Snow making operations underway at Killington 

Twig season is well established and holding on at Killington. But that has not stopped the resort from attempting to enhance the gifts Mother Nature has delivered (or not) to the area.

The persistent cold weather has allowed the resort to continuously make snow the last 2 days, substantially refreshing the surfaces which were depleted by warm temperatures earlier in the week.

From the K1 Base area, snow making was visible all across Killington Peak down through Snowdon back to the K1 Base. The resort is clearly making snow at all elevations to provide top to bottom skiing and riding this weekend. Snowmaking was also taking place in and out of Rams Head along Caper and Lower Great Northern, to allow further lift serviced skiing from the Rams Head base lodge.

With cool temperatures and bright sunshine predicted for Saturday, it should be a good weekend at Killington for some early season turns.

Let it snow!!!

Birch Ridge Inn Network Design 

Cold weather has finally returned to Killington. Of course the real question is will it stick around. But at least today we have returned to more seasonable temperatures worthy of a ski resort in December.

After an early season thaw, accompanied by non-crystaline precipitation (NCP) at the lower elevations, most of the snow in the region below 3000 feet is now flowing through Vermont's Irene enlarged river system headed towards the Atlantic. Killington had suspended top to bottom skiing and riding for a couple of days while they focused their snow making operations on the upper elevations. But the return of cold temperatures has allowed them to make snow on the lower elevations and resume skiing and riding all the way to the K1 Base Lodge today.

Around the inn, under the theory that the more we get done now, the more time we will have for skiing later, we continue to work to get ready for the winter season and the Christmas Holidays. The last couple of rooms had their carpets cleaned today; Chef Frizzie has been working to create the menu for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day; and I have been working on all things internet.

Yesterday I completed the "Winterization" of birchridge.com and our mobile site m.birchridge.com. The work on our web sites never really stops, but changing out the looks for the seasons in just something I feel needs to be done to help represent our inn online.

I have also been spending a fair amount of time working to tune the inns communication network. A major redesign to the inns Internet Network has been completed with the addition of a new DSL line, and new routing and wifi equipment. Birch Ridge, of course, offers Free Wifi to our guests over our network. As more of our guests arrive at the inn with internet connected devices, we have had to continuously upgrade and refine the network topology and capacity to meet demand. The new design is actually transitional itself, as we prepare to have fiber brought into the inn by our telecommunications provider (Vermont Telephone) next spring.

Of course, Mary has not just been standing around either. She has made really good progress on decorating the inns 15 1/2 foot Christmas tree. About the top 8 feet of the tree is decorated. With a tree that large, it needs to be decorated in stages with multiple ladders moving around the tree. She took a well deserved break today to visit Boston to celebrate her fathers birthday. Tree decorating resumes tomorrow, and will continue through most of the weekend.

The return of cold temperatures to Killington means the resort will be continuously making snow on the slopes. Mother Nature has both giveth and taken away during this years early ski season. Hopefully she settles down, keeps temperatures cold, and gives us lots of the white stuff for the rest of the season.

Let it snow!!!

The 2011 Birch Ridge Inn Christmas Tree standing in the Great Room waiting to be decorated. 

Yesterday was the 14th annual "Christmas Tree Monday" at the Birch Ridge Inn. Once again, we were successful in our efforts to find the perfect Christmas Tree to stand in our Great Room during the holiday season. Below you will find a video on Youtube with a little vignette following all of us on Christmas Tree Monday 2011...Enjoy!

......Let it snow!

Now that's some Black Friday shopping you can raise a glass too! 

The turkey left overs are all properly stored. (Mary is making hot turkey sandwiches for lunch!) The turkey bones are in the pot bubbling away to create a stock. And I had sticky buns for breakfast. Must be Black Friday.

At the inn, we do our part to keep the economy moving. In a delightful quirk of fate, one of the wine shows I attended early in the month had their deliveries scheduled for today. Black Friday presents began arriving early this morning, waiting to be inventoried, binned in the cellar and posted on the wine list. I know what I am doing this afternoon. Now for a little more turkey!

If you are in Killington this weekend, and looking for a bite to eat other than turkey, the restaurant and Great Room at the inn are open for dinner service tonight and tomorrow night starting at 6:00 PM. Enjoy your Thanksgiving Weekend!

Let it snow!!!

May you have a Happy Thanksgiving 

It seems like every year is a little more chaotic than the last. If you studied physics, this is called "entropy", where the universe tends to expand from order to disorder. I prefer a simpler explanation. I call it "Life"!

Even though 2011 may be a strange year, Mary and I have a lot to be thankful for. Here is the short list:

1. We have each other. Through up and down, that has been a constant for many years.
2. We have our parents. Many of our friends of our generation are not as lucky. We appreciate the gift.
3. We have very supportive families. They thought we were a little nuts when we struck out on our own and moved to Vermont 14 years ago, and maybe they were a little right, but they have hung in there with us.
4. We have great employees who "get it"! Without them, we would not be in business in Killington.
5. We have a large cadre of friends. They are there for us when we are joyful, when we need help, when we have ideas that need 'sanity checking", when we just want to talk, when we want to raise a toast or three.
6. We have a large "family" of guests who have stayed with us in Killington and/or dined with us in our restaurant. Many have become good friends along the way. Others have told their friends about us and helped grow our business. For this we are grateful.
7. We live in a strong community that cares. Like any family, there are arguments among factions from time to time, but when it really counts, like when Hurricane Irene struck, everybody pulled together and just knew what to do.

