Your truly with the prize!
The Christmas Tree for 2006 

The Monday after Thanksgiving holds a special place for Mary and I in Vermont. We refer to it as 'Christmas Tree Monday". Each year, in late October - early November, we trek out into the woods to find a Christmas Tree to take home. On the Monday after Thanksgiving, I gather some friends, and with chain saw in hand, we go back to the marked tree and cut it for that years Christmas Tree. We started the tradition before we owned the inn while living in Massachusetts, and have carried it over each year since we moved to Vermont.

Cutting down the Inn's Christmas Tree for 2006. Billy B - left, Yours truly - right, and Peter doing the honors.

This year, four of us went out into the woods to get this years tree. Now lest you think we are taking wild Vermont trees, the woods actually are located on a retired Christmas Tree farm where the owner still allows us to take trees. Peter from the Forerunner Ski Shop provided the transportation, I navigated, Billy B brought the rope to tie the trees to the truck, and Howie manned the camera to take pictures of the event.

Raising the Inn's Christmas Tree for 2006. From left, Billy B, Yours truly, Peter and Howie. Mary was on the camera.

Standing in the forest, this years tree stood about 16 feet. Trimmed out and standing in the Inn's great room, it measures 13 feet 5 inches. Billy B and Peter both got trees about the same size, with the plan to trim them down to around 10 feet at home. Over the next couple of days, Mary will be decorating the tree, along with the inn, to prepare for the Christmas season. For those of you visiting the Killington area, the tree should be just about finished being decorated by this coming Friday if you want to stop bye and see it.

Part of the festivities associated with Christmas Tree Monday is a nice lunch. This year we visited Sushi Yoshi for some chinese food. While there, we spoke with several locals who had journeyed out to the mountain this morning to ski. From the local reports, the mountain is still holding up reasonably well from the weekend. Warm temperatures had created some very soft surfaces. Some area's had thin cover. The forecast in the area calls for warm temperatures the next couple of days. Towards the end of the week, temperatures should become more seasonable and allow the resort to resume snowmaking.

Skiers and Riders on Lower Bunny Buster 

The 2006/2007 ski season has gotten off with a bang at Killington this Thanksgiving weekend. Killington opened on Thursday morning with top to bottom skiing and riding on 16 trails for over 6 miles of skiing serviced by 7 lifts. While it is a far cry from the amount of terrain that Killington sports mid-winter, as is usually the case for Killington, it is the most terrain open in the north east of any ski resort in North America.

Yesterday, the rumor number around town was that over 7000 skiers and riders made the trek to the slopes. Traffic diversion road blocks were set up around the ski resort to direct traffic to inactive base lodge parking lots and awaiting shuttle busses to bring people to the K1 base lodge. Our inn and restaurant were very busy on Friday...and more importantly, the guests that went skiing or riding reported at the bar last night that they had a good time on the slopes. All in all, a great start to the season. Now if it would only snow!

Cornucopia Treat for Thanksgiving 

Mary and I wish all of you a very happy Thanksgiving from Killington. Later this afternoon, Mary and I will be blessed to be able to sit down and share a Thanksgiving meal with many of our Killington friends. We hope that you are as fortunate as well. Happy Thanksgiving!

The Killington Ski Resort opened today for skiing and riding for the 2006-2007 winter season.

Skiers and Riders on Mouse Trap at Killington

Skiing and Riding today was serviced from 6 lifts including the K1 Gondola, North Ridge Triple, Snowdon Triple, Bunny Buster Poma and 2 small lifts at the children's learning center at Rams Head. While I did not have a chance to ski today because the inn is busy with Thanksgiving guests, I did speak with several locals who were at the lifts at 8:00 AM. They said that they were very happy with the early morning experience, and that Killington had done a great job blowing snow over all of the surfaces they skied. Hopefully, I will be able to get some better pictures of the action on Friday.

Snow making continuing at Killington 

Killington's snow makers are finishing up their activities today to get the resort ready to open tomorrow morning at 8:00AM. Killington will open for top to bottom skiing. From the looks at the K1 base lodge area, Killington should have at least 3 lifts operating; the K1 Gondola, the Snowdon Quad and the North Ridge Triple. It also looks like they would be able to run the Snowdon Triple (but I am speculating).

For all our friends out there, have a safe and Happy Thanksgiving!

Snow Guns blasting Lower Bunny Buster 

From the looks of the mountain this morning, the snowmaking system at Killington was in high gear last night. Temperatures dropped to the high teens/low twenties over night setting up perfect conditions for blanketing Killington in new snow.

At 8:15 this morning, the temperature at the K1 base lodge was 22. From what I could see, snowmakers over night had completely covered the Great Northern route from Kpeak down to Lower Bunny Buster. I walked up Lower Bunny Buster under the guns this morning. Snow depths were any where from ankle deep to many feet, depending upon ones proximity to a snow gun. Conditions were not yet skiable for the general population, due to the variability of snow cover. However, another day of making snow and some action by the groomers should take care of that in pretty short order to allow Killington to open on Thursday.

Local forecasts would imply that Killington should be able to continuously make snow at higher elevations during the day today. Temperatures are due to dip into the low 20's again tonight allowing another night of all out snow making on Killington.

Killington turning white to start the ski season. 

Stunning! Beautiful! Gorgeous!

No, I am not talking about some young lady that visited the bar last night.. I am talking about how the mountain looked this morning as I drove on to Killington Road to take my morning pictures. At a ski resort, there is nothing that can get your level of anticipation up more than to see a mountain covered in a frosty white blanket, snow guns blasting, lifts turning....Just beautiful!

Today's picture is a panorama taken around 9:45 AM. Double click on the picture to display it full size in your browser window.

The Killington Resort is pushing hard to get open. Current public statements indicated that they will be open for top to bottom skiing and riding starting Thanksgiving day at 8:00 AM. The ski season is almost here at last!

Solitary snow gun in operation at K1 Base Lodge 

When I went up to the mountain this morning, I had this strange feeling of deja vu. Perhaps I have done too much reading in life, so my mind races to create connections, but the scene at the K1 base lodge this morning could have come directly from a ski town version of "The Mouse that Roared".

In a brave act of defiance, the Killington resort has declared war against Mother Nature. For those of you who need an update on "The Mouse that Roared", it is a story about the Duchy of Grand Fenwick. This little principality decided that the only way for it to get out of it's economic woes was to declare war on the United States. It knew that in any battle that it would lose. But it also knew that in the process it's economy would be rebuilt due to the American peoples largess to provide economic assistance to any country suffering from the ravages of war. Such is the stage that has been set this morning as Killington wages a similar battle with Mother Nature.

When I arrived at the K1 base lodge, the temperature in my car read 34 degrees. The air was thick with a very cold overcast. The cloud deck was down below 3000 feet. Heavy frost is forming on all of the trees only a couple of hundred feet higher than the base lodge. And here was this solitary snow gun just blasting away. The noise from it was fantastic; the air pressure blasting the water stream seemed to be set incredibly high, probably to compensate for the high relative temperature at the base lodge.

The one solitary snow gun will not do much in the short run to get the resort open. But it clearly was putting a marker down. It clearly was a statement of defiance to Mother Nature that Killington is committed to have snow to open, no matter what it takes at this point. It will be an interesting week as we see how the story of opening the ski resort for the 2006/2007 season unfolds. Will Killington's massive snow making machine allow it to overcome, at least in the short term, the torment thrown it's way by Mother Nature? Or will Killington lose the battle, only to have Mother Nature relent and provide us with a blanket of natural snow? An interesting week indeed!