Killington History

I was thinking today about old K and how juggernaut was the longest trail in the world (exaggeration) and how there were multiple places on 4 to ride up from instead of the access road. All the ASC stuff is basically lost to time, but Northeast passage, ram's head, and south canyon all used to offer more skiing than now. Northeast passage especially had diverse terrain, and good skiing on good snow years.

Does anyone miss this stuff, or was it mostly just a hassle because K is so big already?  I'm sure someone must be skiing it these days. If you have any historically interesting terrain photos or memories of K, post 'em up. The truth is that Killington is a mountain that I dig more every year, because at least over the past few years it's gotten better (and I missed it in the glory years).

Here's an old map: http://skimap.org/data/211/7/1262131682.jpg
Here's 2014: http://www.killington.com/site/mountain/trail_map/W13-14_Killington_Trail_Guide-web.pdf

This thread is dedicated to Sno.


(Mountain Creek)

You didn't even grab one of the maps that had the "future expansion" to Pico laid out, and I can still see what you're talking about.

I like what they've done. The mountain is still full of kamikaze a-holes on a busy Saturday, but there are a lot less places for them to come flying out of a side trail at you. And there are more marked glades, which means I can avoid those a-holes for most of my day.

That being said, I rarely go to Killington unless it's early or late season, so I never ski most of the mountain anyway.

ml242 wrote

I was thinking today about old K and how juggernaut was the longest trail in the world (exaggeration) and how there were multiple places on 4 to ride up from instead of the access road. All the ASC stuff is basically lost to time, but Northeast passage, ram's head, and south canyon all used to offer more skiing than now. Northeast passage especially had diverse terrain, and good skiing on good snow years.

Multiple places on 4? Please explain. And, I'm not quite sure what you mean by the Northeast passage, but, I suck at knowing trail names, even though I've been skiing there for twenty five years. probably a result of my mind not dealing with their ridiculous amount of trails that they came up with in some sort of competition in the 90s to have the most trails, so one summer they split long trails into three or four new trails with new names. I just know to turn left or right or something.

"All the ASC stuff is basically lost to time"

You should talk to old timers from the 70s. Superstar used to be a sort of technical trail back then.

Route 4, Northeast passage was a whole other lift pod that dropped down to the road. Now they have snowmobile rentals there, I believe.

Oh, you mean the old Sunrise lift. I think that was on rt. 100, not 4, just around the corner.

Still waiting for the Pico interconnect. If I owned the place, that would be priority #1. So many good reasons for it, especially Rt. 4 access from the Rutland side. Good skiing in there, too.

One wonders how that whole Park City fiasco will affect Kmart finances. Maybe Vail will own Killington soon? I don't get why they don't have an eastern property.

Thank you for link to semi old map. Last season my friends thought I was losing it when I spent so much time looking for a chair that doesn't exist. South ridge triple that is. If they pay I split $ with ya.

