It's still winter on Killington Peak! 

After our journey across the resort this morning, I needed to rush home and check the calendar on my computer. While we were on the mountain, it seemed like we were sucked into some strange time anomaly, like the residents of K-Val in the neo-cult classic ski-movie "Hot Tub Time Machine". (Notice the name of the ski resort in that movie...coincidence???) Even though the calendar was supposed to read April, it seemed more like early January at K-Town this morning. With a high pressure system from Canada settling into place, temperatures in the teens (yes...teens!) and a wind gusting to 30, the calendar could have easily read January 3rd versus April 3rd. But, when I got home, the computer confirmed it. The government wonks at NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology), the maintainers of the "Official Time" for the United States, did in fact confirm that today is April 3rd, 2013.

We started the day on the K1 Gondola. The bucket ride to Killington Peak was a little bumpy as the car was being buffeted by wind gusts. Cascades under the K1 was not especially inviting. It looked like some mad creation from Dr. Freeze. The Canyon Quad was running, but there was nary a soul in sight. When we emerged from the cabin at the peak it was easy to understand. 13 degrees with a 30 MPH wind is not April skiing, no matter what the calendar says, nor how sunny it is. So off we headed towards Bear Mountain.

Conditions across the top of the resort were groomed firm corduroy. Very low energy skiing, as long as you kept your ski tips aligned with your desired trajectory. We found ourselves at the top of Bear Claw in no time. Good thing our skis were recently tuned.

Everything at Bear was groomed flat and fast. With the exception of the bumps course being constructed on Outer Limits for this weekends Bear Mountain Mogul Challenge, some bumps on Upper Wildfire, and the terrain features in the Stash and on Dream Maker, Bear Mountain was a straight high speed cruiser.

With the bright, early morning, sunshine, I did pack light for todays ski excursion. By my 4th lift up the Skye Peak Quad, I was reaching for my neck gator that I keep in my ski-shell. I never thought I would need that today, but this is Killington and you always need to keep prepared.

As we moved back to the north side of the resort, we journeyed down Needles Eye, Cruise Control, Bitter Sweet, High Road, and Sky Lark. With mid-winter conditions prevailing, we decided to do one run and done on each trail. We had to get enough runs in to get the muscles in our legs firing, but, at the same time, we are ready for a little spring skiing versus the cold shiver of this morning.

Even though it is cold today at Killington, there is a huge upside to all of this. Cold conditions have basically stopped any surface melting in it's tracks. A slow warm up through the rest of the week will just about guarantee great ski conditions for visitors to Killington this weekend. And, it also means that the season will have loads of staying power to reach right into May.

Let it snow! (at least on the mountain for a few more weeks)

Killington Peak - covered in snow, crowned in sunshine. 

In what I hope will be the first of many spring skiing days this season, the mountains, the snow, and the sun all combined for a great morning on the slopes.

High, puffy, clouds dominated a beautiful blue sky as we skied all around the Killington Resort this morning. Temperatures were in the mid to upper 30's, all but guaranteeing that snow surfaces touched by the copious sunshine would delightfully soften up. With the exception of the lower Superstar headwall this morning, every trail we skied on delivered loads of soft snow just perfect for sweeping carving turns.

We visited every mountain area around the resort this morning. Each mountain delivered the goods. Smooth groomers were turning soft and creamy. Bump runs were tons of fun, with very little hard pack in the bump troughs on most trails. I enjoyed the bumps on Needles Eye under the Skyship, Old Superstar, Royal Flush, and Great Bear, just to name a few trails which got my attention today. And trails that were not groomed overnight, like Cascade, while not "bumped up" had nice little bumps all over the place calling out for a turn of two. Just a beautiful morning to be in Killington.

Let it snow!

Watercolorist Peter Huntoon will be at the Birch Ridge Inn on Thursday March 28th 

On Thursday March 28, the Birch Ridge Inn, in conjunction with the Killington Arts Guild, will be host a "Meet the Artist" night with renowned Rutland watercolorist Peter Huntoon.

