Dew Tour Village at Bear Mountain taking shape as seen from top of Outer Limits. Village at the base; Super Pipe to the left. 

There is so much to talk about today...it is exciting.

Mary and I headed to the mountain this morning at the crack of 10. (Skiing midweek is just so civilized!) We parked in Bay 1 at the Killington (K1) Base Lodge; probably no more than 50 feet from the gondola. On with the boots, walk into a gondola cabin, and we are on our way.

At the peak, we traversed across the top of the resort for a run down to the Dew Tour village at the Bear Mountain base lodge. Last night, we met Elisabeth Stone, a production manager from Lensley Automatic. At the Dew Tour village, there are several photo kiosks, and the "Toyota Photo Booth" that Elisabeth has been setting up for the event. We stopped over to check things out.

Toyota Tent in the Dew Tour Village at Killington. Click to enlarge..

We visited the Toyota Tent. Really sweet set up. Inside a Toyota SUV that was brought up to the Village there is a photo booth that Elisabeth set up for Lensley. It's pretty goofy, just like the old 25¢ photo booths of old, except it is in a shiny new Toyota. Of course we had our pictures taken inside (that is the whole point). After that, there were a couple of very pretty girls outside with Ipads taking your email address to send you the "masterpiece". I am pretty sure the Toyota Girls were used to working events in warmer locations (with fewer clothes on...I guess I can type that). They were all bundled up in white ski parkers with special conductive gloves (to type into the Ipad's touch screen). When you think of everything that is going on behind the scenes to take a picture in a car, link to an Ipad, shoot it across the internet, all from a mobile set up less than 24 hours old, at a ski base lodge with sketchy cell phone service, in below freezing temperatures, with snow falling in the background; a geek like me realizes it is all wonderfully high tech. Did I mention that the Toyota Girls were pretty... (the car was nice too!) but I digress.

Toyota Photo Booth Pictures.... For some reason Mary always blinked when the pictures were being taken... Click to enlarge..

The Dew Tour Village has a really nice vibe to it. It just felt like it would be a nice place to hang out and enjoy the party. It was all very high energy. It had a great fun feeling... and this was on Thursday morning, just after it opened, with only a couple of hundred people milling about. Put 5 to 10 Thousand people there on Saturday and the place will be, as they say, "hopping".

Skiing today at Killington was very good. On our way over to Bear Mountain, we did the down link on Bear Claw to Wild Fire. Snow making was taking place on Upper Wild Fire (it was about 15 degrees in the shade). Lower Bear Claw was relatively soft from recent snow making, although I am sure that the traffic heading into the Dew Village will chew it up. If you are heading that way, you can also take the lower Wild Fire cutoff to the bottom of Outer Limits. This would give you another alternative to get to the Bear Mountain Base area (if you can ski black diamonds).

Outer Limits was groomed perfectly flat to support the anticipated skier and rider traffic over the weekend. The surface was relatively firm, with a 2 inch coating of mixed granular and fluff from Mother Nature. It was extremely reliable, with no slick spots (although heavy skier/rider traffic could change that.) When we skied OL this morning, there was basically no one on the trail. I was able to do sweeping side to side carving turns down OL's whole length. Mary enjoyed OL as well, on her maiden run down it for the season. It was a lot of fun on what is usually the crown jewel of bump runs in the east.

We experienced the same conditions on Dream Maker, Sky Burst (upper), Cruise Control, Needles Eye, Sky Lark and Super Star. All of the trails were beautifully soft, supporting high speed carving turns down their length. We saw one woman on a carving snow board with hard boots lay down edge to edge on Needles Eye. We hooked up with her in the Skyship Cabin and just had to tell her how graceful she looked carving down the trail. With few people on the trails, and superb, soft snow, it was easy to look really good on the mountain today.

Old Superstar in it knarly glory. Click to enlarge..