Killington has shrunk because of ASC (American Screwup Company) and their boneheaded ideas.  They were way too impulsive and didn't wait till they had the money to do things right.  Most things were also done as cheaply as possible which took a toll on quality.  For example, with Ramshead, they needed to replace the lift, but they didn't want wind closures and didn't have the money to buy wind fences for the top.  What they ended up doing was shrinking the vertical on that peak by like 200 feet to build the new HSQ.  They should have either waited until they had the money for wind fences and a way to mitigate wind/ice closures to do the entire project, or just build the lift and try and add wind fences later.  I will now talk about what happened to Sunrise Mountain.  It was originally opened in 1982 with 9,243 foot long by 1,436 foot vertical triple chair.  There was a midstation that allowed you to lap the lower terrain, or you could continue to the top to the rest of the mountain.  It was built as a step toward expanding beyond it onto a new area called Parker's Gore.  Parker's Gore ended up being shot down due to treehuggers.  This left Sunrise Mountain with less of a purpose that it originally had.  However, it was still a trail pod and terrain for Killington.  Through the 90's high speed lifts were added elsewhere and the triple seemed long and slow in comparison.  The new Skyeship Gondola built in 1994 was heated and ran at 1,200 fpm giving people direct access to Skye Peak in 11 minutes from route 4.  The triple on Sunrise took 17 minutes and only got you to an area where you could take a long runout to Bear Mountain Base Area.  It was also the lowest elevation terrain at Killington and had not had its snowmaking upgraded yet.  The low elevation made it hard to keep snow cover as well as the lift ride time, and the fact that it was extremely disconnected from the main mountain made it extremely underutilized.  ASC decided that they wanted to do a Killington Pico Interconnect and instead of buying the land to do it, they did a land swap with the Parker's Gore land which should not have affected Sunrise.  Still, being ASC they nixed the lower terrain by removing the cable and chairs from the lower towers and moving the base uphill to where it is now.  The interconnect got shelved when ASC f&*$ed up again and built The Canyons which basically made them bankrupt.  That left Killington with less terrain than before and no interconnect.  They have been trying to recover from ASC's terrible management ever since Powdr took over.

Wait. Weren't you born after most of that, whatever it is, happened?

A lot of words. All I remember is that triple chair was a great place to hide from crowds.

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"Ruined" is a pretty strong word, especially since you didn't experience ASC mountains before they were all sold off. ASC's portfolio was all resorts. Bad decisions were made, for sure. But "ruined" implies there are lasting negative effects. Most of the resorts in ASC's former portfolio have strongly rebounded with better management. I can't speak for the western areas you mention, but Sugarbush, Sunday River, Sugarloaf, Attitash, Mount Snow, etc. have all flourished under their current ownership and even Killington is finally being run well. Bad choices were made by ASC but the mountains were hardly ruined.

Most of us that had anti-ASC feelings during the company's expansion were mostly concerned about homogenization of ski areas, widening of trails, and resorts losing aspects that made them special. A lot of the resort growth has really leveled off lately. I bitched and moaned a lot about ASC and the big resort culture back in the day. Now I could care less. New owners have patched up the damages for the most part and the resortification has generally leveled off and stagnated except for the rare grab like Burke. But even then, a big resort is keeping a hidden gem alive. It isn't black and white, much as I used to think it was.

You youngsters, I started skiing KTon in the late 70's. How many of you rode the coldest lift in the world, I'm talking about the Killington Peak Double..Killington was mean beast back in the day..

Cannot agree with the Mountain Creek fiasco, especially since it took them how long to build a lodge again?  Not to mention the amount of chairs they took out from older VV/GG days.  Sure we have a high speed gondola now and sporadic openings of GG North Peak, but they completely took out the race course (had electronic timers, start house, the works!) and most of the best skiing at GG South for the park.  Hell, Back in the day they actually had a distance ski jump on the other side of the race course.  Great lodges at both peaks and a slow but working interconnect.  I learned on those hills and enjoyed growing up on them.  College hit and I was off to bigger peaks.  Two years ago when I skied Mountain Creek a few times, I cringed.  Like, the mountain didn't grow up, but got "Cheap".  Small mountain ski culture it once had is now obnoxious attitude, smoking in lines, get out of my way a-holes.  Unfortunate.

Now if only I had enough money to purchase Hidden Valley around the corner... it is up for sale again.

BTW - I like Killington a lot.  There is so much terrain you can always duck away from the crowds, even on most weekends.  Plenty of lodges to choose from, always a good crowd, and there is nothing like it anywhere for spring bumps.  Rockin!  And though they got hit really bad with Ireane, they made a great comeback with those umbrella patios!