The "Meet the Artist" night will feature a water color demonstration by Mr Huntoon. The event begins at 6:00 PM in the Great Room of the Birch Ridge Inn and is scheduled to run through 8:00 PM.

Light hors d'oeuvres will be served during the demonstration. If you plan to attend the event and would like dinner reservations at the inn at it's conclusion, please call the Birch Ridge Inn at 802-422-4293. If you would like additional information about the demonstration, you may call Sally Curtis from the Killington Arts Guild at 802-422-3852.

Let it snow!

Mary in the little bumps on Upper Wildfire. 

For the first time in weeks, Mary saw her shadow today on the ski slopes of Killington. With the remnants of this weeks snow storm moving east, a cold arctic air mass has descended over Killington, bring with it partly cloudy skies filled with puffy white clouds and copious amounts of sunshine....just the perfect combination to match the powder that has layered the resort in a nice soft covering of snow.

For years before becoming innkeepers, Mary and I used to take our spring vacation to Killington on the week of St Patrick's day. Historically, this week offers some of the best, most reliable, most fun, skiing and riding at Killington. And with a few spectacularly noticeable exceptions, last year for instance, St Patrick's week still delivers.

We started from the bay 1 parking lot on the K1 Gondola just at 9. Unlike the last couple of days, the powder hounds had withdrawn from Killington to search our stashes at Pico which re-opened today after being closed on it's normal Tuesday Wednesday schedule this week. With the powder hounds absent, Killington was virtually empty. And what we saw from the K1 gondola on our first boost just sucked us in.

Everything in the Canyon area looked superfine, so we decided to start on the Killington side on the resort with a warm up run down Cascade. With it's steep compound fall line, it is not usually a first run... but it was just beckoning with a full pitch of soft, groomed, packed powder. While it was a touch firmer than we had expected (it did get very cold last night approaching single digits) Cascade was just a beautiful steep cruiser to get the juices flowing for more interesting runs to come.

Sky Peak gleaming in the morning sunshine from Dreammaker.

Looking north up the spine of the Green Mountains with Snowdon, Ram Head, Pico, and Little Pico all standing tall in the snow as seen from Sky Lark.

Killington Peak as seen from Superstar Quad.

After Cascade we traversed in front of the K1 base lodge and headed to the Superstar quad. Superstar looked like a great high speed cruiser as well, but we decided to head to the Stash and play on the features. While Mary went around, I ventured into the woods around the Stash House. Several nice bump lines were clearly visible, which I negotiated rather quickly. We exited down lower Sky Burst. It was basically flat and fast, with the exception that it was not hard as a rock, but covered with a nice soft carpet of snow. With no one on the trail, I was able to basically travel at warp speed making sweeping carving edge to edge turns all the way to the Sky Burst lift area. It was a lot of fun!

On the Sky Burst quad, we saw that Upper Wildfire had some nice soft bumps, so off we went. The soft snow of the last couple of days, combined with a decent cadre of skiers and riders, laid down row after row of soft, pliable, bumps on Upper Wildfire from the Outer Limits entrance right down to Bear Claw. While being a minor work out, they were so good Mary declared them a do over... In over 20 years of skiing together, I don't think I have ever heard Mary declare a bump run a do over. They were just exceptional.

We continued to play around off the Sky Burst lift, taking the obligatory top to bottom Sky Burst, Sky Burst to Wild Fire, and Sky Burst to Dream Maker runs. They were all good.

We then headed into the Needles area. Cruise Control was filled with soft, ephemeral, powder puff bumps that vanished into a cloud of dust whenever you hit them. Needles Eye was superb. The trail proper was groomed with powder puff bumps. Skier right was left "au natural". Just a perfect combination... Mary was able to cruise down the groomed; I dabbled in the bumps; we met up back at the bottom..Oh... and did I say the sun was shining brightly!

