Killington Peak under an azure sky 

On a perfect day to head out to the mountain to ski, the registered voters of Killington are turning out to make history. By a wide margin at a special town meeting held last year, the voters of Killington decided to modify the existing Town Meeting procedures for from the floor voting, and move instead to a formal ballot using Australian Voting rules. Today was the first local election with the new rules in place.

While it is too early to proclaim that the switch to Australian Ballot for local elections is a success, early indications are that the people of Killington are responding well to the changes. Last night, the first part of the change took place with an Informational Town Meeting to review the issues before the voters of Killington. The meeting was attended by several hundred people to discuss issues presented to voters on the ballots to be cast today. A live stream video record of Monday nights meeting can be found online here.

if you are a Killington resident reading this blog, no matter what your point of view, I encourage you to get over to the elementary school on Schoolhouse Road today before 7:00 PM and cast your vote.

Chris Bianchi answering questions at the Killington Town Meeting held on Monday night, March 5, 2012. Click to enlarge..

The election is not the only activity taking place in Killington today. The beautiful blue sky and crisp late winter temperatures are driving residents and guests outside to play in the snow.

Before heading to the polling place to cast my votes in this years election, I made my way to the resort for a short jog around the mountain. By this morning, the resort had groomed out the powder that had fallen the last several days, resulting is surfaces that were noticeably firmer. Some moderate powder could be found on some trail edges, and along windblown areas prone to drifting snow. The woods today was not an option for me, as I was skiing with people who do not partake in the trees, but I would guess that tracked out areas would have also firmed up in the cold overnight temperatures.

Skiing today was back to primarily Super G conditions with flat and fast conditions underfoot. Trails that had minimal grooming had firm bumps under a small cover layer of powder. Lower Skylark is an example of the latter, with Sky Burst to Lower Wildfire being a perfect example of Super G downhill.

Spring skiing conditions are due to spread across the area over the next couple of days with temperatures reaching well above freezing. They should be nice days to grab your ski shells and sun screen and take a few laps around the mountain.

Let it snow!!!

Another powder day at Killington! 

You can't make this up!

All winter long we have been moaning about the fruits of Mother Nature... The last 2 weeks have certainly changed that tune!

Today was another in a series of Powder Days at Killington. 4 inches of beautiful, bright white, fluff draped the region overnight setting the table for another great day to be on the mountain. With temperatures in the low teens, the morning was set up for powder run after powder run all across the mountain.

From Bear Mountain, to Needles Eye to Sky Peak to Rams Head to Snowdon, to Killington Peak, everywhere we went this morning I was able to find untracked, or minimally tracked powder all across the mountain.

Mary and Nina in the powder at Killington Vermont, March 5, 2012 Click image to stop rotation. Click again to resume rotation.

The mountain did have some character builders to it, however. The groomed cruisers (Bear Claw, Lower Wildfire, Sky Burst, Cruise Control, Swirl, Easy Street, Caper) were all set up with powder depths ranging from a dusting to 4 inches. You could just rip down these trails with powder flying in all directions.

The bump runs, (Superstar, Outer Limits, Needles Eye, Royal Flush, Highline, Low Road, Interceptor) all presented their own challenges. A weekend worth of skiers and riders created bumps on these trails ranging from a small sitzmark to Volkswagen Beetles. The larger bumps, with clearly defined troughs, while totally covered in powder, were clearly visible, allowing one to take either aggressive, or evasive, action to cope with the bump. The smaller bumps were virtually invisible in the freshly fallen snow. Hitting them at speed was a work out for the legs, which was not a bad thing as they could continue to be strengthened in preparation for this summers golf season.

I do have a couple of black and blues from catching tree branches along the sides of some of the trails. The powder along most trail edges was shin to knee deep. It is a price one has to pay on occasion to get the good stuff.

We have another cool day on tap for tomorrow (Election Day in Killington --- Don't forget to vote!) which should keep the mountain in perfect mid winter shape. After that it looks like we have a bout of spring skiing on tap with bright sunshine and warm temperatures. Don't forget your sun screen!

Let it snow!

We just did that? Garry and The Bagel look back at a cloud covered Thimble under the Skyship Stage 2 

I needed to leave the mountain today at 10:15 AM.

When I sat down and wrote yesterdays blog at 11:30 PM, I did not know that I had another 4 hours to go before getting to bed. It turns out a late arrival planted their car in a snow bank on Butler Road leading into the inn. By the time the tow truck pulled them out and they were settled into the inn, the clock had struck 3:30 AM. It is just hard to ski in the powder on 3 hours sleep after skiing all out the day before.

During my hour on the hill, I did manage 6 runs on wonderfully soft, if visibility challenged, trails. Yesterdays powder was moved around all around the resort last night by Killingtons grooming fleet, covering every trail with a thick coating of machine groomed lightly packed powder. Each turn yielded a sweeping cascade of snow as the skis carved into the surface.

