Ruts and Bagel at the top the
Little Pico Chair. Notice the wind blown snow. 

Today was a study in contrasts in the Killington area. On the one hand, ASC has sold another resort, and it is not Killington. On the other hand, the Valentines day blizzard is still with us, and there is a lot of untracked powder in it's wake.

We woke up today to the news that the American Skiing Corporation has sold 2 New England Resorts. No, the resorts were not Killington and Pico, but Mount Snow in Vermont, and Attitash in New Hampshire. The sales price is approximately $73.5M. if you want more information on the sale you can find ASC's release on the Security and Exchange Commissions website. How this impacts the rumored sale of Killington is anyone's guess.

Now back to Skiing and Riding... Almost!

Because of the Valentines day storm, some friends of mine from our old ski house decided to come to Killington a day early. Usually they ski the weekends. But they decided to come up and ski Friday to try to bag some fresh powder. Because of very high winds, most lifts at both Killington and Pico were not operating on Thursday, leaving the promise of untracked powder. Because of lighter crowds, we decided today we would head out to Pico, and run the trails off the Summit Express Quad from the top of Pico Peak. Fresh, untracked powder was waiting...and it still is!

We arrived at Pico to find that not only would we not be skiing the summit, but that only 3 chairs were operating; the Little Pico Triple, the Golden Express Quad, and the Bonanza Double. We basically had 1/3rd of a mountain to ski... and we covered it all.

Off the Little Pico Triple, A slope was very wind blown and boney in places with some exposed rock. B slope had some nice coverage, but it too was wind blown. There was a 30 MPH or so wind at the top of Little Pico which was packing the snow down pretty good. I was on my powder ski's, some Volkl Vertigo's. They are about 6 inches wide with no side cut, great for skiing deep stuff but a lot of work in small wind blown bumps... so it goes.

The terrain off the Golden Express Quad was in nice shape. The best run was probably Gold Rush. It was a toss up on Swinger and Lower Pike as you neared to bottom. All of the trails had some nice powder on the edges, if you did not mind knocking some tree branches out of the way. Just to tease us, the Summit Express Quad was running ever so slowly. The lift attendants were cleaning it off to get it ready for the weekend. If you are at Pico early on Saturday... remember.. fresh powder at the summit!

We stayed out about 3 hours this morning at Pico. When I got back to the inn, I had a message that Bill B and Howie had called around 9:30 requesting a breakfast meeting at Johnny Boy's. It appears that while I was staring at a closed Summit Express Quad at Pico, they were staring at no operating lifts at Killington. They did not even put their boots on at the Killington Base Lodge before heading out for breakfast. So I guess Pico was the right choice this morning after all! Let it snow!

Merisa on Birch Ridge 

In over 2 years since the snow stake has been in position at the inn, the previous record high was 13 3/4 inches, set on December 20, 2005. Yesterdays storm blew that away. The reading at the snow stake this morning was 27 1/2 inches. Total snow fall for yesterdays storm was 20 inches at the inn as of 10 AM this morning. I did take a reading at Midnight last night. The stake registered 34 inches, which would have yielded a 27 inch snow fall. However, over night, the light fluffy powder has been settling and the wind has also been compacting the surface. Since I take the readings in the morning, we will stick with a 20 inch snowfall; the highest snow fall we have had in 3 years no matter how you measure it.

Unfortunately, snow fall that large is not good for my skiing. It results in too much work around the inn. Combining yesterday and today, I have been outside with the snow blower for over 10 hours taking care of the property. Of course... I am not complaining.... after all I asked for this to happen. No matter, our staff has had the opportunity to get out. Todays picture is of Merisa, one of our servers, who is also a ski instructor, taking a few turns on the hill in front of the inn. She saw this hill of untracked powder and she could not resist. Now if we could only have a little more snow! Let it Snow!

Rime in the snow 

It is a blizzard. Snow started early in the morning. By 2:00 PM, about a foot of new snow has accumulated at the inn with heavy snow falling at a rate of 2 to 4 inches an hour.

I went up to the mountain this morning to take a few turns. At 9:00 AM the mountain had received 6 inches with heavy drifting over 2 feet in places. Today was definitely a powder day. I had my wide skis on. They just float through the snow. Howie and I stayed out until around 11:00, by which time many of the trails were getting chopped up. Also, the K1 gondola was experiencing wind delays. We experienced blizzard conditions on North Ridge with very high winds and blowing and drifting snow. We felt it was getting a little dangerous, so we headed out. What was interesting was that at the K1 base lodge, although there was heavy snow falling, there was virtually no wind.

Birch Ridge covered in snow

The inn at this point is buried in snow. When I returned, I was outside about 2 hours doing my snow blowing chores. I will be returning outside right after posting this blog to resume. This is one of those storms where the snow is coming down so hard, you almost need to stay outside to move it away it is accumulating so fast. But, we are at a ski resort so.... Let it Snow!