After a few runs off the Skyship, we called it a day with a couple of runs of the Superstar Quad. Bittersweet was lovely. Upper Skylark was soft and pliable. Lower Skylark was surprisingly firm, but very edgeable. Middle Superstar had tons of soft powder between the rope line and the snow making whale on skiers left. A few people had played in it, but it was far from cut up. (it was like people did not see this today and by now it was already noon???) Lower Superstar was a mixed bag; some parts soft and chewy, other parts like hard tack. But it was still a nice run to end todays ski session on in the bright noon day sun.

Overall this week has yielded some of the best skiing of the year. Today was clearly in the top 10. And we still have the weekend to come!

Let it snow!

Lots of people played "hooky" today at Killington. 

I am cooked. After 2 1/2 hours on the slopes followed by 2 hours behind a 9 horse power snow blower, my legs are shot. It was another nice powder day at Killington. And instead of sunshine, we kept getting more snow!

Today I was not in search of powder. It was a day for pure recreational skiing. The resort decided to open the Snowdon Quad and North Ridge Triple at 8:00 AM this morning to allow powder hounds to chase the goods. Having gotten my share yesterday, I took a much more relaxed approach and headed out at my normal weekday day 9:00 hour.

The K1 parking lot was totally full at 9:00 so I parked down at the Vale lot and started my day on the Rams Head Quad. Caper to Snowdon was surprisingly nice with soft powder from the quad all the way down to the junction of North Star. From the Snowdon Quad, I took the North Ridge Triple and traversed across the top of the resort to Bear Mountain.

At Bear Mountain, Bear Claw, Wild Fire, and Skyburst were relatively small soft bumps, as one would expect. The very top of Skyburst had a touch of scratch, as skiers and riders slid into the trail. But by the time you were 50 feet down the slope, you were on soft packed powder.

Bear Claw. Not tracked up much at all, with nice soft bumps.

Needles Eye... a veritable rodeo of steep, deep, bumps.

Upper Skylark. Perfect soft cruiser.

Dream Maker, Cruise Control and Needles Eye were all super fine, and very different. Dream Maker was more packed than chunked, the result of boarders going thru the terrain park. Cruise Control looked like it was groomed early in the evening. The soft snow was forming nice soft bumps, but they were a little random. They were soft enough you could basically ignore them, but by the time you got to the box at the bottom, the legs were talking.

Needles Eye, on the other hand, was unbelievable. The normal blue, yet well pitched, trail usually groomed flat for race training was a classic Killington snow day black diamond. The trail was not groomed over night. Add to that a bunch of new snow, and Needles Eye turned into a bump field with 2 foot bumps every direction you turned. And these bumps, because of their size, needed respect. You could not blow thru them like the powder puffs on some of the other trails. You had to earn your way to the lift by turning thru the bumps. It was actually quite fun!

I did a couple of runs down Skylark and Bittersweet before heading back to K1. Both were nice and soft, but by this time my legs were rubber. I headed to the K1 gondola to gain some altitude so I did not need to skate all the way to the car. I took a nice leisurely cruise down Great Northern back to the car. Another nice ski day in the books.

The weather forecast in Killington is calling for continuous snow flurries right through the weekend. With super soft snow, if you enjoy powder, you should get to Killington.

Let it snow!

On the "Chair to Nowhere" at Killington 

OMG...Deep, Steep, Traverse, Repeat...it's a March Powder day in Killington.

With Ruts and the Bagel down south (sorry you missed a good one guys) and a strange lift configuration that kept me from a planned meeting with some locals, I had to "find my own way" along the slopes of Killington today. What a shame...

By 9 AM opening, the storm had clocked in with 6 inches of new snow across the resort. Strong winds had many lifts either on hold or not operating. But that's ok... because on a powder day, if you live at a ski resort, you should get a chance to pick your places based upon local knowledge.

I generally stayed away from the "popular" trails early on, choosing instead to plot my runs on trails where lifts were not running. Killington is so big, you can get rewarded for a little effort if you know your way around. My first 4 runs required 8 lift rides. On each of the first 4 runs, I was the only one on the trail I targeted, getting fresh untracked shin deep powder each run. By that point, I was pretty cooked already, but as it was only 10:15, it was way too early to go home.

