Killington peak under assault from snow guns.

Killington peak under assault from snow guns.

By the time your read this, I hope you find this as old news. The Killington Resort is set to open on Saturday October 29 2011 at 10:00 AM for the 2011-2012 winter sports season.

As I write this blog for Friday at 1:30 AM on Saturday, I am excited that the season will be getting underway. We have had a very short period of time between the end of Fall Foliage season (we still have fall guests this weekend) and they start of ski season. So short in fact, that most of the leaves from the trees around the property are still on the lawn, now nicely buried under 6 inches of snow. (And I hope the storm predicted for Saturday night puts them under until next May, the lawn be damned.)

I am usually very punctual and timely about announcing the opening of Killington to blog readers, but this morning I found myself way out of position to get to my computer to type out the story. The Resort did contact the inn early this morning with the news and a reasonable request to delay the story until they had a chance to let other people know. When that happened, however, I was already gone for the day to Rutland (more on that in subsequent blog posts). Mary texted me from her new iPhone 4S,(She is really starting to get used to her new phone) so I got the message very quickly...but without the ability to act on it.

Prior to heading out this morning, I did drive up to the resort to check out the scene. With the snow Thursday evening, and the announcement that the resort was blowing snow overnight, it was a pretty good bet that the resort would be opening for the weekend. Thursday when I went to the K1 Base Lodge, there was a lot of heavy equipment being moved around, still working to repair damage from Hurricane Irene. This morning, the equipment was parked out of harms way, and the work area was swathed in Killington Logo Snow Fence. All strong clues that the resort was getting ready.

In addition to the 6-10 inches of natural snow that fell on the Resort Thursday evening, snow making operations were actively blanketing Killington Peak. Great Northern and Rime were clearly under the gun with the clear intention of being the first trails open. The snow making cloud on Killington Peak was quite impressive, as todays blog picture highlights. It is all the more impressive, given some of the damage the resort sustained from Mother Nature in late August. Suffice to say, the art of making snow at Killington requires hundreds of miles of pipe for water and compressed air, not to mention some serious air compressors and water pumps. The resort clearly did a great job assembling the necessary equipment to get the job done to support a late October season opening.

If you do come to Killington for opening weekend, be aware that the resort is telling us that there will be skiing and riding on Rime only. The resort is rating the early season terrain as "Advanced" and "un-groomed". This is not the weekend to bring your novice friend out for a few runs on the snow. The resort will operate from 10 to 4 on Saturday and 9 to 4 on Sunday. The K-1 Gondola will provide uploading and downloading, while access from the top of the K-1 Gondola down and up from the skiing and riding terrain will be via a short walk on the Peak Walkway.

For those of you making early season turns this weekend, have fun! Let it snow!!!