Killington Peak in all it's winter glory for Presidents Weekend Skiers and Riders. 

The last holiday weekend of the winter season has begun at Killington in glorious fashion. In addition to an inch of light fluff that blanketed the area over night, skiers and riders were greeted this morning with full sunshine, mild temperatures (low 20's) and very light winds.

Overall, the resort has a sense of being busy but not over crowded. Hotels in the area, the Birch Ridge Inn included, are all full for the weekend. Restaurants along the Killington road are all doing a nice lunch business. I spoke with several ski shop owners who have run out of rental equipment, one of only a couple of times this season.

Lift lines at the mountain, from what I could observe, were negligible. I did notice that at noon time that none of the base lodge parking lots were full, unlike in past years, but by the same token parking spaces were at a premium. You could get one, but you needed to look.

The only downer for the weekend was the headline in todays Rutland Herald concerning the demise of the current round of village planning. "SP Land shelves ski village plans" was proclaimed on the right column above the fold. Follow the link if you would like to read the full story.

It will be a busy week overall at Killington. I will get a report of slope conditions this evening from our guests which I will pass along tomorrow.

Let it snow!

Skier exiting Bear Mountain on Skye Peak Quad. Bear Chair at Outer Limits down due to wind. 

Unfortunately, I have not been able to get out on the mountain this week. This morning, even though I had a business meeting I needed to attend at 11:00 AM, I was bound and determined to take a few runs. Dutifully I arrived at the K1 Base Lodge just before 9:00AM to suit up for some skiing. Once again the wind was howling, but the temperature was at least a balmy 28 degrees so it was relatively warm.

The K1 Gondola was not operating, so the group I was with headed to the Superstar Quad and Bear Mountain. Bear Claw, Bear Trap, and Wild Fire were all in nice shape. Outer Limits was groomed basically from edge to edge. While a little "chunky" from the hard pack being ground up, it was a solid do over. The only problem, however, was the 40 MPH wind at the top of the Bear Chair on Outer Limits. Every time you got to the top, you were literally blasted with ice pellets kicked up by the group getting off the chair immediately ahead of you. It was not pleasant.

Mother nature, and Killington management concern for skier saftey being what they are, the problem was immediately corrected after our 2nd loop down Outer Limits....the Bear Quad was closed. That was not too bad, as I was not looking forward to another ice facial at the top of the chair. Needless to say, a mad dash to the Skye Peak quad ensued. So it goes!

From the top of Skye Peak, I took a run down Skye Burst to Cruise Control. Surfaces were ok with some of the same chunkiness seen on Outer Limits. Another night of grooming will make the trails pretty nice. The Needles Eye Quad was running, so a hop up that, a run down Bittersweet, and I was done for the morning. 5 runs, fighting the wind, in about 70 minutes, then off to my meeting. Not to bad, but I left wanting to do some more; which is how I guess it is supposed to be.

Let it snow!

Ice covered trees behind the Birch Ridge Inn 

Take one damp day with a combination of snow, sleet, and freezing r@*n, add in a temperature drop from 34 degrees to 12 overnight....well it looks pretty but everything is rock hard.

Friends who were out on the mountain today reported that the resort was able to get groomers over most of the main line trails before the resort opened this morning. Surfaces were reported as being very firm. I would guess that snow base depths on the mountain will support some significant tilling the next couple of days to soften the trails up for President's Weekend visitors. Currently at the inn we have 25 inches at the snow stake. The mountain has significantly more.

Let it snow!

All you need is love
Merisa and and Aaron created Birch Ridge's entry in the Harpoon Ale Snow Sculpture Contest 

Another day of strange weather at Killington.. Snow, r@*n, freezing r@*n.. you name it we got it. But we did end up with a net positive snow accumulation, so I guess it's not all that bad. So it goes.

For the last several days, Merisa, our head server in the restaurant, has been carving a snow sculpture with her boyfriend Aaron on the front hill of the inn. The sculpture is for the Harpoon Ale Snow Sculpture contest, running at Killington this week. The theme Merisa took is a living room scene with a Love Seat and a Fireplace. The back of the Love Seat is a giant heart, just in time for Valentines day.