Once again, after a few laps on Superstar, I finished my day with a run down Old Superstar. The soft snow just keeps piling in. Unlike trails with snow making on them, Old Superstar is "au natural". It's all the work of Mother Nature. The tops of many bushes and small trees are still exposed, forming the bases for little bumps down the trail. The little pine tree at the far lower right of the frame got me today. I got a little to close to it resulting in a full 360 in the soft snow. It was actually quite funny, taking me a minute or so to stop laughing at myself. The rest of the trail was just a beautiful shallow pitched, soft, bump run. It got the heart pumping, and the legs working; reminding me that skiing is not all about cruising down groomers at high speed. It's about being outside, enjoying the mountain, and learning about yourself in the process.

If you come to Killington this weekend for the Dew Tour, have a great time. Dress warm, as it is Vermont in Mid Winter. And above all, enjoy the show!

.....Let it snow!

The Super Pipe at Bear Mountain is all dressed up for this weekends Dew Tour. 

Between yesterday and today, I have spent about 3 hours at the resort skiing. Mary is down south visiting her elderly parents. Life goes on up here in Killington, and that includes skiing. Roughly an hour and a half each day. Kind of like going for a jog in the city, only with a couple of thousand dollars worth of equipment attached.

The two days could not have been any more different. Mondays excursion was in a driving snow storm. Tuesdays was in the snow storms aftermath. Both days had some really nice skiing.

Monday I met up with some Killington friends. With visibility being poor, and wind conditions uncertain, we stayed on the Killington Peak side of the resort. My time on the mountain before heading back to man the inn was pretty simple: a couple of runs through the North Ridge Area followed by some laps on Snowdon. Snow on Monday was soft, the result of continuous precipitation the whole morning. About 11, the group I was skiing with bolted off Snowdon for other parts of the resort. I called it quits while I was ahead and went back to work (somebody has to do it!) at the inn.

Today was totally different. After cooking breakfast for inn guests, I was on the mountain at the crack of 11:00 AM. I parked in the Vale parking lot for a few hard runs to get some excercise. I started out with a simple traverse to the quad on Snowshed. From there, I went to the Superstar Quad to access the rest of the mountain.

My first real run was through the Stash. Yesterdays snow got progressively denser as it fell over the course of the evening. It never really turned to sleet, but it had a high moisture content. Where skiers and riders had been, dense snow piles were building. Not light the fluff bumps of last week. Todays snow piles were firm. They let you know when you hit them. Areas that still had the corduroy from last nights grooming were silky smooth. The surface was not quite wet. But it was definitely pliable (hence the firm snow piles).

I exited the Stash to Bear Mountain via Lower Wildfire. The Dew Tour Village is dramatically taking shape at Bear Mountain. Tents are being erected all over the place (some in ski lanes, although there is fencing around them). The Super Pipe is carved. The light poles and TV towers on the Super Pipe are impressive. Lower Skye Burst is being sculpted for the Snow Cross events. Huge features are visible from the Skye Peak quad.

But I was here to ski, not gawk, so from the Skye Peak Quad I took Skye Burst to middle Dream Maker to Cruise Control. All were nice surfaces; fairly fast, with small bumps at regular intervals. As I exited Cruise Control, I was faked out by the resort. The Needles Eye Quad was running. When I got to it, there was a rope across the entrance with the dreaded "Lift Closed" sign. So I headed over to the Skyship Stage 2 for a boost to the top of Skye Peak.

From here I took a top to bottom run down Skylark. Skiers right from the top to the middle was relatively untracked. Lower Skylark was bumped in several places, with a couple of slick spots thrown in to keep things honest.

I lapped the Superstar chair (because it was there). Superstar was basically flat and fast. Some skier made bumps, but nothing of consequence. I finished, so I would be both warm and not bored, with a run down Old Superstar. Bumps, soft snow, untracked sections, and lots of bushes to turn around was the order of the day. There is so much character in Old Superstar, it was a fun run for my last of the day.

From there, it was a quick ride down the lower headwall of Superstar and a traverse across the resort to the car. I was warmed up, my body got some exercise, and I was reminded once again about how nice it is to live in Killington and be on the mountain.

.....Let it snow!

Ruts, Ben, and Kenny on the mountain last Friday. The Bagel is out of frame to the left for those of you looking for him. 