In addition to the groomers, the resort had also left the sides of many trails filled with wonderful soft bumps. After a couple of runs, my sleep deprived legs were no match, unlike yesterdays outing on the snow. As my legs turned to rubber with each bump, it became apparent that my ski day would be short. So it goes...

Tonight the inn is full with almost the whole house due to arrive. The saga of traveling to Killington will be lived by thousands this afternoon and this evening as they head into town to enjoy a weekend in Vermont. The great news in my shortened ski day is that the snow has energized people to visit Killington, and stay at our inn. Plus the snow will also go a long way to providing Killington with a long and soft spring skiing season. I can sleep when the snow melts.

Let it snow!!!

The run home - Highline to Interceptor 

It has been a very full day.

As I sit down to write this installment to killingtonblog.com, the clock has just struck 11:30 PM. My legs feel like Picaso's famous painting The Scream. They are talking to me...no yelling at me. And they are a bit wobbly as well. A day of rodeo riding beautiful powder bumps on the slopes of Killington followed by several hours behind a 9 horsepower, rattle your bones till the ache, snowblower will do that.

In short.... it was a great day to be in Killington!

I can't go into the details of everywhere we skied at the resort today. We did many of the usual suspects....Wildfire, Bear Claw, Cruise Control, Bittersweet, Skylark, Superstar. We traversed across the mountain for runs down Cascade, East Fall, Rime, Reason, Great Northern, Chute, Bunny Buster, Mouse Trap, Great Bear. And then we also did some bush whacking, some reserved runs through the trees, some places where knowing where you are does not mean you know where you are going.

It was a great day to be in Killington!

If you subscribe to the resorts newsletter, The Drift, you will read in the morning about feet of snow falling on Killington the last few days. You may be enticed to visit Killington to play on the mountain, and by all means please come to Vermont and stay with us at the Birch Ridge Inn. But that does not tell the half of what it was like on the trails today.

The morning started with snow, glorious snow. To the resorts credit, they did not over groom the place last night, letting the snow build up on the trails so skiers and riders could enjoy the experience of being in fresh powder. All morning long, the resort was experiencing a 1 to 2 inch per hour snow fall, so virtually every run was an opportunity to find fresh powder on the trail. You did not need to look far. Many times it was right down the middle of what ever trail you were on at the time. Of course, we rarely stayed in the middle of any trail for long. Like blood hounds in search of a scent,if the best powder was right, we turned right. If the best powder was left, we turned left. At least in the first 30-45 minutes, we tried not to cross each others path. We tried not to ruin it for other skiers and riders and restricted our turns to graceful swiggles in the snow, verses large arcing cross trail traverses. But by 10AM, all bets were off.

It was a great day to be in Killington!

Several thousand people turned out to Killington today to play in the snow. There were no lift lines. There was no rowdy behavior. There was a lot of ear to ear grins. And by 10 AM there were a lot of bumps.

The bumps were like Forrest Gumps box of chocolates. Some were ephemeral, vanishing into a cloud of fluff as you hit them. Some were like a goose down pillow, obediently and softly giving way when lovingly manipulated by your skis. Some were powder sugar coated hard candy, causing audible grunts when they were hit as your legs were pushed into your chest forcing all the air out of your lungs.

On some of the wider trails, where most days the careful grooming by the resort causes local skiers to experience a fog of boredom, the bumps were the most forgiving. Carving at speed was your friend with broad smiles at the end of the trail for the next lift ride up. On the narrower trails, the "natural trails", the trails not touched by human hands or tilled by GPS coordinated machines, the bumps became a wild bucking bronco rodeo ride. Speed, and momentum, and inertia, and flying powder, all came into play with even bigger smiles of self satisfaction in the next lift line.

It was a great day to be in Killington!

I have one more check in tonight to go before I go to bed. I hope they get here soon. I want to do it all over again in the morning!

Let it snow!!!

An overcast Killington Peak awaiting the approaching storm 

Just when you through it was safe to reserve your spring tee times at Green Mountain National Golf Course, Mother Nature has decided to give the Killington Resort a Leap Year gift.

A winter storm warning has been posted for Vermont. The first elements of the storm are already entering the area with high overcast and occasional snow flurries. Currently, the National Weather Service is predicting 6 to 12 inches of snow in Killington spread fairly equally between tonight and tomorrow. Usually, based upon past history, snow fall totals on the upper elevations of the mountain tend to trend to the higher amounts.

Ahead of the storm, we had guests arriving last night as late as ~3:00AM to position themselves to take advantage of the advancing powder. Ski house friends have also called to tell us that they are in motion this afternoon; heading to their ski houses in Killington to seek out the pow on Thursday. Bookings at the inn have also followed suit, with just 1 room left available for the coming weekend as I write this blog. It looks like this years poor to date snow fall has created strong pent-up demand in the North East ski community for some good skiing before calling the season to a premature close. With the second multi-inch snow storm predicted to hit the area in less than a week, it looks like Mother Nature has finally responded to the call.

And remember.... March is usually the snowiest month of the year in Killington!

