Mary emerging from snow guns on upper Skye Lark

Mary emerging from snow guns on upper Skye Lark

It is just amazing what the Killington operations team can do with cold weather, water, compressed air, a fleet of grooming machines and a little help from Mother Nature.

We were on the mountain today at exactly 9:00 AM for very close to the first chair up Superstar. While Superstar looked tempting, we decided to take our first run through the features in "The Stash". Impeccably groomed, we carved turn after turn all the way from the backside of Superstar to the Outer Limits Quad. Wow!

On Bear Mountain, the Stash, Bear Claw, Skye Burst, and Lower Wildfire were all beautiful soft corduroy. Carving turn after carving turn with nary a sideslip, we enjoyed runs off the OL and Skye Peak Quads for over an hour before heading over to Needles Eye. Outer Limits and Upper Wildfire were not groomed and looked rather un-skiable. Upper Wildfire was roped off. I can't speak for ropes on OL, other than we only saw one (poor) soul on it in the time we were at Bear. The Stash, middle and lower Wildfire, Bear Claw, and Upper Skye Burst all skied well under traffic. Lower Skye Burst did turn from a tight corduroy to a loose groomed granular after about 45 minutes. But it was warm(mid 20's), sunny, and a great day to be on the slopes.

From Bear we headed to the Needles Eye pod for skiing on Cruise Control, Needles Eye, Bitter Sweet, and High Road. Cruise Control had a nice tight groom that was great for carving. Needles Eye was slightly more granular, with minimal side slipping on turns. Snow guns were running on Bitter Sweet; softening up the surface from the Needles Eye lift down to the merge with High Road. High Road back to Needles Eye had patches of shaved ice and loose groomed granular. Unlike the terrain at Bear, High Road did require more attention due to the variability of the surface. But aren't you supposed to pay attention while on the slopes?

Moving across to Skye Lark and Superstar, we picked up some more people and additional snow guns. Snowmaking operations were taking place on Skye Lark from the top down to near the High Road junction. The sides under the snow guns skied great. The middle still had slick spots, as one would expect; the remnants of last weekends deluge. Lower Skylark was great, with a firm but pliant surface that was very receptive to some medium to high speed carving. Superstar, by now (11 AM) had softened considerably. The upper headwall and middle Superstar were still corduroy. Skier traffic had turned Lower Superstar into a mosh pit of loose groomed granular. It was by far the most difficult stretch of terrain on the mountain we skied this morning.

After Superstar we boosted to Killington Peak on the K1 Gondola. Snow guns were firing on Cascade, which we decided to pass on. Down Draft and Double Dipper looked interesting. Not sure if the terrain was difficult or the caliber of the people on them were not right. But we saw a lot of interesting moves when we took the Double Dipper quad. East Fall, Rime and Reason skied beautifully. East Fall proper was flat and fast. The drop in was interesting because the trail was in deep shadow, un-touched by morning sunshine. The old eyes quickly adjusted, however, resulting in a fast schuss downhill with relatively few turns.

Great Northern to the Snowdon Quad was in nice shape with some spot snowmaking taking place. Mousetrap was groomed flat edge to edge. I don't think I have seen Mousetrap so wide ever before, as there is usually a gnarly bumped up area on skiers right. Chute was getting lots of snowmaking love to cover the glacial ice that developed last weekend. Once the groomers push it around, Chute should be in great shape.

All in all it was a very nice day on the slopes. We did 16 runs in a little under 3 hours basically skiing lift to lift with no lines. I mentioned to my friend Ruts that I felt I could have stayed out until 4, except for work needing to be done around the inn to complete preparations for this coming weekend. It was that nice.

If you are coming to Killington this weekend, have a safe trip and plan to be on the slopes early. The resort is ready for a nice weekend on the slopes, and Mother Nature looks like she will also add some new snow to the party.

Let it snow!