Great Room at Birch Ridge Inn,
Saturday, April 14, 2007 

Once again we are dealing with a late winter storm at Killington. A heavy wet snow began falling early this morning. Forecasters are calling for snow to continue to fall for the next 2 days with accumulations over 2 feet in the mountains of Vermont. Currently at the inn we have received about 3 inches of snow in the last 2 hours. It is really coming down hard.... So it goes!

Last Night was our last for dinner service at Birch Ridge for the 2006/2007 season. Mary and I thank all of our past guests who turned out to join us on our last evening of the season. Our restaurant will re-open for the 2007/2008 season on Friday June 28th. During the restaurant hiatus, we have a kitchen renovation project planned, which begins next week, and several private functions scheduled. A big thank you goes out to all of the guests who have joined us for dinner over the last year. Also Mary and I need to give credit where credit is deserved...our dedicated staff including Steve (AKA Frizzie), Johnnie D, Ryan, Merissa, Briana, Michalyn, Heidi, Annie, Steve's wife Pat, and all of our friends who we called upon at various times to help us during the year. Thank you..Thank you..Thank you! Think Spring!

Killington Resort busy with late season skiers and riders. 

The Killington Resort today is seeing fairly heavy crowds of skiers and riders taking advantage of all of the snow that has fallen over the last 10 days. With temperatures in the mid 30's, and partly cloudy conditions, all those who have made the trek to Killington are being rewarded with great spring skiing conditions.

Of course, in the background looms the prospect of another large storm heading into the area late Sunday. As I write this various weather services are predicting 1 to 2 feet of snow for the local area through Monday evening. With many local businesses preparing to shut down for the winter season over the next several days, many in the area are asking "Are we done yet?" with this wacky winter. Oh to have had all of this snow in November... So it goes!

Note from Bill... In the course of writing this blog, many times when things do not go as well as they may have, I use the expression "So it goes". This expression first hit my conscientiousness when I was introduced to the 1969 best seller "Saughterhouse Five", written by Kurt Vonnegut, in an english literature course during my freshman year of college. The protagonist in the novel, Billy Pilgrim, uses the expression when ever a bad thing happens, downplaying the terrible conditions he experiences during his disjointed life. The novel is loosely based on Kurt Vonnegut's actual experiences as an allied prisoner during WWII. Mr. Vonnegut was one of only 7 prisoners to have survived the firebombing of Dresden Germany near the end the war. Mr. Vonnegut credited his survival of the bombing to taking shelter in a meat locker at Schlachthof Funf (Slaughter House Five) in Dresden. Mr. Vonnegut passed away this week at the age of 84. So it goes!

Mary at the bottom of "Heavenly Traverse" 

It is extremely difficult to comprehend how much snow is on the mountain tops at Killington right now. Three weeks ago, we had what locals are now calling our "January Thaw". Snow surfaces at the mountain and the number of open trails had shrunk dramatically. The season was just about dead. All you need to do is look at the snow stake picture for April 4th. We were down to 2 inches of snow at the inn, and the mountain was in a similar circumstance. How New England weather can be fickle.

This morning, the snow stake read 17 inches. If you take into account 2 or 3 inches of melting during the day on Wednesday (I try to take the snow stake pictures at 8:30 AM), yesterdays storm dropped almost 10 inches of snow around the inn by 8:30 AM this morning. The mountain is reporting another 18 inches on Killington peak. And from being up there this morning, it is not an exageration.

The storm we got yesterday can not be confused with the powder storm we got last week. Yesterdays storm dropped prime snow ball snow (I never thru any snow balls at cars when I was a kid... honest!...don't get any ideas..) On the mountain, the snow was packing into nice little bumps everywhere. Great for little squiggly turns, or broad but some what jarring traverses.

This morning, Killington Peak was still in the middle of yesterdays storm. Visibility was less than 200 feet in blowing and drifting snow combined with heavy cloud cover/fog. The mountain was reporting wind gusts over 30 MPH. This is where we started our morning.