Highline from the K1 Gondola 

It was a brisk -8 when we left the inn this morning. But the sky was bright blue, and there was no wind. Other than an extra layer under the jacket, it had the makings of a great ski day.

We started out doing laps on on the K1 Gondola. Our first run took us down Upper Downdraft across Great Northern to Highline. All were beautifully groomed and glorious for cruising. For our next loop, we decided to do Downdraft top to bottom. it was in great shape, except as is usually the case this time of year, the lights went out on lower Downdraft. It was completely in the shadow of the mountain, and since we had been in bright sunshine at the peak, it took a few spooky turns on the steepest section of the trail for our eyes to adjust. We finished up with another loop on Highline. We noticed that we were doing the same route and keeping pace with a local group affectionately called the "IRT". We decided we needed to slow the pace down a bit so we headed over to Bear Mountain.

We did a few laps down Bear Trap, Bear Claw and Wildfire. Outer Limits looked OK so we decided to give it a try. As we were going up the OL lift, someone in the chair in front of us dropped their goggles at roughly lift pole 7. When we got to the top, we discovered that it was an english school group. The instructor with them stopped me and asked me if on my way down OL if I would mind recovering the goggles. No problem, so off we went. No problem except upper OL was polished to a high gloss finish. Skid, turn, slide, I made my way over to lift pole 8 and went under the ropes. I skied down in the powder, found the goggles, and retreated back to the slide for life. (I should have skied all the way down in the roped off area. The snow was great. But I did not for fear of hitting some snow making hoses.) Mid-way down OL, the resort had groomed the snow whales on skiers left. They provided a nice carving surface to negotiate the lower half of Outer Limits. While it was probably not pretty going down OL, being a good samaritan has it owns rewards. (And I got to officially duck under the ropes!)

The team rescues Carolyn, a visitor from the UK stuck on Skye Burst

We took a quick break then did a few more loops, ending up in the Super Pipe on Dream Maker. We decided after the pipe to take the Skye Peak quad up to the top, ski Skye Burst to Cruise Control and play in the Needles Eye area for a few turns before going home. Nope.. Not today.

When we got near the top of the Skye Peak lift, we saw a skier about 10 feet from the peak frozen solid and screaming. The snow surface was a little slick, but all in all it was not bad. Plenty of snow to maneuver in. I skied down to find out if we could lend some assistance. When I got there, I discovered an English girl (we have a lot of visitors from England at Killington this week) absolutely terrified, shaking, and crying her eyes out. The people she was with had skidded her off the top of Skye Peak, where she proceeded to freeze with fear. She was totally stuck in place and shaking. The people she was with had just left her there. They were no where to be found.

I skied around her and got on the down hill side to keep her from sliding if she fell. Howie got in position above her to keep people from running into her. Then Bill B skied up beside her and tried to coach her to get her moving. After a couple of minutes, we were able to calm her down a little bit. Bill was then able to get her to side slip down to the junction of Frost Line (get out your maps... it is a little used green trail 200 yards below the top of Skye Burst). From their, Bill got her into a snow plow wedge and we skied with her around Great Eastern to the Snow Shed Cross over and down to Snow Shed. This whole process took about an hour, and since the temperature was in the single digits, we had all gotten a little cold.

Bill B and I did one more run on Super Star before calling it a day. Super Star was ok, nothing to write home about, but we needed to have a good hard run to finish the day after spending the last hour in a side slip.

Tonight, all eyes are to the sky. Local forecasters are calling for 2 storms the next 2 days. Tonight's storm is supposed to cover the area with about 6 inches of fluff. The storm on Wednesday and Thursday is supposed to leave over 2 feet of snow around the area. If that happens, it will be the largest snow storm the area has seen since Hurricane Wilma on October 25/26 in 2005. Let it Snow!

Dream Maker Terrain Park 

As the area prepares for what could be the first major winter storm of the season, the Killington Resort this morning was in excellent shape. Most trails on the mountain were groomed overnight, creating a flat surface to receive snow forecasted for Tuesday and Wednesday.

Visability in the Killington Peak area this morning was poor as a thick cloud hung over the mountain. In the early morning darkness, we took our first run down Cascades. Snow surfaces were well manicured and very receptive to broad carving turns, but the light was so poor we decided to head towards Bear Mountain.

All of the trails at Bear Mountain were in excellent shape. The top of Outer Limits had a beautiful set of nice soft bumps, the remnants of all of the snow making that had been done at the top of OL on Sunday. We did take a coffee run down Great Eastern to the Skyeship Base at Route 4 where we suffered our only disappointment of the day....there was no coffee or hot chocolate service available other than a lonely vending machine. For some reason the Cafeteria at the Skyeship Base was closed this morning, even though there were a large amount of skiers and riders stopping to take a break there.