If you are at Killington this weekend, check out all of the sculptures up and down the Killington Road.

Let it snow!

Wind whipped Killington Peak. 

I was so psyched....After 2 great days last Thursday and Friday, working hard all weekend, getting over an additional half a foot of snow above and beyond last weeks foot, spending almost 5 total hours behind a snow blower on Saturday and Sunday to clean it all up, I was in the mood for some pow. It was just not meant to be.

This morning when I left for the mountain it was a crisp 2 above zero. The wind was blowing. I did not pay much attention to it. I should have given the snow driven haze visible on the snow stake picture. I drove off to the mountain. The Killington Road was ice covered and a little slick, but hey.. this is Vermont, at a ski resort in the winter... you deal with it.

That is until my face almost froze off.

I parked my car at Bay 1, right next to the K1 Gondola. The wind was howling. The gondola cars were still neatly parked in the overnight shed. It was not a good sign. As I walked from the parking lot to the Killington Base lodge, the wind was just plain bitter. I just had a baseball cap on my head. Big mistake. Major case of ice cream head and frozen ears on just the short walk.

Inside the base lodge, I met my ski friends. Nobody has their boots on. An announcement comes over the public address....Only the Snowdon quad is operating. Rams Head may open at 10:00 AM. No time for other lifts on the mountain. Looking out the windows, the whole ugly story is on display. Flags are out straight. It looks like a blizzard out there, even though it was a beautiful sunny day. The powder was being stripped from the mountain by the wind. Ughly. So it goes.

We wait a few more minutes. Another PA announcement, it is not good. So one of the guys calls out "Johnny Boys", and the morning is done. At least we all got a nice breakfast out of the deal. There can be a lot of worse things in life, so missing a ski day is really no problem. At a resort, even though you want it today, there is always tomorrow...So it goes.

Let it snow!

Summit Glades near top of Pico Peak. Kent Pond is in the distance to the right. 

As happens from time to time on Fridays, this morning a couple of my old ski house mates came up early for the weekend to ski on the new snow we received this week. We decided to head to Pico, the seventh mountain at Killington, in the hopes of snagging some remaining powder from Wednesday nights storm. For years there have been ongoing discussions about connecting Pico with Killington. That's a blog post for another day. Today it was all about the powder!.

Pico is organized as a classic New England ski resort. Unlike the layout at Killington, most of the trails at Pico wander down the slope with minimum cross over points between trails. After an initial boost midway on the Golden Express Quad, we headed over to the Summit Express for the ride to the peak. We spent the next 3 hours looping off the Summit Express. The snow was that good!

Pick you poison off the top. With the exception of Upper KA, the trails were basically left au natural. We found a great combination of nice powder bumps of varying sizes, combined with stretches of minimally tracked terrain when we went off into the woods. (Warning...kids don't do this at home!) As we were coming down the various trails, if there were a single track without a rope across it, it was fair game. And with the exception of one 100 foot section of Powerline (not on your trail maps) it was all good.

Upper Pike was a nice combination of powder bumps. Unlike some of the other places we went, Pike is pretty wide. You had to force yourself to stay in a line and not wander off into big traverses. After the first run down Pike, we knew that the conditions on any trail were going to be soft, so away we went.

In addition to Barry on skis, and Larry on his board, Mary joined us this morning. She worked into it slowly. For the second pass, while we were off playing in the woods near Giant Killer, she decided to try her hand in the bumps on Sunset. From then on, she felt comfortable enough to stay with us for the next couple of hours.

In fairly rapid succession we did Summit Glades, Forty Niner, Sunset 71, Giant Killer and Birch Glades. Summit Glades and Birch Glades had large stretches of soft cut up powder...Just great! Forty Niner, Sunset, and Giant Killer were all soft powder bumps. Coverage was excellent with very little hard pack in the bump troughs. Once you picked a line, you could pretty much bounce all the way down.