Mary and I started with a few runs in the North Ridge area. Other than skiing by braille, snow surfaces were consistently soft and deep. If the sun were out, we might never had left, but as more people got to the top of the mountain, we decided to move over towards Bear, hoping the visibility would improve. Coming off Killington Peak was interesting. It was not until we got lower than the South Ridge Lift terminus that the cloud cover raised enough so that you could see the trails.

Bear Mountain was beautiful. Terrain features were still set up on Upper Bear Trap. Upper Bear Claw was minimally tracked. I did not have my powder skis on today, but my Fischer's had enough buoyancy to keep me on top of the surface. Viper Pit, Anti Venom, and Lower Bear Claw were all soft little bumps. Outer Limits and Lower Wildfire were all chopped up with bump lines just starting to appear with increasing skier traffic.

Over in the Needles Eye area, Cruise Control lived up to it's name. While making the traverse to Needles, we looked up slope on Skye Burst. After a box ride to the top of Skye Peak, on our next run we just had to go down it. Since it was not being serviced by the Skye Peak quad, almost no one had been on it. There was easily 1 to 2 feet of untracked snow from the middle of the trail out down skiers right. Without question, this was the one run of the day.

We did a run down Skye Lark to Bitter Sweet, at which time Mary had to leave to get back to the inn. I was expecting the Super Star quad to be running, it wasn't, so I traversed over to the Snowdon Quad. I did 5 runs off of Snowdon including Chute, North Star, Great Bear, Frolic to Vagabond, finishing up with a cruiser down Bunny Buster to Mouse Trap. Chute was nice little bumps. North Star, Great Bear, and Vagabond had large, yet soft bumps. The legs got a work out. But even after getting beaten up on North Star, I needed to take one more run, so I made it a cruiser down Bunny.

I perceive that skiing and riding this weekend at Killington should be pretty wild. With snow surfaces this deep and soft, and snow still falling on top of the mountain, it should be a great weekend to play in the mountains. And then of course, who knows what will happen next week.... Think Spring!...

The Birch Ridge Inn at Killington,
covered with new snow. 

When you live in Vermont you realize that some days are pretty, and some days are downright nasty. Today is one of those nasty days.

Snow began to fall around the inn around 5:00 AM. Thus far today we have seen heavy snow, sleet, hail, Styrofoam balls...you name it... it has fallen from the sky. Surface roads in the area are passible, but driving conditions are not good. But, as the storm passes, driving conditions should improve very quickly as the snow plows, at least in the Killington area, seem to be keeping up with the storm thus far.

I choose not to go out skiing today. Sooner or later, business gets in the way. And today seemed like a pretty good day to sit in front of the computer and catch up on work. But, tomorrow is another day, and the slopes are definitely calling. It should be a great weekend for skiing and riding at Killington.... Think Spring!...

June Buttner, owner of
The Boutique at Killington,
showing good form on Superstar. 

For the first time in many days, when I woke up this morning the sun was shining and it was not snowing outside. With temperatures this morning in the high 20's, ski conditions at Killington were ideal for late season cruising and playing in the bumps.

Our first few runs this morning were in the Canyon area. East Fall and Double Dipper were both groomed soft and sweet. While neither took a lot of energy to ski as they were groomed flat, the side to side sweeping turns we made going down them at considerable speed were exhilarating just the same. To get the blood flowing in my legs, during several of our runs I entered the area through the bumps in FIS. The beautiful, soft, well spaced bumps on FIS were just enough in the early stage of the morning to get all of the muscles moving and warmed up.

We then traversed over the top of the mountain, via Great Eastern and Launch Pad to play over at Superstar. Superstar had not been groomed overnight. Middle Superstar was covered with very soft mounds of snow, not bumps yet, but precursors formed by people pushing soft snow around. You could basically cruise Middle Superstar over and around the mounds, making as many turns as you wanted to keep your speed under control. The Upper and Lower headwalls of Superstar were basically flat. They both were firm, but also covered in a soft snow which gave both of them a nice, consistent surface.