The gang does lunch at Charities. Photo courtesy or Rebecca, our waitress.

After our trip down to Route 4, we did some loops in the Needles Eye area. We headed back to the K1 Base Lodge via Super Star, which was just fantastic. Instead of going in, I did 3 more loops on Super Star, all down skiers left, which was in great shape. On Middle Super Star, skiers left had nice rolling bumps, the remnants of whales left from earlier snowmaking. They provided great entertainment riding up and down them. Skiers left on Lower Super Star was flat, but had received a fair amount of wind blown powder. It was a beautiful ride with nice carving turns and no skids.

We finished the day with a group lunch chaired by "Corduroy", who set todays lunchtime agenda. The good news is that at lunch we solved many of the problems facing the world today, the bad news is that I ate all the french fries that came with my sandwich, which is not a good thing for my waist line. Such is life in a ski town during the season.

Meanwhile, all eyes and ears are tuned to local weathermen to try to get a gauge of the storm predicted for Tuesday and Wednesday. It sounds like Wednesday and Thursday will be nice powder days. We can hope. Let it Snow!

Bear Mountain from Sunrise 

Today is just one of those lazy Sundays. The kind of day that you know you should be doing something important, but you just forget about it because you can do it on another day. Since the weather outside was quite temperate for February, Mary and I decide it would be a great day to just take a hike out into the woods.

Killington is such a diverse area, it is hard to comprehend it's total scope. A few years ago, Killington abandoned skiing and riding in an area called the "Northeast Passage", just below Sunrise Mountain adjacent to Bear Mountain. The terrain in the area was fairly gentle, but the trails were also somewhat interesting as they wound their way through the forest towards Route 100. Instead of just closing the area, however, Killington now uses it to support snowmobiling, cross country skiing and snow shoeing. We decided to take our hike this afternoon at Sunrise to check the area out.

Trail map for Sunrise Back County Ski and Snowshoe Trails

From the inn, to get to Sunrise the quickest way is to take East Mountain Road over towards Bear Mountain. From there, you enter into the Sunrise Condominium development. We accessed the trail system from the Falls Brook Common area just below the Sunrise Triple Chair.

Since there is only around a foot of snow on the ground, we just used hiking boots, instead of bringing our snow shoes. I did bring some ski polls for stability purposes, as I had never hiked these trails before. We wandered around a moderate trail named the Wintergreen Loop. The trail itself had been packed down slightly by a snow mobile, so the footing was excellent. If there were a lot of new snow, snow shoes would have been a must, but where the terrain was fairly gentle, our hiking boots were fine this afternoon. All in all, a nice walk through the woods on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Rams Head Lift in the snow. 

Saturdays are usually not ski days for me, unless we have had a significant amount of new snow on Friday night. While it has been continuously snowing at Killington, it has not amounted to much, so I slept in.

Over the course of the week, there have been a lot of little news stories which are interesting. While it has been an interesting ski year, to say the least, the community of Killington is still as vibrant as ever. Some of the items in the news are as follows:

Killington sets May 6th as a tentative close date. In a comment on a Killington chat room, Killingtonzone.com the director of communications for Killington posted a May 6th's closing date for the mountain. This would be one of the earliest closings on record for the resort.

Jim Blackman anounces his run for Selectman. In an open letter to town citizens published in the Mountain Times, local resident Jim Blackman declared his intention to run for the Killington Selectboard seat being vacated by Butch Findeisen. The town meeting is scheduled for Tuesday March 6, 2007. (Invariably a great powder day for anyone visiting the area.)

Killington Chamber of Commerce announces Killington Wine Festival and Killington Film Festival dates. The Killington Chamber of Commerce announced dates for 2 different summer events this week. The Killington Wine Festival will be returning for the fifth year this summer starting July 13th. Birch Ridge plans on hosting a wine dinner once again on Saturday July 14th. Stay tuned for more details. Also, the Killington Chamber of Commerce announced a new event for the summer, the Killington Film Festival, for the weekend starting Friday August 24th. Vermont film directors/producers Wes Craven and David Giancola are scheduled to present their new films. It should be a great event to attend.

Rumors persist concerning sale of Killington Ski Resort. Normally, I try not to traffic in rumors, but this one has been a persistent topic of conversation around town for weeks and it is starting to get coverage in the local newspapers. In an article published in the Rutland Herald, Michael Berry, president of the National Ski Areas Association said that it was likely that American Skiing Company would be selling the Killington Ski Resort and other east coast holdings. Powdr Resorts, a privately held Utah company is rumored to be engaged in talks to purchase Killington. At various local meetings, and to the press, Killington officials have refused comment on the rumors. (Editors note:...This has been a very persistent local rumor. Only time will tell if there is any validity to it.)