Killington Peak, bathed in beautiful sunshine!

Killington Peak, bathed in beautiful sunshine!

Dear Chris:

What are you guys doing to our beloved mountain?

Mary and I left this morning well before 9:00 AM to catch the first chair with some friends from New England (you know... that place with the football team which is going to win this years Superbowl). We had our skis prepared razor sharp, expecting to be skiing on a surface that was tinted a light blue, to match todays beautiful sunny sky. Instead of the ribbons of ice we were expecting, although our bartender Merisa says "it's not ice if there are no fish under it" (by the way, where did you put all the fish??)...err... I lost my track. Instead of skiing on a frozen block of blue ice this morning, everywhere we turned we found multiple inches of machine groomed loose granular. What tha... how is this possible?

We started out on the Superstar Chair. Superstar looked tempting with it's perfectly groomed corduroy. But instead we decided to head to the Stash. We dove right in, although it was perhaps not the most prudent thing to do...but instead of sheets of shining blue and gray, we found snow? Lots and lots of snow? I thought it r@!Ned on Wednesday??

From the Stash we next did Outer Limits. The run in from Wildfire was more like what we were expecting all day... a pure slide for life....keep em pointed down hill you chicken s@!t.... But once we got through the gauntlet into OL proper, again machine groomed granular all over the place. Sure it was very firm under foot. Sure our toenails were curled through the bottom of our ski boots to get extra grip on our ski's. That's the way it should be on the steepest ski trail in the North East. But every turn on OL raised a cloud of powder into the air. Not ice chips...Powder... how is this possible?

We then decided to try out the new terrain park on Lower Dream Maker. Upper Dream Maker is nasty with not enough natural, so we bolted down Upper Skyburst to the Middle Dream Maker entrance. We have seen this area of the mountain look like it would be better suited for ice fishing shanties in years gone by...but more machine groomed granular. I did not know there was even enough snow to work the surface over there, let alone make it white and pliable. The guys did a really nice job on the park in Lower Dream Maker. The "whoop di does" were fun to roll over.

We continued our search for light blue ice on Cruise Control, Needles Eye, Bitter Sweet, High Road, Sky Lark, Superstar, Cascade, Rime, Reason, Great Northern, and Highline. We did find a little of the North Easts world famous ice at the base of Cascade at the junction with Double Dipper, so we finally had a chance to put the sharp edges of our skis to the test. But other than that, snow everywhere.... how is this at all possible?

What ever your guys are doing, keep it up. We saw lots of smiling faces today in the base lodge when we left just after noon. I don't know how you are turning what should be in a cocktail glass into something you can ski on... but thank you.

Let it snow!!!