I LOVE the park at Mountain Creek South.  It is so big and there are a ton of features I can hit.  I am looking to be able to do even more this season.  The reason they got rid of so many of the old lifts is because they were redundant, old, and unnecessary with the new lifts.  They used to have 13 lifts, they now have 7.  That is way more efficient.  The reason it took so long to build the new lodge is because the old one burned down right after Intrawest spent a ton of money fixing up the mountain.  It burned down after the 1998/1999 season and was supposed to be replaced for the 2000/2001 season, but it cost too much to do it.  When the original owners bought it back, they built the new lodge and it opened on December 26, 2011 with the rest of the mountain that season.  Intrawest sold it when they were running out of money, but the original owners didn't have to bring it out of a period of mismanagement and neglect like Powdr did with Killington.  ASC couldn't even afford to paint the lifts and make them look presentable.  They left Killington with an image of a rickety, run down resort that suffered from mismanagement and it still hasn't fully recovered.

Skied Killington when they had just pomas. No snowmaking. Was fine skiing too.

It was all about real estate, of course. Otten figured out a really good scam that a lot of people coming out of the junk bond eighties saw as a foolproof way of generating millions of dollars of fictional money, and, as long as you didn't break any laws, it was always somebody else's, so you just skimmed your slice off the top and banked it. If you could make it last long enough, it just piled up. Just don't invest your own money back into the deal. Just do the soft shoe for investors and the poor schmuck who bought into the multi resort time share thing, and keep it coming in. Build a ugly faceless hotel right at the base of gaper central,  Snowshed, and unleash the sales people.
But he needed a premier western hill to make it work. So he bought a closed, bankrupt hill in the SLC circus that was last called Park West, the lowest elevation and worst snow of any mountain there, and sunk 65 million in the first year, calling it the Canyons. Two brand new gondolas, high speed quads, and a huge hotel at the base. His first proposal to the town of Park City was for as many beds as Park City had at the time, and Park City had a lot of beds. Double in size in like five to ten years. They said, uh, slow down, but, let's talk. Where'd the money come from? Bonds, a few banks, and Killington lift tickets. And schmucks buying time shares, pre construction.
This all came to a halt, of course, under it's own weight, but it made Otten and some of his cronies wealthy, and Killington bankrupt, essentially. He was a mountain manager at Sunday River before it all, a working stiff, and became so rich that he was part owner of the Boston Red Sox. I don't know what he's doing now. I don't wish him or his kind well.
This., of course, is nothing compared to the financial engineering that blew up the latest credit crisis. That was the grand finale of scamming. But, it still made a lot of people rich off of other people's money.

Killington is getting pretty shabby. The mountain is OK, although no major investments have been made recently. The owners seemed to be clueless Mormons who clashed quickly with the client culture that had been cruising through traditions like clockwork, like shutting down the tailgate party during the Spring bump fest, a thirty year occurrence. With State Police. Without warning. Dumb.  This is Killington you bought, people. Anyway, I digress. The hotels and bars and eateries are all getting old and falling apart. Even the pricey places are dumps. The condos just grow old, and Vermont winters are hard on those things. No new money is coming in, it seems. I'd like to see the Pico connect happen, but, maybe there just isn't the demand anymore. If it made business sense, that little area between the two mountains would have had skiing a long time ago. And there's so much room on 4 for bars and resorts and condos. But, now there's a few derelict motels just rotting. I guess growth is gone. Okemo seems to have grabbed all the overspending types who love groomers and half million dollar condos.

Oh well. Learned to ski there in 82, and have spent an awful lot of time there. Best snow in the area, due to elevation. But my buddy lost his share house after sixteen years that I mooched beds in, and I'm spending two to three months in Colorado this winter, so, maybe I'll never ski there much anymore. Certainly never again on a Saturday. Madone. But it has some great stuff. It'll probably be one of the last Vermont mountains to fold down the line, which could be sooner than you think.

JasonWx wrote

You youngsters, I started skiing KTon in the late 70's. How many of you rode the coldest lift in the world, I'm talking about the Killington Peak Double..Killington was mean beast back in the day..

