Killington, VT: 12/1/12

Ski Day #2

Highest trail count open in the East (33 trails open that day) and a BOGO coupon for our tickets; need I say more? I was staying at a friend's place in northern Connecticut for the weekend and we headed out from his place for Killington at about 6:30 for the 3 1/2 hour drive. (I know, I really need to get back on my game and start getting out earlier!) It was snowing the entire way up and the roads were a little iffy, so it took a little longer but we were excited.



At the mountain we were greeted with the legendary Kmart crowd and high winds along with the steady snowfall we had seen all day. The pictures might not show the crowds because I have a tendency to want to avoid them when it comes to picture taking, but trust me, they were there. And after the 3 1/2 hour drive, we had come too far to run away screaming..

We decided to hop on the gondola and head up and do some laps on the North Ridge Triple. Arriving at the top we were greeted by high winds that only got worse when we boarded the triple. But despite the winds, we were ready to hit the slopes.



Both Rime and Reason were skiing pretty well with man-made powder mixed with the God-made coming down, but it wasn't enough to cover up the hardpack in some areas, especially with the high winds. The sides of the trails were great as the wind deposited everything to the sides.


South Ridge Triple heading up Rime in the heavy winds




See? Sides! They got the memo too..

After doing several laps on the Triple, we wanted to head over to Snowdon and see if the winds were any better. We were pleasantly surprised to find the winds were significantly less angry on that mountain so we decided to do some laps on the Snowdon Quad. One great thing about Killington: 7 mountains with 7 different personalities.




Crowds were considerably heavier on this side, especially where Great Northern crossed the blue trails.

Upper Chute was in bad shape; very uneven and scrapped off so we stuck to Upper Bunny Buster next to the poma lift to Lower Chute. The snow was good and carveable and the winds were much calmer.


Upper Chute = hot mess.


Carveable man-made along the sides of Lower Chute


By around 1:30, the snow tapered off, but the winds seemed to stick around to the other side of the mountain, so we didnt even bother to venture over to Skye Peak. (can you tell i really hate wind yet?)


Bunny Buster along the poma..

We called it a day at around 2:30-3..needless to say, I don't have my ski legs back just yet. It was a great weekend of skiing in mid-winter like conditions and hopefully this is a sign of good things to come for this season!
 

Nice Report. Killington Crowds are usually brutal, but they tend to congregate at specific areas of the mountain. If you just stay away from those areas, you're golden.

unfortunately there wasn't enough mountain open to avoid the crowds..haha i know what you mean though.

Seems pretty typical Killingfields. I'm going this weekend to do some battle.