As we enter the holiday season at the end of 2011 we have much to be thankful for. We hope you do as well.

Let it snow!!!

Mary sculpting snow off of her car at Birch Ridge 

Oh boy! What a day...

After yesterdays expedition out on the slopes, it was obvious that my aged boots were just a little too comfortable. Who knew we were going to get almost a foot of snow overnight!

Snow started falling last night plus or minus 8:00 PM. The forecast was calling for a strange mix. Oops... the weather channel was wrong again... Instead, when I go up this morning, I was staring down at 11 inches of snow at the inn's snow stake, and an early morning appointment with my friend Ray at Surefoot for a new pair of ski boots....so it goes

Surefoot does a great job with ski boots. I was down at the shop about 2 hours getting fitted and having custom orthotics made. The system Surefoot has at Killington includes a numerical control machine connected to a computerized foot measuring system which automatically machines the orthotics to the shape of your feet. It is all really interesting in a geeky sort of way. Combined with custom foam injected boot liners, the new boots are both comfortable and have a high performance fit.

New Ski Boots being injected with foam at Surefoot. Click to enlarge..

Back at the inn, the snow blower was fired up for the second time this year, although this time was much more serious than in late October. 11 inches of heavy snow results in around 2 and a half hours of snow blowing to clean up all of the walkways and driveways. Quite frankly...Its a Wonderful Thing!. Coming into the Thanksgiving Weekend, fresh snow on the ground is a present from Mother Nature, who was rather mean to us earlier in the year. There will be plenty of non-holiday pow storms where the "Gone Skiing" sign will be hung on the front door... Especially now that I have my new boots!

If you are traveling tonight, stay safe. And have a Happy Thanksgiving.

Let it snow!!!

There you have it... Evidence! Courtesy of Peter Smith of the Forerunner Ski Shop. 

When I woke up this morning, I was determined that today would be the day we finally got out on the slopes of Killington for a few turns. All work and no play make Bill and Mary dull people. We needed to have some fun and I was not going to let anything get in the way.

For those of you who do not live at a ski resort, the first day a local attempts to go skiing is usually hilarious. Visitors to the area usually have the added advantage of being able to quietly pack all of their clothes for the trip to Killington. Locals are left scratching their head wondering where the stuff went from last year as the car engine is running in the parking lot. Such was the scene this morning.

After a quick breakfast, I braved the attic of the inn to find "our stuff". Although the inn seems large, life storage for the innkeepers is at a premium. The attic has a full collection of plastic storage boxes with clothes for all seasons (and Christmas decorations and Halloween Decorations, and Easter decorations and.....you get the idea). After rummaging around for a bit while Mary was making breakfast for inn guests, I found a box of general winter clothing, and a box with nicely washed ski clothes(thank you Mary!). Everything seemed to be there, so I hauled it our of the attic. Mary was now done with breakfast, so we got dressed to go. Oops... as we are packing up our kit, no helmet liner for my ski helmet. To be more accurate, it is really a very thin hat that sits between my head and my helmet, but it really does make a difference on cool days, which by definition this one was as it was our first day on the mountain.

Not a tragedy, we live in the land of the best ski shops on the planet, so on our way off to the mountain we stopped at the Forerunner Ski Shop. Donna was behind the desk. She quickly got me a new helmet liner, and we were off.

When we arrived at the mountain, I maneuvered the car to the Bay 1 lot about 2 cars down from the K1 Gondola. A little boot magic in the car(God...they are still comfortable after all these years) and we took the short walk to the K1 for the lift to the peak.

On the way up the mountain was ablaze in snow guns. Great Northern was lit up as was all of Snowdon. The resort is clearly putting a marker down to make a major expansion of terrain for the Thanksgiving weekend, weather be damned. If we get what is predicted for the area tomorrow, all of the work the resort is doing to make snow will be a stroke of genius. We will know in 24 hours.

We arrived at the peak at the proverbial "Crack O'Noon", probably one of our latest ski day arrival times ever. But that's ok... we were here to have some fun, air out the ski legs, and enjoy the mountain.

The conditions on the mountain were an interesting mix of textures. By this time, the middle of Rime and Reason was pretty sparse with a firm ski base covered with loose granular. The sides had plenty of character with small, unorganized soft bumps made from the loose granular that at 9:00 AM was probably in the middle of the trail, but by Noontime had all be moved by skier traffic.

Snow guns were going on Upper Great Northern, yielding some creamy goodness. The sides had some interesting "sitzmarks" carved in troughs along the edges of the snow. Not difficult to avoid (in fact many boarders were using them as launching pads). But if you were not paying attention they could have caught you by surprise.

Lower Ridge Run back to the triple was pretty good. I always feel like one of those metal balls in a pinball machine on Lower Ridge Run, as the trails compound fall line can push one from side to side quite quickly as you traverse down the trail.

The top to bottom run on Great Northern was very nice. Snow making was continuing down the length of Great Northern yielding some nice snow along the way. Snow guns were also operating on several of the upper trails of Snowdon, and also all the way to the bottom of the Snowdon Quad, but as this was something that the resort started last night, there was not enough snow accumulation yet on this terrain to allow the resort to "drop the ropes".

All in all, once we got our "stuff" together, it was a nice couple of hours on the mountain. A good light work out for the legs to start toning them up for what we hope will be a long ski season to come.

Let it snow!!!