I remember it well, along with the mid-station exit for Cascade on opening day.

In my first full year skiing at Killington, I dropped a glove off the K2 lift and onto the Flume trail below. Did I ski down that rail beyond my ability at the time to get my glove. You're damn right I did.

K is a great mountain and has great terrain.  Like others here, I've skied it before, during and after the ASC days. (although, not for a few years).  I used to love their old trail maps...the ones with the iso/contour lines.  Those were so big when unfolded, you could use them as a blanket on the old, slow, K double.  I also fondly remember the old gondi that went all the way to K peak.

I worked there during this period and am not fond of Otten.  Ever heard the term more snow and less Otten

They tried to turn the instructing staff into timeshare sales people.

The reason Rams Head was lowered as they decided to make that section of the mt into a prime teaching zone and needed to avoid that steeper pitch.  Their kids programs are based out of Rams Head.  This was a good move IMO.  No one skied at rams head before that now it's quite busy.

Benny Profane wrote

It was all about real estate, of course. Otten figured out a really good scam that a lot of people coming out of the junk bond eighties saw as a foolproof way of generating millions of dollars of fictional money, and, as long as you didn't break any laws, it was always somebody else's, so you just skimmed your slice off the top and banked it. If you could make it last long enough, it just piled up. Just don't invest your own money back into the deal. Just do the soft shoe for investors and the poor schmuck who bought into the multi resort time share thing, and keep it coming in. Build a ugly faceless hotel right at the base of gaper central,  Snowshed, and unleash the sales people.
But he needed a premier western hill to make it work. So he bought a closed, bankrupt hill in the SLC circus that was last called Park West, the lowest elevation and worst snow of any mountain there, and sunk 65 million in the first year, calling it the Canyons. Two brand new gondolas, high speed quads, and a huge hotel at the base. His first proposal to the town of Park City was for as many beds as Park City had at the time, and Park City had a lot of beds. Double in size in like five to ten years. They said, uh, slow down, but, let's talk. Where'd the money come from? Bonds, a few banks, and Killington lift tickets. And schmucks buying time shares, pre construction.
This all came to a halt, of course, under it's own weight, but it made Otten and some of his cronies wealthy, and Killington bankrupt, essentially. He was a mountain manager at Sunday River before it all, a working stiff, and became so rich that he was part owner of the Boston Red Sox. I don't know what he's doing now. I don't wish him or his kind well.
This., of course, is nothing compared to the financial engineering that blew up the latest credit crisis. That was the grand finale of scamming. But, it still made a lot of people rich off of other people's money.

Killington is getting pretty shabby. The mountain is OK, although no major investments have been made recently. The owners seemed to be clueless Mormons who clashed quickly with the client culture that had been cruising through traditions like clockwork, like shutting down the tailgate party during the Spring bump fest, a thirty year occurrence. With State Police. Without warning. Dumb.  This is Killington you bought, people. Anyway, I digress. The hotels and bars and eateries are all getting old and falling apart. Even the pricey places are dumps. The condos just grow old, and Vermont winters are hard on those things. No new money is coming in, it seems. I'd like to see the Pico connect happen, but, maybe there just isn't the demand anymore. If it made business sense, that little area between the two mountains would have had skiing a long time ago. And there's so much room on 4 for bars and resorts and condos. But, now there's a few derelict motels just rotting. I guess growth is gone. Okemo seems to have grabbed all the overspending types who love groomers and half million dollar condos.

Oh well. Learned to ski there in 82, and have spent an awful lot of time there. Best snow in the area, due to elevation. But my buddy lost his share house after sixteen years that I mooched beds in, and I'm spending two to three months in Colorado this winter, so, maybe I'll never ski there much anymore. Certainly never again on a Saturday. Madone. But it has some great stuff. It'll probably be one of the last Vermont mountains to fold down the line, which could be sooner than you think.

I hope someone read this. Probably took awhile to type up.