Killington Peak - major changes underway 

Summer time is always a period at Killington where change takes place. During the winter season the attentiveness to guests required by the level of business in the area, combined with the winter elements, make any substantive changes problematic. But in the summertime, while the mass of humanity is watching "Shark Week" on the Discovery Channel from their beach houses on Cape Cod, the Hamptons, of the Jersey Shore, changes take place in Killington.

In April, the Killington Resort announced their plans to replace the aging building on Killington Peak. The building was originally constructed as a Gondola Station, but more recently used as a base lodge and restaurant (although it is at 4200 feet) serving typical resort hamburger cuisine. Mother Nature and peoples tastes ravaged the building. Rightfully so, the Killington Resort recognized that change was required. And change we shall have.

Over the last 2 weeks, work crews have been taking aim at the peak lodge with various tools suited for high altitude demolition. This last week, after stripping the inside of the building of it's contents, the process began to tear down the building. The face of Killington will be forever changed. (My friend over at "Tales from a Female Ski Bum" has some good pictures of the demolition, if you are interested in the seeing the entrails of the Peak Lodge building being carted away for recycling.)

Killington Peak over the years. Click image to stop rotation. Click again to resume rotation.

Or course, change is important.... and in the case of the Killington Peak Lodge it is down right necessary. But while I was looking through some of the photos I have taken over the years we have lived in Killington, it hit me that a familiar icon that I have lived beside for a significant portion of my adult life, is undergoing a transition that will change it forever. The millions of photos that people have taken of Killington Peak since it became a major east coast destination ski resort over 50 years ago will now be "nostalgic" and "historic" versus "contemporary".

And I am ok with that.

It will be an interesting process over the next couple of years watching the landscape of Killington Peak being reshaped to a new vision which will dominate the local area for the next 50 years. The familiar will become the new. We will adapt as a new normal is being established.

The above photo gallery of Killington Peak is but a fraction of the pictures I have in my library. I hope you enjoy.

Where every you may be...stay cool, don't forget your sunscreen, and keep it in the fairway!

Flowers on the bridge on hole 6 at Green Mountain National Golf Course. 

Every year at this time I feel like I should be wearing a tee shirt with some pithy comment on it about Killington in July. For the last 9 months I had been working on the planning activities for last weekends Killington Wine Festival. No matter how much planning takes place, June and early July are crunch time for me leading up to the event. But it's done (for this year) and I have my "life" back for a few months, so to speak.

Along that note, I actually had the chance to play golf 3 days in a row. Sunday was the closing event for the Wine Festival, "Wine and Nine". Monday I played my first round in Green Mountain Nationals Presidents Cup (I beat my opponent 4 and 2). And Tuesday I had a chance for a casual round with friends.

Green Mountain National is in fantastic shape. The course has dried out nicely from the spring rains. The preparation for last months AJGA tournament kept the greens keepers on their toes to really manicure the course. Now that they have got it that way, it is pretty clear that they are determined to keep it that way. With the height of summer in the mix, flowers are in bloom all around the course. And if you hit an errant shot, you might still be able to find some wild blackberries in the woods, that is of course assuming the wild life in the Green Mountain National Forest around the course have not picked the berry bushes clean.

In addition to golf, Killington this coming weekend hosts the Eastern Cup Mountain Biking Competition with a series of downhill mountain bike races. The "Cooler in the Mountain" Concert series, after a great opening concert by Sean Kelly at the Wine Festival, continues this weekend with Ilo Ferreira, a Jimmy Buffet Protege and Barefoot Truth. The concert starts at 3:30 on Saturday. I have included links to their web sites. Check out some of their music.... It should be a great concert.

Where ever you may find yourself, stay cool, keep it in the fairway, and don't forget your sunscreen.

80 cases of wine waiting to be opened at this weekends Grand Tasting at the Killington Wine Festival 

The tent is pitched, the wine is delivered, guests are in route to Killington.... as I write this we are 2 hours away from the start of the 10 Annual Killington Wine Festival.

The festival kicks off this evening at the Killington Grand Hotel with an Estate Tasting of Fine Wines in Ovations Restaurant. The Estate Tasting runs from 6 to 8PM. It is followed by a "Pop Goes the Cork" party at the Killington Grand, beginning at 7:30 PM tonight.

