we have never been on it. Frolic turned out to be a nice, winding green trail, which leads over to Rams Head mountain. From the bottom of Frolic, we entered the terrain park set up on Rams Head on Timberline. The park was a lot of fun with a fairly gentle slope punctuated with several ramps, jumps and hits along the way. Up the Rams Head lift we went. We decided to take Swirl which is a blue trail to the right of the top of Rams Head lift. The trail itself was pretty easy, but the cover was thin. Before getting all the way to the bottom, we detoured into another park set up on Easy Street. Again, manicured to perfection, this time with a number of small "beginner" ramps, rails and hits.

We left Rams Head thru the tunnel under Killington Road to catch the Snowshed Quad to High Road. We then took the Skyeship to Skye Peak for perhaps the scariest skiing we have ever had at Killington.

Atmospheric conditions on Skye Peak were totally surreal. At the very top at the Gondola station, there was a little cloud, but visibility was generally good. Upon exiting the top on Skye Walker to 4 Way, you ran right into a cloud bank. For those people who know the area, when you turned right to go to Skye Lark, you literally could not see 2 feet in front of you. I could not see my ski's on the ground below me. There was quite a crowd of people in the cloud suffering from vertigo, to the point where Mary found herself nauseous. I kept calling Mary's name and skied to the right until I came to the up mountain side on 4 Way. We carefully followed the trail on the right until we came to the wind shield for the Skye Ship. Under the wind shield, we traversed by the top station of the Skye Peak quad, which we could hear but not see. Staying right, we traversed the top of Skye Burst re-entering 4 Way. We skied down 4 Way another 100 yards in very dense cloud, emerging at the junction with Frost Line. All told the cloud was probably about 250 tall. And it was definitely a cloud, not fog, as there was a defined edge to it were in a matter of feet you went from no cloud to can't see. Very weird indeed.

Mary was quite shaken by the experience, so we headed over to Bear Mountain to try to ski it off. We did a couple of runs down Bear Claw and Wild Fire, then we took the Snow Shed Crossover (to avoid the cloud) back to the K1 Base lodge and called it a day.

Overall, conditions are continuing to improve. In addition to the continuous light snow fall, Killington is assaulting the mountain wholesale with snow guns. Guns were still blasting on skiers right on Outer Limits. In addition, guns were going on Skye Burst, Wildfire, in the Viper Pit, and top to bottom from Upper Skye Lark (in the cloud) to Lower Bittersweet.

In terms of new features, the resort has the boarder cross area set up and opened on Dream Maker (which I will have to try soon), and it looked like they were getting ready to build another park on skiers right down Snowshed. All in all, with the exception of the cloud, another great day of skiing at Killington.