Later in the morning, I journeyed over to Bittersweet while the gang cruised down middle Skyelark. Bittersweet was covered with nice soft bumps. Most of the bump troughs on Bittersweet were filled with soft snow, but a few in high traffic locations were showing some scratch. As by now the temperatures had crossed the freezing level, it was too warm to call these locations ice as they were moist and edge-able. But on another day, if temps were well below freezing, I would probably be calling these spaces blue ice. At any rate, I made it through the bump field on middle Bittersweet before any of the others met me at the junction between High Road and Bittersweet..so the bumps did not slow me down at all.

Crowds today on the mountain were light. As it was such a beautiful day, we saw many local business owners out skiing and riding. Because everyone is funneled into the K1 box at some time during the day, there was a lot of socializing going on, chatting about the winter, vacation plans, the pending sale of the mountain, etc... That is until the doors opened at Kpeak....at which point everyone scattered to take their runs before meeting at the bottom again. Overall, just a gorgeous ski day in this wacky winter that would not start and now will not end.

Speaking of winter, the weather service is calling for a major winter storm to move through the area starting around midnight this evening. 12 inches are forecasted for central Vermont with snow predicted to fall all day long on Thursday. Let it snow!

Superstar framed by trees on Killink 

It is a very bitter sweet day at Killington. Skiing and Riding on the mountain are as good as it has been all season, if you ignore the fact that the number of operating lifts has been greatly reduced. It has been snowing constantly for the last week. Light and fluffy, keeping everything white. It looks like a major late season nor'easter will move into the area late Wednesday bringing a heavy snowfall over the area on Thursday. And the current Killington management team has announced that because ski conditions are so good, that they will re-open the Skye Ship Stage 2 and the Outer Limits lift at bear Mountain for skiing and riding on Friday. If you forget that this is mid April, you would think that the ski season was on an upswing. It has been a very wacky season. But then bitterness creeps in.

Upon returning to the inn this afternoon, Mary and I learned that Don Gray, a local Killington favorite musician who played with Frank Chase and the Bobby Darling Show past away after a fight with cancer.

Don Gray April 7, 1951 - April 9, 2007 from the Bobby Darling Show website.

Before moving to Killington full time, Mary and I spent many an evening in the Pickle Barrel Nightclub being entertained by the Bobby Darling Show. It was during an era when Killington had what seemed like hundreds of "Ski Houses", and everyone went to the Pickle Barrel for happy hour to see friends and begin the Saturday night party. Don was the drummer for the show. I don't think anyone who saw him can every forget "Little Ricky" and his impression of Mick Jagger singing "Satisfaction". I can still see the tee shirt and feathered boa to this day.

Don had genuine talent. He will be missed......so it goes!

Armenian Innkeepers visit the Birch Ridge Inn 

It has been a while since I have done any public speaking which required simultaneous translation, but today was different. Kim at the Killington Chamber of Commerce asked me to host a group of fellow innkeepers from Armenia along with representatives of the Armenian Tourism Development Agency. The group are visiting Vermont on a trip sponsored by the Vermont Council on World Affairs. In addition to showing them our inn and discussing innkeeping, the primary reason for the visit was to discuss how chambers of commerce and lodging establishments work together to promote travel and tourism. Due to the nature of the group, the presentation included simultaneous translation into both Russian and Armenian.

For those of you who need an atlas to find Armenia (I went to wikipedia), you will find it landlocked between Turkey, Georgia, Azerberijan and Iran. Up until 1920, Armenia has been an independent country. In 1920, Armenia was on the loosing side in the Turkish-Armenia war, was forced to demilitarize, and was subsequently invaded by the Soviet army. In 1991, when the Soviet Union broke apart, Armenia regained it's independence.

In the last 4 years, the Armenian Government organized the Armenian Tourism Development Agency to promote travel and tourism to Armenia. Structures such as Chambers of Commerce, are just being established in Armenia. This group was on a fact finding mission to determine the different aspects of how lodging properties and chambers of commerce work together.

Of course, while I was learning how to say "Good Morning" in Armenian - "bari luis" - Mary was out skiing in the 6 inches of fluff that fell overnight on the mountain. Ski conditions at Killington continue to be excellent on powder and packed powder surfaces. At the inn we received another 4 inches of snow, with a major storm predicted to move into the region on Thursday. Let it Snow!