At the K1 Base Lodge, final preparations have been made to host the Grand Tasting on Saturday afternoon. 80 cases of wine have been delivered for sampling. Tables have been set up under the tent. The Grand Tasting is open to the public at 12 noon with VIP tickets priced at $75 at the gate. General Admission begins at 1 PM with tickets available at the gate for $55. The Grand Tasting ends at 4 PM.

At the Grand Tasting, musical guest Sean Kelly from the Samples will be performing 2 sets. The first will start at 2:00 PM. The second will begin roughly at 4:00 PM.

If you are attending tomorrows Grand Tasting at K1, dress for comfort and , as they say, where sensible shoes. It should be a great afternoon of wine tasting and music at the base of Killington.

And last, but not least, at the Birch Ridge Inn Chef Frizzie is busy putting on the finishing touches on his "mise en place" to prepare for tomorrow nights wine dinner at the inn with Boyden Valley Winery. We have a great menu in place...I'm getting hungry (really a little thirsty) already!

Stay cool and "In Vino Veritas"

10th Annual Killington Wine Festival this weekend. 

All the planning work is done. The tent is up. The wine is being delivered tomorrow....lots of wine....cases and cases of wine....Chef Frizzie is putting the finishing touches on our wine tasting menu for our Wine Dinner with Boyden Valley Winery on Saturday night. (See our menu online for full details.) And Mother Nature looks like she is going to cooperate with warm temperatures, bright sunshine, and brilliant views of the mountains that make up Killington.

For the last few years I have lead the planning efforts at the Killington Chamber of Commerce to produce the Killington Wine Festival. We are now in our 10th year. (It's really hard to believe...10 years!) This year we have 42 different wineries and wine importers visiting Killington over the weekend to sample their wares.

While there are a lot of tasks that make up an event which hundreds of people attend, today was a milestone that had to be completed without a hitch....the raising of a huge tent (actually a series of tents) which will house the event at the base of Killington by the K1 Base Lodge. Here are a few pictures of the tent after it was raised:

The tent at the K1 Base Lodge to house this years Killington Wine Festival Click image to stop rotation. Click again to resume rotation.

The tent itself is actually 5 tents married together to cover 9600 square feet of space. When it is totally outfitted, it will hold 72 tables ranging from the obvious (wine from the various suppliers) to the sublime (water for hundreds of people).

If you are interested in attending the Wine Festival, tickets are still available through the Killington Chamber of Commerce either online or by calling 800-337-1928. At the inn, we still have a couple of rooms left which are available with our Killington Wine Festival Package which includes festival tickets and seats at the wine dinner at Birch Ridge on Saturday night. You can visit our reservation page, or call us at 800-435-8566 to make reservations.

We hope to see you this weekend in Killington. Where every you may be...stay cool, don't forget your sunscreen, and "In Vino Veritas!"

"The Bagel" on safari on the eleventh hole at Green Mountain National 

All this morning, delivery trucks are driving up and down the Killington Road visiting every establishment to get ready for Independence Day weekend and the kick off of the summer season at Killington. At the Birch Ridge Inn, for instance, we have had deliveries from 3 different beer and wine distributors, and 3 different food purveyors. And we are not alone in firing up our kitchen for the summer.

The Killington Resort begins it's operation today with the official opening of mountain bike season. The K1 Gondola is running, taking people to the top of Killington Peak. There should be some spectacular summer views from the Killington Peak walkway that the resort installed last fall.

Elsewhere in town, the golf courses are lush with all of the spring rain the area has received. I played yesterday with some friends at Green Mountain National Golf Course. While it was damp in a few predictable locations (Hole 4 for instance), overall the greens and fairways are in superb shape. Of course, my golf game needs a little work, but the summer is still early.

Stating the obvious, however, as todays picture shows, to enjoy the greens and fairways at Green Mountain National, you have to hit the ball on them. "The Bagel", demonstrating the fine art of the recovery shot, had a few errant shots during yesterdays round. Today's picture is of him on the 11th hole at Green Mountain. He hit his drive deep into the woods to the right of the tee, but before an area that is 'red staked". He found the ball, and was able to successfully hit it out of the woods into the fairway, setting up a third shot to the green on the 350 yard hole.

