Needles Eye in the snow

Needles Eye in the snow

While our thoughts go out to those down south who are still dealing with last weekend Blizzard, Killington has barely skipped a beat.

At the inn, last week had effectively 3 Saturdays between the onslaught of people arriving at the resort on Thursday, the group of people who were here all day Friday and our normal mid-winter Saturday. From a business perspective...it is a wonderful thing.

Guests in town were decidedly skiers and riders. Where over the Christmas snow storms I needed to shuttle a half dozen guest cars up a snow covered Butler Road to reach the inn, this weekend I needed to shuttle nada. All of our guests, for the most part, were accomplished in driving in snow. I always say the "Skiers Ski!", and with states of emergency declared in New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts, the refugees escaping the storm were definitely skiers and riders. All wheel drive SUV's and Thule ski boxes were the weapons of choice to escape the storm. And they all made it to the mountain to ski through the storm on Friday.

On the mountain..the resort got the goods. 12 to 15 inches of snow blanketed the resort in medium weight powder. The storm was not champagne powder by any respect, but it also was not Sierra Cement. The consistency was somewhat in the middle. Trails exposed to the wind saw some wind packing and slab development. Trails protected from the wind featured nice, soft freshies, assuming, of course, you got to the trails before they were skied out.

I was on the mountain Friday, Saturday (in the line for first chair) and today. As mentioned last week, Friday was characterized as 3 to 5 inches of new snow on top of hard pack. Saturday was over a foot of new snow with the early morning race to get to your spot before anyone else could find it. Today was soft groomed cruisers. Of course, a foot of new snow does not eliminate all of the thin spots. Natural trails were pretty tracked out today. Trails with active snow making (most of the resort) are in great shape. The resort is even continuing to make snow, with snow guns going all day Sunday on Superstar.

Today, while we were at the resort, we experienced some more new snow and a very brief period of "Wintery Mix". Not enough to do any damage to the ski trails, but just enough to candy coat our goggles as we were heading down Superstar to get back to the car. The weather pattern the rest of the week looks like there will be several opportunities to add to the snow pack. And that is a great thing with Presidents Weekend on tap.

Now if we could get the governor of Massachusetts to declare on Wednesday morning that he will be shutting down the state on Thursday afternoon... Oh Boy!

Let it snow!