Killington Dec 30-31 2016

After working thru the Xmas week at WF I took a few days off to go spend some time with my closest friend with my family at Killington.  They are share holders at the Craigmier Ski Club Lodge in West Rutland where they have a big lodge that sleeps about 40 people and has a chef to cook breakfast and dinner.  I've stayed there many times and know many of the club members.

I used to teach at Killington and Pico so I am very familiar with the Big K but this was my son's first experience with it.  It also was the probably the last time I will get the opportunity to ski with my son until the race season is over so this was great for me to do.  It also was a bit different to be on the other side of the equation skiing as a customer on a Holiday week.  

Since we were the guests of our friends and they ski K all the time we followed their lead to park a Ram's Head on Friday.  When it took us over 20 mins to get up the access road from Rt 4 to the parking lot I knew this was going to be a busy day.  They had to activate their son's season pass so we spent about 45 mins in the lodge and another 25 mins in the Ram's Head quad lift line.  After that we used the singles lines and avoided the K1 Gondi so we had at most 5 min lift lines after that.  We avoided Bear as we heard they had a mechanical issue with a lift.  We skied mostly on Snowdon and the Canyon area where that quad which only serves black trails had no line at all.  With 6" new snow even with the crowds the skiing was pretty good with the exception of trails like Skylark which was a $hit show with bodies everywhere.  Particularly good was that they were blowing on Ovation which is one of K's steepest trails and it had big whales and soft bumps.  We made one attempt at skiing in the trees but it was way to boney and we gave up after a couple of us got spun around on stumps.  it was probably one of the busiest days I have experienced at Killington but if you were skiing blacks and knew how to get around it was not all that bad because its so big and they have so much open at this point.  We heard back at the lodge that Okemo had hour long lift lines that day.





On New Years eve we got up earlier and at my insistence we parked at the Skyship base area on Rt 4.  We pulled into the lot at 8 and parked in the first row.  If you start there your ski day is very different than being up in the KBL area.  We headed to Bear first thing and it was empty.  They were blowing on Out Limits and Bear Claw both of which were great.  My son fell in love with OL and its bumps which we really don't have anything like at WF.  He decided to try skiing it non stop which he did 3 times plus another lap with a fall in it.  Skiing OL non stop is quite a accomplishment when the bumps were as big as they where.  We also took a few laps each on Ovation, Cascade, and Superstar.  Skylark again was a mess.  It was less busy than the day before but we avoided the Ram's Head area since all the kids lesson programs are based there.  We skipped lunch except for a quick waffle shack snack and skied until 2 racking up 24k vert.  A good day spend with my son and our friends.  I don't get much chance to do this kind of skiing so this was a nice change for me.  My son really enjoyed how big and how much terrain K has to offer though the sheer amount of really low level skiers amazed him particularly on the long run out back to the Skyship Base.

Very cool.  Your son is getting so big!

i was also there on friday.  went up the gondi about 9:30, the singles line was 15-20 min at that time. the trails off the gondi were dust on crust(ice). i am having huge issues with my new alpine boots so only skied for an hour ,in pain. spent the rest of the day on a tele setup. never telemarked skied in my life. i inadvertently wound up skiing to bear mnt. lift lines were 5 minutes tops and trails were packed powder. the lift only stopped once when an inexperienced lifty stopped it for a dropped ski pole. i lapped bear bear claw for 3 hours trying to figure out the tele thing. good day but far short of the expected 12 inches of snow. the waffles smelled great. they also did a good job pushing the smell of cooking burgers to the lift line.

Friday and Saturday were absolutely insane even at Pico..  By Saturday afternoon, things were quiet and the same with Sunday.

Ping us next time you are up.

My plan originally was to ski Pico on Saturday but after I saw that Pico was parking cars out on the lot on Rt4 I changed my mind.  There just is not enough open at Pico to entertain my son for a day at this point.  Killington never really cared much about Pico when I worked there and it seems they blow it much less now than back in the 90's when they still hoped to connect it.

It turned out to be a good call as Friday at K scared a lot of lower level skiers to Pico on Saturday.  We had a really good day at K that day.

I hope to get back to use my last day on my Maax Pass at Killington later in the season and I hope to ski Pico the other day of that weekend when more is open.