We did take several excursions "off piste". In one instance, we were on a fairly narrow (shoulder width) stretch that was also fairly flat. Larry had to click out of his board because he did not have enough momentum. Bad idea. There was so much snow he was instantly up to his crotch. So it goes.

The previously mentioned Powerline was probably the most "interesting". The first 100 feet or so has the pitch of Panic Button at Killington. However, in this section it is also about 2 ski lengths wide. Previous skiers had stripped it pretty clean with several exposed ice cliffs in the middle of the trail. By this time, Mary had headed back to the inn (good thing). For probably the first time in years, all three of us were reduced to side slipping a trail. Once we got past this section, the trail widened out (4 to 5 ski lengths) allowing linked turns through the powder. If it were not for the top section, we probably would have done this "unmarked" trail a couple of times. So it goes...

It's hard to pick a run of the day, as they were all very good. Summit Glades and some tree excursions off it probably get the nod. But the area near Birch Glades is a close second.

3 hours after we started, we were all pretty cooked. As we have a long night tonight, being Friday, Mary let me take a nap when I got back to the inn. It was glorious! Life is good.

Let it snow!

Lift line at Superstar Chair, 8:57 AM, 2/7/2008. Only Killington Mountain School students in front of us. 

There are no friends on a powder day, but sometimes you have to make exceptions.

It started snowing hard last night. When I went to bed at 2:00 AM, it looked like about 3 inches had fallen. I set my alarm for 7:00 AM, figuring I would go outside and do a little work around the inn before heading to the mountain. Good thing. We had over 7 inches of new snow at the snow stake, with windblown drifts in the walkways around the inn well over a foot.

By 8:15, I am all done. I change into my ski clothes. Mary is right behind me. Usually we take two cars, but as her new car is not all wheel drive, we decide to go together and take the Subaru. I already have my Volkl Vertigo's in the car. I load Mary's K2 Kahuna's and we are off. By 8:45, we have all our kit on at the K1 base lodge, and are out the door headed towards the lifts.

Mary is a good skier, but not overly strong in powder. With that in mind, we decided to bypass Kpeak and head directly into the Needles Eye area off the Superstar Chair. On powder days you want a slope that is steep enough to allow gravity to create enough forward momentum to compensate for the increased friction between your skis and the snow. I figured that Needles Eye would have a steep enough pitch for Mary's first outing on powder skis this year....and we were rewarded!

At the Superstar Chair, the only people in front of us was a small group of students from the Killington Mountain School. As I would have guessed, most of them eyed Superstar with anticipation, letting us escape to the back of the mountain virtually unnoticed.

When we arrived at the top of Panic Button on Needles Eye, 1 snow boarder had already taken the slope. Whoever the boarder was, we did not see them, they were pretty good as they held a tight line down the mountain. There was plenty of fresh powder to play in! Panic Button and Upper Needles Eye were glorious. A foot plus of medium weight powder. My Vertigo's just floated down the trail, with a minimum amount of turning required to keep the speed in check. Mary on her Kahuna's worked a little harder. But as soon as she got comfortable enough to let the ski's run, she started to have fun. Lower Needles Eye was not quite as good as Upper Needles. The resort had not groomed the trail overnight, so there were a few bumps hidden in the powder. Not enough to be annoying, but just enough to keep one honest cruising down the trail.

For the rest of the morning we played between Needles, Cruise Control, Bear Trap, Bear Claw, Bitter Sweet, Skye Lark and Superstar. As the trails got progressively chopped up by traffic, I hugged the tree lines, where I found lots of pow. Mary followed me on several passes near the trees. She really enjoyed her Kahuna's on BitterSweet, which seemed to have 2 or 3 feet of snow on it, probably the result of some wind over night.

When Mary called it a day, I took one last run. From the Superstar Chair, I had been eyeing Ovation and Old Superstar. I decided to go for it. On upper Ovation, I went wide right, literally skiing in the scrub brush on the right side of the trail. No one had been over there all week, so there was loads of snow and no hidden bumps. I crossed at about High Road onto Old Superstar, then headed down hill towards home. A very nice morning indeed.

Let it snow!