Let it snow!!!

Howie, Billy B, and Dale with Mary on Cruise Control 

Todays adventure out on the slopes of Killington featured an overcast sky and lots of soft surfaces of machine groomed packed powder. The overcast is the next storm system moving into the area with more snow predicted. The soft surfaces were the product of the weekends snow storm, combined with the work of Killington's fleet of groomers covering and combing the mountain with a nice powdered sugar coating.

The overcast conditions and a shortened ski morning kept us on the Bear Mountain side of the resort. Bear Mountain was filled with black and double black trails this morning masquerading as graceful cruisers. All of the trails featured a nice soft surface which was a mix of machine groomed granular combined with soft powder. It gave the surfaces a nice soft feel which was compliant under foot without requiring razor sharp edges to hold ones turns.

Steeper terrain, like the upper headwall on Sky Burst, Outer Limits, the Viper Pit, and portions of Wild Fire were slightly firmer, but even there the requirement for hard edge turns was minimal. Outer Limits this morning skied relatively soft with only a couple of areas of exposed hardpack. And even then the hardpack areas were very small. Wild Fire, Bear Claw, Lower Dream Maker and Sky Burst were edge to edge soft corduroy, satisfying both the need for speed, and the desire to work the legs with sweeping turns.

Off of Sky Peak, more of the same was the rule of the day. Cruise Control, Needles Eye, Bitter Sweet, and Upper Sky Lark were groomed flat. Lower Sky Lark had some vestigial bumps left over from the weekend. The Upper Headwall and middle sections of Outer Limits were very soft. The lower headwall was narrow and firm, the result of bumps on skiers right and left intruding into the middle of the trail

The weekend snow really dressed up conditions at the resort. Light snow is in the forecast for tonight with a more serious snow storm predicted for Wednesday and Thursday. With luck, March will come in like a lion and blanket the area is more of the white stuff.

Let it snow!!!

Ruts and The Bagel on the top of Bear Mountain on a bluebird day 

Pow!

No... we are not talking 70's Batman striking out at the Joker.... We are talking Powder at Killington.

While the storm that hit the area the last couple of days does not rate "Epic", it did provide the best skiing of the year today at Killington. Over the course of 2 days, almost 6 inches of new snow had fallen around the inn as measured at the snow stake. Much more fell on the higher elevations of the Killington Ski Resort. Because of winds associated with the storm exiting the area, most of the ski trails on the mountain were groomed flat, with vestigial amounts of soft snow primarily wind blown along the trail edges. But the woods were a different story...shin deep in most places... and it was nice, soft, fluffy powder.

The ski day today started at 8:00 AM... which is a stretch for me on a Sunday morning after a busy Saturday night at the inn. But the 6 inch rule was in effect, so off to the mountain I went to meet the boyz. They were a little surprised to see me, as I had not made it to the hill the previous 2 days. Late Presidents week guests were "enjoying" the Great Room selection of spirits at the inn till the early morning hours, keeping me on mattress mountain on Friday and Saturday morning. But my alarm dutifully went off at 7:10 this morning, so off to the mountain I went.

Snow scenes from around Killington Vermont, February 26, 2012 Click image to stop rotation. Click again to resume rotation.

We started the day with a tactical error, for a powder day. We headed out the Superstar Quad to Bear Mountain. All of the trails at Bear Mountain were basically groomed flat. We did the requisite number of runs (Outer Limits, Wild Fire, Bear Claw, The Stash, and Sky Burst), most of them a couple of times, before we said enough was enough and started searching for some softer stuff. We first found some on Old Needles Eye.

Mind you, I have not skied Old Needles Eye in probably 15 years, it being the site of my first shoulder separation skiing on another powder day a long, long, time ago. The entrance on the right of Old Needles was wind scoured clean. Ruts was the first to dive in, giving us a nice slip boom to watch to help build our confidence. But the entrance on skiers left was filled with the nice, soft, "good stuff"; making the way into the trail a delight. I followed a line down the left side, close to the tree line. It was nice, soft powder, over some residual crusty bumps. Actually, a lot of fun!

From there we did some laps on Cruise Control, Bitter Sweet, and High Road, as Needles Eye was closed for racing. By then we had had enough of the groomers, so off we went in search of some more pow.

We traversed across the mountain to some select woods that The Bagel knew about. The entrance was very tight. I might have missed it totally, if they had not stopped to enter single file. In the trees, the storm had dumped 10 inches of powder. Most of the time the snow was mid shin deep, with some deeper shots in some of the troughs. This is why we ski all winter; for a few runs in the powder in the solitude of the trees. Needless to say, the tree runs were do overs. The entrance was sufficiently hidden that we were the only people in this particular stash at that point in the day.

After a lower tree run near the Snowdon Quad, and a run down Great Bear (which was also filled with powder), we called it a day with a last run down Upper Royal Flush to Highline. Just a magnificent day of skiing in bright sunshine and fresh snow. With luck, we still have many more days like this to go in this strange ski season.

Let it snow!