Light snow falling on Skyburst at Killington.

Light snow falling on Skyburst at Killington.

After the constant high level of activity the last few weeks, skiing this morning at a relatively empty Killington resort in light snow was a welcomed break. Mondays tend to have reduced skier and rider traffic on the mountain, and with a snow storm bearing down on the area, and the Superbowl on tap for next weekend, today was no exception.

We arrived at the resort just after 9:00 AM, parking just steps away from the K1 Gondola. High overcast covered the area. Midway up the mountain, where the gondola crosses Cascades, a very fine, light, snow started to fall. The advance of the storm was just crossing Killington Peak. Snow would be with us on the mountain for the rest of our time out this morning.

We traversed off Killington Peak to Bear Mountain on what is now called Bear Trax. It was quite nice. 2 solitary skiers just carving simple turns in the 1/2 inch of light fluff that was covering the freshly groomed trail. We literally encountered no one until we hit the junction of Bear Claw and Skyburst. Skyburst was being fed with skiers and riders from Bear Mountain by the Skye Peak quad. Bear Claw was groomed flat; ready to accept the snow that is predicted to fall all day.

From the Bear Claw / Skyburst Junction we took Lower Wildfire. A lonely snow gun was pumping out some powder in the 12 degree temperatures just as the trail tilted down towards Outer Limits. It was doing a great job laying down a carpet of fresh snow down the fall line of Lower Wildfire.

We lapped Bear Claw, the Stash, and Skyburst several times off the Skye Peak quad before heading over to Dream Maker. The resort has just completed a new terrain park on middle Dream Maker between the old Snowshed Crossover and the Superpipe. While we did not do any rails, the peaks and ramps did provide a lot of entertainment value as we skied down the trail. We did need to take the cut off over to Lower Skyburst as the area around the Superpipe is not completed. A grooming machine was sculpting lower Dream Maker between the Skyburst cutoff and the top of the pipe. The pipe itself looks a little sparse, as the resort has not yet made any significant snow in it to get it operating.

From Dream Maker we did several laps on Needles Eye and Cruise Control. Both were groomed relatively flat. Thin cover exists on skiers right on Needles Eye and Lower Cruise Control, so a little care needed to be taken while skiing right of the trails centerline. But with that exception both trails were in excellent shape.

We did experience a couple of hiccups on the Skyship during several of the runs. We decided that we would take the Northbrook Quad, aka "The Chair to Nowhere", on one of our loops to avoid getting stuck. I had a minor altercation with a ski poll at the top of Northbrook. I have a habit of sitting on my poles on chair lifts. The strap of one of my poles got stuck on the chair. When I tried to get off, no go. The pole wound up snapping in 2 as I exited the chair. What a herb... So it goes....

We closed out the morning with some loops off the Superstar quad. Bittersweet and Skylark were well covered. Guns were still making snow on Superstar. There is a huge mound at the top of Superstar as you get off the chair. The resort has clearly been taking advantage of the very cold temperatures of the last 10 days to bank snow around the resort. It is a wonderful thing to see for those of us who enjoy skiing late into the spring.

Let it snow!