Killington, VT 5/22/99

JSpin

New member
<I>(Note from the Administrator: This report was originally posted on 5/24/99. Due to our move to new servers, the date and time attributed to this post is incorrect.)</I> <BR> <BR>We had a couple of free tickets left for Killington, so we <BR>decided to go down on Saturday for a few runs. I joined up with my <BR>friends E and Chris, and we arrived at Killington for the afternoon. <BR>The temperature felt around 70 degrees, and the sky was basically fair <BR>with a few high clouds. Ticket prices are currently $25, but if you <BR>bring an old ski ticket, they take $10 off, bringing it down to $16.25 <BR>when you include tax. We had two free passes that needed to be used up <BR>this season, so all around it was a pretty cheap day. <BR>Here is the current situation with Superstar (as of Saturday at <BR>least). You get on the lift with skis in hand (not on feet), ride to <BR>the top and walk off. There is no snow above the top of the first steep <BR>pitch, and you have to walk down the first steep pitch for about 20 <BR>yards, and then you get to where the snow starts. Lots of people were <BR>chucking their skis off the lift right near the end of the ride to avoid <BR>carrying them down the hill. After I discovered that the edges of my <BR>skis were missing in two different places (no idea when that happened), <BR>I readily adopted this practice as well. Once you click into your skis, <BR>you ski the rest of the first steep pitch, which is well covered, just <BR>about the whole width of the trail. Then you ski the flatter middle <BR>portion of the trail. The first 50 yards of this actually have a few <BR>rocks showing in the troughs of some of the bumps. At about the 50 yard <BR>mark on the flat section (almost exactly where tower 11 is, there is a <BR>two foot strip of dirt that cuts across the whole trail. Many people <BR>were jumping it, but we found that it was narrow enough that you could <BR>simply push some snow from above and make a snow bridge across. The <BR>remainder of the flat middle section has excellent coverage, no rocks, <BR>although the trail is only about half it regular size in width. As you <BR>approach the steep pitch near the bottom of the trail, you are forced to <BR>the right because that is the only section that has continuous snow. <BR>This section is about 3-5 bumps wide for about 10 yards, and things are <BR>getting thin there with rocks poking through in almost all of the <BR>troughs. After you pass this bottleneck, the trail widens out again and <BR>you can finish off the steep pitch with great cover. After the final <BR>steep pitch comes the flatter section toward the bottom and things get <BR>narrower again, probably 6-8 bumps wide and on the skiers left of the <BR>trail. The coverage here is again great through, and you can follow <BR>right down to where the trail flattens out and then you take off your <BR>skis and it's about 30-40 yards to the lift (all flat though). <BR>The Mayflies are certainly out. The only time they were a <BR>problem was when you were skiing and stopped for more than a few <BR>moments, then they would start to buzz around you (although they did not <BR>seem to be biting). One of my friends was hiking Camel's Hump that day <BR>and he said it was miserable there with the number of flies, and the <BR>buzzing, and the biting, and the hey hey it hurts me etc. We skied <BR>until a little after 3:00 and called it a day. The snow was nice and <BR>soft in most spots and it was good bump skiing. Crowds were light, but <BR>that may be because it's not ski on / ski off. That may have been my <BR>last day this season, but if it was, it was a good one.
 
Back
Top