Outer Limits - Site of the
Bear Mountain Mogul Challenge 

Mary is still in Boston, so I was back this morning in the kitchen on breakfast duty. Hence, I did not ski again today.

I did sneak out of the inn for a few minutes to check out Bear Mountain, site of this coming weekend's Bear Mountain Mogul Challenge. From what I saw, even with the warm weather of the last couple of days, Outer Limits still looks in great shape for this weekends competition. Coverage on Lower Bear Claw also looked great. Wildfire, on the other hand, looked like it could be done for the season barring a major snowstorm to improve coverage. With the weather forecasting cooler temperatures, conditions should hold up fairly well overall for this weekends events.

Passport Update - According to usps.com, the Post Office's website, my next day delivery of my passport to the State Department, scheduled for delivery no later than 12 Noon today is still reporting enroute as of 2:00 PM....so it goes!

Let it snow!

Rogue's gallery picture 

Mary headed off to Boston yesterday to visit with her elderly parents. So this morning, I was on breakfast duty and did not ski. Instead, the adventure of the day was starting the process of getting my passport renewed.

As I am fairly technical, I though I would first visit with the US State Departments website to find out how to renew my passport. They have a complete set of descriptions on how to get or renew a passport on the web at http://travel.state.gov/passport/passport_1738.html.

I do all of my work on an Apple Mac (G5 DP for those interested). The primary Mac browser is Safari. Naturally, the US State Departments passport Web Page does not open using Apple Safari. (Of course, you would think that the web designers in the US Government would be browser agnostic to encourage free market competition. But, I guess since the richest man in the world, Mr. Gates, is probably one of the largest tax payers to the US Government...you do the math.) Curiously, the State Departments Web Site worked properly on my Mac using Firefox....so it goes!

With browser incompatibilities sorted out, I proceeded to fill in the passport renewal form. Of course, the State Department does not let you renew your passport online. They only capture all of the information and generate a PDF formated file which you download to your computer so you can print it out and mail it to them. I guess with the Patriot Act and other national security concerns, the State Department website is not quite to the 21st century yet....so it goes!

So with my Passport Renewal PDF downloaded to my computer, I send it to the printer to create a hard copy for mailing. No problem there. I write a check out to the State Department for $127 dollars for expedited service so that I can get my new passport in 4 weeks or less(regular passport renewals are taking 10 weeks these days). And I am out the door to get a Passport Photo and mail in all of the paperwork.

I head off to Rutland. 10 years ago, I had my passport picture taken at a camera store on Route 4. Oops...the camera store is out of business, another victim of Amazon.com, or Walmart. A big "For Lease" sign is on the building...so it goes!

I remember a conversation I had yesterday with Walt on one of the chair lifts at Killington. He mentioned that he had gotten his passport picture taken at the Rutland Post Office. A quaint affair with a vintage Polaroid camera. Since the camera store was shut, it seemed like a good idea to head straight to the Post Office... short of driving the streets of Rutland looking for an alternative.

I arrive in the Post Office, ask a nice post office clerk (I must be getting old.. she was quite cute) where to go to get my passport taken care of, and she points to a large sign 10 feet away from her directing people looking for Passports down a corridor to an office deep in the bowels of the building....so it goes!

I arrive in the office, speak to another nice lady, and am ushered in to sit down beside 1 of 2 office chairs in front of a white screen. (Walt had warned me about the 2 chairs.) The nice lady sits down beside me and grabs a vintage 1970 2 lens Polaroid and proceeds to hold it 5 feet from my face. Smile. Blinding Flash. Picture taken. Actually very efficient.

I go back around the counter. The nice lady now wants to see my paperwork to make sure it is filled in ok. I give it to her. She reviews it and says there is a problem. It turns out that the State Department form on the web is 6 pages long. The instructions say to discard pages 1 and 2. Pages 3 and 4 are the actual form, which I filled out and signed. Pages 5 and 6 are the State Department Terms and Conditions for receiving a passport, and other various government instructions. I had not brought pages 5 and 6 with me to the post office. The nice lady told me I needed to submit pages 5 and 6 with pages 3 and 4 so that the State Department would know I had seen the T's and C's. Fortunately she just happened to have a copy of pages 5 and 6 (I think she has seen this behavior before) which she staples to pages 3 and 4....so it goes!

About this time, a timer on the other side of the office dings. My passport pictures are ready. The nice lady peels of the Polaroid paper from the pictures. She cuts the picture to separate them into 2 distinct pictures. She holds the picture up to a State Department provided picture template. Oops...she had held the camera too close to my head. According to the State Department picture template, I have a fat head (if they only knew)...so it is back around the counter to the 2 chairs to have my passport picture taken again....so it goes!

