Ruts and The Bagel on the top of Bear Mountain on a bluebird day

Ruts and The Bagel on the top of Bear Mountain on a bluebird day

Pow!

No... we are not talking 70's Batman striking out at the Joker.... We are talking Powder at Killington.

While the storm that hit the area the last couple of days does not rate "Epic", it did provide the best skiing of the year today at Killington. Over the course of 2 days, almost 6 inches of new snow had fallen around the inn as measured at the snow stake. Much more fell on the higher elevations of the Killington Ski Resort. Because of winds associated with the storm exiting the area, most of the ski trails on the mountain were groomed flat, with vestigial amounts of soft snow primarily wind blown along the trail edges. But the woods were a different story...shin deep in most places... and it was nice, soft, fluffy powder.

The ski day today started at 8:00 AM... which is a stretch for me on a Sunday morning after a busy Saturday night at the inn. But the 6 inch rule was in effect, so off to the mountain I went to meet the boyz. They were a little surprised to see me, as I had not made it to the hill the previous 2 days. Late Presidents week guests were "enjoying" the Great Room selection of spirits at the inn till the early morning hours, keeping me on mattress mountain on Friday and Saturday morning. But my alarm dutifully went off at 7:10 this morning, so off to the mountain I went.

Snow scenes from around Killington Vermont, February 26, 2012 Click image to stop rotation. Click again to resume rotation.

We started the day with a tactical error, for a powder day. We headed out the Superstar Quad to Bear Mountain. All of the trails at Bear Mountain were basically groomed flat. We did the requisite number of runs (Outer Limits, Wild Fire, Bear Claw, The Stash, and Sky Burst), most of them a couple of times, before we said enough was enough and started searching for some softer stuff. We first found some on Old Needles Eye.

Mind you, I have not skied Old Needles Eye in probably 15 years, it being the site of my first shoulder separation skiing on another powder day a long, long, time ago. The entrance on the right of Old Needles was wind scoured clean. Ruts was the first to dive in, giving us a nice slip boom to watch to help build our confidence. But the entrance on skiers left was filled with the nice, soft, "good stuff"; making the way into the trail a delight. I followed a line down the left side, close to the tree line. It was nice, soft powder, over some residual crusty bumps. Actually, a lot of fun!

From there we did some laps on Cruise Control, Bitter Sweet, and High Road, as Needles Eye was closed for racing. By then we had had enough of the groomers, so off we went in search of some more pow.

We traversed across the mountain to some select woods that The Bagel knew about. The entrance was very tight. I might have missed it totally, if they had not stopped to enter single file. In the trees, the storm had dumped 10 inches of powder. Most of the time the snow was mid shin deep, with some deeper shots in some of the troughs. This is why we ski all winter; for a few runs in the powder in the solitude of the trees. Needless to say, the tree runs were do overs. The entrance was sufficiently hidden that we were the only people in this particular stash at that point in the day.

After a lower tree run near the Snowdon Quad, and a run down Great Bear (which was also filled with powder), we called it a day with a last run down Upper Royal Flush to Highline. Just a magnificent day of skiing in bright sunshine and fresh snow. With luck, we still have many more days like this to go in this strange ski season.

Let it snow!