Cruise Control... totally untouched.

Needles Eye... knock knock... is anybody home?

Frozen waterfall. Not ski related, but an interesting picture from today none the less.

To tone down, I took a cruising run down Snowshed, under the tunnel to the Rams Head Quad. I figured that would be an interesting way to get back over to Snowdon and see if any of the boys were still hanging in. Caper from Rams Head was cut up, as one would expect, but the tree lines were still pretty pure, so it was fun all the same.

The Snowdon Quad provided a cool down period. From the top, a quick traverse over to East Falls was enjoyable. Neither the North Ridge Triple, the Canyon Chair, or the K1 Gondola were operating, so East Falls was pretty clean. The middle had been chunked up, but skiers right was filled with beautiful snow worthy of some sweeping turns.

The long traverse out brought me to the Snowdon Triple. It was the only really cold lift of the day, with a very strong breeze hitting the chair at the top of Conclusion. At least the wind was on my back. A little turtle move to slouch my helmet into the collar of my shell sealed the deal, and kept the lift ride bearable.

The top trails on Snowdon, including Upper Royal Flush, Mouse Run, MTS, and Bunny Buster were all getting wind blow. Drifts were forming on most trails on the right side tree line. For the most part they presented nice lines for turning, but every now and then there was a snow cornice to blow through which made things interesting. (A snow cornice caught my skis 4 years ago causing me to do a double eject and bust up my shoulder... so I respect them a lot!)

Snow is continuing to fall with additional accumulation expected overnight. Tomorrow should be another powder day at Killington.

Let it snow!

Outer Limits at Bear Mountain at Killington lit up by sunshine. 

Look... Up in the sky... it's a comet...er no ... it's a meteor...er no ... it's a UFO... er no ... ITS THE SUN! What tha....

For the first time in many weeks, Mary and I got a chance to ski in sunshine. Beautiful, radiant, warming, sunshine. And with temperatures in the low teens this morning, with winds to 20, the fact that the sun was shining brightly made the whole morning just seem more pleasant.

Ski conditions today, to use the vernacular, were "flat and fast". The thaw that took place earlier in the week has solidified into impregnable patches of hard pack requiring variable amounts of leg pressure to set a turning edge. Early morning groomed corduroy saw us doing many nice "high speed" cruising runs on Bear Mountain. Later in the day, after the surfaces had been worked over by Friday skiers and riders, we slid down trails like Superstar and Cascade wondering why we were not wearing our Bauer's. Ah.. but we take joy and great comfort in the challenge of meeting the variability of ski conditions presented in the East.

It's all the Bagels fault.

Ruts, The Bagel, and Chuckles swinging from the Sky Burst Quad.

The Bagel made his triumphant return to the Killington ski scene today after a trip to the powdered slopes of Breckenridge Colorado. And not a moment too soon either. As mentioned last week, several of us have been "chaperoning" Ruts in the Bagel's absence. It was an awesome responsibility gladly relinquished back to the Bagel. The Bagel reports that he experienced the hole gamut of conditions on his trip to Breck, just like at Killington. His first day saw -20 degree temperatures (sound familiar) with just a touch of light snow. Like we at Killington had over the last 2 weeks, he also had a nice 15 inch powder day. But never matter about that, he is back, taking his rightful place as Rut's wingman on the winter odyssey we call "Skiing at Killington".

With cold temperatures firmly locked in place for the weekend, the Killington Resort has announced that they will be turning their snow making system on once again this season. Snow making has been taking place this week on Great Northern from the peak down to Middle and Lower Chute. Tonight and for the rest of the weekend, Killington's snowmakers will be turning their guns onto Superstar to continue to build base. Killington is planning a long spring skiing and riding season this year with events on the calendar spread out through April and May. And with more snow in the forecast for the region next week, we are looking forward to many warm and sunny days of nice spring skiing on soft snow.

Let it snow!