Ceremonial removal of the Vacancy sign at the Birch Ridge Inn

Ceremonial removal of the Vacancy sign at the Birch Ridge Inn

Boom!

Sometimes you miss... sometimes you score. Killington scored big the last couple of days with a big snow storm to bring holiday cheer to skiers and riders alike.

A foot of fresh snow fell at the inn, with 19 inches being reported from the top of Killington Peak. Snow shoes were required footwear today as we took down our vacancy sign for the inn to align with all of our rooms being sold out for the weekend.

Even though it is a holiday week, I ventured out into the storm yesterday for a few runs at 8:00 AM, meeting up with Ruts and "The Bagel" at the K1 base lodge. In the early morning, wind gusts to 50 MPH had the K1 Gondola on wind hold. The tried and true fixed grip Snowdon Quad got us up for the first run of the day, down Upper Royal Flush to Highline. Conditions were, shall we say, life threatening for those who were unprepared to deal with the wind and the blowing and drifting snow. But in our all terrain gear we were more than warm and toasty as we negotiated the wind blown whales littering the headwall on Highline.

With the Superstar Quad opening while we were coming down Highline, we decided to go further south to Bear Mountain. Our first runs were on nominally tracked fresh powder down Sky Burst. Even in the height of the storm, the resort was making snow on Wild Fire. We did a couple of loops, including one interesting run through the Viper Pit, before I needed to leave the boyz to get back to the inn and a days worth of snow removal. I finished with a run down Skylark. Except for extremely poor visibility in blowing and drifting snow, the run was still relatively pure, with ski tracks from previous skiers and riders being filled in quickly by the blowing snow.

Yesterday was not a picture day, as the conditions in the early morning hours were not good for camera work.(I am sure some people got some nice shots in the afternoon as the wind started to die down). But to show you what conditions were like, I did shoot one short video clip which I have posted on Youtube. You can click the box below to see it.

Where ever you are, Mary and I hope that you are having a nice holiday week.

Let it snow!