Back around the counter I go. Sit in chair 2. Nice lady sits in chair 1. Holds camera 6 feet from my head. Smile. Blinding Flash. Picture taken. How easy is this!

The nice lady asks me to stay in chair 2 until she can see the picture to make sure everything is ok. While we are waiting, the nice lady has to deal with several angry prospective passport holders who have sent in their material in early January but have not yet received their passports. They did not go the expedite route. The nice lady shrugs... says there is nothing she can do... (I am glad I chose the expedite route I think)...so it goes!

Ding! New photos are ready. Peel off the Polaroid paper. Cut the picture in two for 2 distinct pictures. State Department plastic photo head size template check. My head is no longer fat. I can leave chair 2 and go back around the counter. Real progress is being made here.

As I am going the expedite route, I instruct the nice lady that I want to send the renewal information via next day priority mail. I also want to have the passport sent back to me by next day priority mail after the renewal application is processed by the State Department. No problem. 2 Priority mail envelops appear. I fill in the first to send the passport renewal off to be processed. It identifies a receiving address somewhere in Philadelphia. The nice lady then hands me information to fill in the return envelop to have the new passport sent to me overnight. It has a sending address of the Thomas P O'Neil building in Boston. Hmm... my passport paperwork with my passport pictures are going to Philadelphia but my new passport is coming from Boston... interesting.. I detect the possibility of a a future so it goes!

Anyway, with the paperwork filled out, I give all of the material to the nice lady. She looks at me with confusion. "No.. you need to take this to one of the clerks at the front of the building to pay for everything." "OK", I respond. "Do you have a receipt I can give the clerk so I can pay for everything?" I ask. Oops.... "I need to write one up"..."No problem... just give it to me and I will give it to the clerk"..."No, I can't give it to you.. I will bring it directly to the clerk....you can meet us there"... deja vu... so it goes!

I gather my things and head back out to the front of the building. One of the clerks, an older gentleman, is busy. But the cute post office clerk is available. Things are looking up.

The nice lady from the bowels of the building appears. She heads to the older gentleman. oh oh... In perfect post office speak, he tells her he is busy so she goes over to the cute clerk... Score!.. at least the day is now a little brighter. We exchange pleasantries, I hand the cute clerk a $50, she hands me back almost $7 and the deal is done. According to the cute clerk, the State Department will have my renewal application by noon tomorrow. She gives me a tracking number to follow the package. The deal is done....I hope.

All told the process costs me $170 dollars including $60 for the actual renewal, $67 in expedite fees, $15 for vintage 1970 passport photos, and $28 in priority mail charges. Oh... I forgot.. also about an hour online hunting down the State Department information, an hour driving back and forth from Rutland, and about 45 minutes in the post office. By the end of April, if all goes well deep inside the government bureaucracy, I will have my new passport in hand... I hope... so it goes!

Walt gets a lift on the Bunny Buster Poma 

I had the opportunity to get out on the mountain for several hours this morning. Temperatures dipped last night into the low 20's. I was expecting firm and chattering surfaces for the early morning runs, but the mountain was surprisingly soft.

Today was a pretty simple ski day, a half a dozen or so runs limited to trails groomed last night. They included Rime, Reason, Great Northern, East Falls, Chute, Bunny Buster, Mouse Trap, and Superstar. In addition, others in the group skied Upper Skye Lark and Lower Bitter Sweet instead of doing Superstar.

All of the trails were very soft packed powder. The initial runs were on soft corduroy. Very quickly, however, the runs turned to soft little bumps as skier and rider traffic increased. Snow cover on all of the trails was generally excellent, with few exposed surfaces. The exception was Mouse Trap which has noticeable bare spots down skiers right. Skiers left on Mouse Trap was well covered.

Superstar was the most technically demanding. The upper headwall is turning to corn, but the pitch and cover still support broad sweeping turns. Middle Superstar and Lower Superstar were characterized by little, well spaced, soft bumps. Many turns were required to navigate Superstar after coming down the headwall, but all in all it was a good leg work out.

Temperatures are expected to stay near or above freezing most of the week. From what I saw today, I would expect surface conditions would continue in the spring skiing regime for the remainder of the week into the weekend. Let it snow!

The good news is that we have had a very busy weekend at the inn. I would have like to have gone up to the mountain this morning for a few pictures... but so it goes.