Sunday night was a bittersweet time in the Great Room of the Birch Ridge Inn.

The new widescreen TV was tuned to WCAX, the local CBS affiliate, to watch the late afternoon post season playoff game between the New York Jets and the New England Patriots. A small crowd of mostly Patriots fans had gathered for beverages and appetizers. After the initial kick-off and the first set of Jet's downs, it looked like it was going to be a great afternoon to be a Patriots fan. And then...the unthinkable happened.... Tom Brady was intercepted, and the Jets nearly score a touchdown on the return. Tom Brady's feeble attempt to tackle Dave Harris as he ran back the pick was but a harbinger of a good afternoon going quickly bad.

While Patriots fans, myself included, would be disappointed by the results Sunday night, as an innkeeper at a ski resort in New England there is a bright side to the whole situation... Patriot fan skiers and riders can now plan weekend getaways in late January and early February without guilt. They are freed from any responsibilities to rush home from their trips to the mountains for the rest of the football playoff season. The ski resorts of New England should pay a commission to Bill Belichick and Tom Brady for the extra business they will receive from the New England states as a result of the one and done playoff performance (again) by the New England Patriots. So it goes....

Of course I jest, but with great snow at Killington, it does become eerily quiet on Sunday afternoons when a marquee game like the Jets/Patriots is being played. This Sunday was no exception as many visitors to the area either departed early, or hunkered down at one of the many Killington watering holes for a libation and some football.

Because of the Patriots loss, many Killington fans are now faced with an interesting dilemma next weekend.... Watch the Dew Tour from Killington Sunday afternoon on NBC, or see the Jets take on the Steelers on CBS; tough call for someone born and bred from Beantown. It will make for an interesting week of conversation at the bar.

.....Let it snow!

Preparations underway for the Dew Tour at Killington 

Yippie yi yo kayah...Soft powder just rules the day!

I have a slight sprain of a ligament in my right leg. The doctor said I could ski, but be careful in the bumps. He did not mention powder:) I tried to be good, I really did.... but there was soft snow everywhere... with nice little bumps, a few big moguls, plus some knee deep shots that...oh too he double sticks with it... they just had to be taken.

Mary and I started from the car today at the Snowdon Quad. The K1 Gondola was running at 9:00 but it did not seem to be loading, so we did the right thing and took the first operating lift we could get close too. Even though the resort got dumped on the last couple of days, they were aggressively making snow on Chute, under the Snowdon Quad lift line. The chair was slower than normal, as people exiting at the top were sticking because of ice buildup on the bottom of their equipment. Mary and I did not suffer that fate, so we quickly exited the lift, boosted up to the peak on the North Ridge Triple, and headed over to Bear Mountain.

As a point of reference, we headed to Bear Mountain because Killington Peak was still covered in a dense cloud; left over from the storm. The wind was picking up as we traversed the peak. The sunshine of Bear Mountain was just too inviting, even though we could clearly see tons of soft powder on the Killington Peak side of the resort.

We took a quick run down Bear Claw. Beautiful calf deep powder down the tree line on skiers left. Even though there was a windblown bump or two, the consistency was so soft that turns were effortless. Lower Wildfire, where everyone is forced to enter because of Dew Tour preparations, was a proverbial mess. But it was a small price to pay after the run down upper Bear Claw.

A quick boost to the top of Skye Peak on the quad and we were off to the Stash. Mary mistakenly read the trail report and thought the Stash was groomed. Why she thought this, I don't know. I was very happy to find more powder and soft bumps. (Dr. Matt, you are not supposed to read this..) It got a little choppy at the junction with Bear Claw and Lower Wildfire, but overall it was a good second run.

Outer Limits was groomed, so we flirted with it by taking the Bear Chair. Turns out the grooming was more like paving, based upon listening to the skiers coming down the slope, so we bypassed OL in favor of Wildfire. Upper Wildfire was again...wait for it...soft bumps and powder. There was a huge windblown cornice/mogul at the entrance to Wildfire, which pushed Mary off to Bear Claw. More soft snow for me. I can't complain.