The restaurant at Birch Ridge reopens for the summer season tonight with dinner service this weekend on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evening starting at 6:00 PM. Next week we begin our normal summer dinner service with dinner Tuesday thru Saturday evenings. If you have a chance to visit Killington this weekend, stop on bye.

Where ever you may be, keep it in the fairway, and don't forget your sun screen!

6th Green at Killington Resort Golf Course with Killington and Skye Peaks in the background. 

A day without rain...YES!

It is hard to guess when summer will establish itself in Killington. Thus far this month the weather, work, and family health issues have conspired to limit my time on the golf course. Other than the year I was out of action with a torn up shoulder, I doubt I have posted fewer scores in June (only 2 this year) since moving to Killington and becoming an innkeeper. Hopefully, as a new weather pattern gets established, that should all change.

Weather or not, and that is not a typo, the commercial part of the summer season in Killington is rapidly approaching. Inn guests are starting to randomly arrive at the inn from various points around the globe as they begin their summer vacations. Chef Frizzie is back at work, getting the restaurant ready to re-open for the summer season this Friday. (Can you believe that this coming Friday is July 1st?) Projects around the inn are being completed. Today, for instance, it was cleaning the carpet in the Great Room. Planning is taking place for other projects to be completed before the arrival of the fall season in late September. It has actually been a pretty busy spring.

One of the projects I have been working on is a new mobile website for the inn. A while ago I changed the blog to properly display on mobile devices with some custom designed software. The state of the art in software technology has continued to changed. For those of you who are technically inclined, there are any number of "frameworks" that can serve as a foundation for web development. For the mobile version of birchridge.com, I am using a framework based upon JQuery called, appropriately enough, JQuery Mobile.

If you are interested in looking at our mobile website and use an IOS or Android based mobile phone, you can go directly to birchridge.com and you should be routed to the mobile site. Otherwise, you can visit m.birchridge.com and visit the site directly. (If you visit the site on a desktop or laptop computer, you can shrink the width of the browser window you are using to simulate what the screen would look like on a mobile phone.) Its just a start, and more work will undoubtedly be done on our web sites in the coming weeks and months, but as is said in proper Bostonian...ya gotta start somewhaare...

With the July 4th weekend coming, we do plan on being out on the course a few times this week(weather permitting). The rain we have received has left the Green Mountains a resplendent emerald shade. Just perfect for a walk in the woods, or a stroll down the fairway.

Where ever you may be, keep it in the fairway, and don't forget your sun screen!

Killington Wine Festival planned for July 22-24, 2011 

In fits and starts, summer is gaining a foot hold in Killington.

The last bits of snow are barely visible on the upper Superstar headwall. A few hardy souls, our assistant Merisa among them, have been hiking almost daily for the final turns of the season. She has written about them on her blog, "Tales from a Female Ski Bum".

Around the inn, Mary is in full swing planting the gardens. The perennial beds have mostly been cleaned out. Annuals are starting to appear in strategic locations. And bark mulch is just about every where.

I have been focusing my time writing some software for a project you will hear about in a couple of weeks, and working on planning this years edition of the Killington Wine Festival.

This year, the Killington Wine Festival celebrates it's 10th Anniversary with a 3 day event from July 22 thru July 24th. The event kicks off on Friday the 22nd with and "Estate Tasting" of fine wines at the Killington Grand Hotel. On Saturday, July 23rd, the "Grand Tasting" takes place in tents outside of the K1 Base Lodge at the Killington Resort. The Birch Ridge Inn will be hosing our 10th Annual Wine Festival Dinner in the evening of the 23rd. The festival closes with the "Bubbly Brunch" and "Wine and Nine" on Sunday the 24th. The "Bubbly Brunch" will take place at Wally's restaurant on the Killington Road. "Wine and Nine" will be held Sunday afternoon at the Green Mountain National Golf Course.

More information about the Wine Festival, including online advance ticket purchasing, can be found by visiting the Killington Chamber of Commerce's wine festival web page. Of course, at the Birch Ridge Inn, we are offering a complete set of Wine Festival Packages including lodging, tickets and dinner, for the event. Follow the link to birchridge.com for more information on wine festival packages from Birch Ridge.

Where ever you may be, keep it in the fairway, and don't forget your sun screen!