Overnight the Killington area was blanketed with several inches of heavy, wet snow. Around the inn, the net was around an inch, although todays above freezing temperatures are melting it fast.

Inn guests coming back to the inn to change out of their ski clothes before traveling home are reporting very soft and wet surface conditions on the mountain, consistent with what we are seeing around the inn. Spring skiing and riding has definitely arrived. The soft snow is getting our inn guests hearts pumping and legs burning. We should have a good week of cardiovascular skiing coming up at Killington. Let it Snow!

Friday afternoon I received an unusual call from the resort. We purchase guest ski packages from Killington through a process dubbed "elodge". The manager responsible for elodge, Rebecca, called the inn searching for one of our guests from the UK. It seems that the guest had unknowingly lost a small bag on the mountain. In the bag was over $700 in cash, plus a ticket receipt given to them when they went to a Killington ticket window to pick up their ski tickets we purchased for them as part of their "ski and stay" package.

What appears to have happened is that some time yesterday afternoon a Killington guest found the lost bag, and turned it into Killington Guest Services. At that point, a Killington employee, Patty, began the process of attempting to locate the owner of the bag by tracing the ski package receipt. Patty was able to track the receipt to our guests ski package, resulting in Rebecca calling us to contact our guests.

Late yesterday afternoon, our guests recovered their lost bag, and the cash they were planning to use on the rest of their Killington vacation. After they returned to the inn they told me "they will forever remember their trip to Killington. If we were at a European resort, the money would have been lost and our vacation ruined. Because of an honest guest at Killington, and the nice people working at the resort, our vacation was saved!"

Thank you Patty, Rebecca, and the anonymous Killington visitor for your honesty, and for helping out our inn guests from the UK. Let it Snow!

Sprint Freestyle Moguls Competition at Bear Mountain 

Yesterdays warm weather and early evening showers ate into the snow pack around the inn. Overall, the snow at the inn's snow stake declined by 6 inches yesterday. Such is spring in the mountains.

Today was singles mogul day at the US Sprint Freestyle Championship at Bear Mountain. The competition is held on Outer Limits, on the same bumps course that will be used next weekend for the Bear Mountain Mogul Challenge. I skied down OL this morning and stood up against the snow fence marking the course watching some of the initial warm up runs. It is quite a site to see, and hear, as the competitors go down the bumps course. I stood by one of the mid course ramps and took todays picture of one of the competitors taking air.

Around the mountain this morning conditions were variable. Trails that were exposed to sunshine were very soft. Trails that were shade covered had a thin crust on them. At Bear, I found Bear Trap and Bear Claw to be nicely covered with great carving snow. Lower Wildfire was getting really thin. Some areas of exposed mud are visible. If you see orange and black bamboo poles out of the slopes, take notice, because there is probably something lurking just beneath the surface.

On the Killington Peak side of things, Superstar was glazed over. If there were more traffic it probably would have been soft, but as it was it was glistening in the sun. The Canyons area looked nice from the K1. I did not ski it as I was only transiting back from Bear to where my car was parked. Great Northern, Rime, Chute, Bunny Buster, and Caper were all nicely soft, hero snow.

Overall, I spent about 90 minutes on the snow this morning, 30 of which were watching the Moguls Competition. I left wanting to ski some more, which is a good thing, but I needed to leave none the less to help get the inn ready for this weekends guests. Now if we would get 6 inches of snow tonight! (in my dreams) Let it Snow!

Pico Peak from Superstar at Killington
taken Tuesday March 20, 2007 

Spring has definitely arrived at Killington. Temperatures at the inn this morning are in the low 40's with hazy sunshine. The liquid precipitation which was predicted for last night and this morning has failed to materialize. (Once again the weather forecasters were wrong, but this time it is a good thing.) We will not have a chance to get to the mountain today for a few turns as we prepare for the upcoming weekend, but if the last 3 days were any clue, I am sure that conditions are still quite nice.

This weekend sees the US Freestyle Championships presented by Sprint being held at Bear Mountain. Todays competition starts with the Superpipe competition. The Moguls competition is to be held on Friday, Aerials Saturday and Duel Moguls on Sunday. Killington has posted a complete schedule on their website.

In other news, and somewhat unexpected given the pending sale of Killington/Pico by ASC to SP Land Company, it was announced that Pico Mountain will stay open an additional week this season. Originally scheduled to close this Sunday, March 25th, the local management team announced that due to receiving 34 inches of snow last weekend, that they will keep Pico open for skiing and riding an additional week, closing on Sunday April 1. (No this is not an early April fools joke).

Now if we could get another snow storm next week.... Let it Snow!