After a few more loops, we took the Skyeburst/Dream Maker/Cruise Control exit to get to the Skyeship stage 2. Needles Eye was just too nice to pass up. Again it was really soft down skiers left. A really good leg work out. We took a run down Sky Lark and Bitter Sweet to finish up. I also took a detour down Low Road (which was knee deep in places), before calling it a morning and heading back to the car.

If you are heading up to Killington this weekend, in addition to nice soft snow, you will find preparations underway all around the resort for next weekends Dew Tour event. TV Towers are being erected at Bear Mountain to televise the event. Construction of the Pipe and the Freestyle course are well underway. A quarter of the Bear Mountain parking lot has been taken over by a logistics and staging area, which is fenced in. Detailed information on next weeks event has been posted on the resorts web site. It looks like it will be a fun event to attend, or to at least watch from the comfort of your living room to the telecast on NBC TV.

.....Let it snow!

True friends on a powder day at Killington. 

If you like feet of fresh powder, with continuous snow fall all day, cold temperatures, and a little wind...today was your day at Killington.

The snow storm that is dumping on the Northeast is doing it at Killington. Since starting early this morning, snow has been falling at about an inch an hour at the inn. At 3:00 PM, 19 inches of snow have been recorded at the snow stake, up 10 inches from yesterdays reading. And snow is expected through out the night at Killington with additional accumulations predicted by the National Weather Service.

Additional accumulations are evident on the mountain, as you go higher in elevation. While I jokingly took pictures of my 2 best friends on a day like today, all of the other pictures I took were not usable. They all basically showed white out conditions on the mountain in blowing and drifting snow. And putting a totally white picture on the blog, while it may send a message, is not very interesting.

Suffice to say, however, the snow was superb. While Killington always gets chopped up on powder days, during the couple of hours I sampled the slopes, there were plenty of freshies to be found. This storm, and the unforecasted storm of earlier in the week, will solidify conditions on the mountain. I would expect that with the exception of trails being prepped for the Dew Tour, that Killington will be 100% open over the weekend. And the woods should have the goods!

.....Let it snow!

Hot Air Balloon over Killington. 

Yesterday's surprise storm and continued aggressive snow making are really making a difference in the ski conditions at Killington. The firm surface created by the New Years Warm-Up is being replaced with soft packed powder surfaces all around the resort. High traffic areas still are firm, but many today were under the snow gun getting resurfaced for the MLK weekend.

Snow making operations were visible today in the Stash, on Skye Burst, on Lower Wildfire, Upper and Lower Dream Maker, Sky Lark, Bitter Sweet, High Road, and Double Dipper. While the mountain is continuing to build snow on Lower Skye Burst to support the Dew Tour, they clearly are taking advantage of the cold temperatures to resurface additional terrain all around the resort.

In addition to snow making, the resort saw some excitement in mid-morning as a hot air balloon traversed the mountain complex. Multiple lifts were shut down as a precaution, as the balloon was perilously close to several lift towers while it floated across the resort. Operations at both the Superstar Quad and the K1 Gondola were temporarily halted for safety reasons for about 15 minutes this morning because of the balloon. (I was stuck at Superstar. Coincidentally, Mary was stuck at the K1 Gondola.) After passing through the resort, the balloon gained altitude and was last seen floating towards Okemo in Ludlow...so it goes.

While our friends in Boston and New York brace for the latest snow storm, we at Killington are also watching the skies with eager anticipation. Snow is forecasted for the next couple of days at Killington, putting a nice frosting on the resort for MLK weekend visitors.....Let it snow!

The woods behind the Birch Ridge Inn covered in snow. 

An "Unforecasted" snow storm covered the Killington region with 5 inches of snow early Monday morning. Unfortunately, I was not prepared to take advantage of an unplanned powder day, having a full morning of meetings scheduled days ago which I could not cancel....so it goes.

I plan to get out several days this week to give a full report on conditions leading into MLK weekend. I am sure today was "Glorious".

......Let it snow!