Killington, VT 12/10/99

<I>(Note from the Administrator: This report was originally posted on 12/11/99. Due to our move to new servers, the date and time attributed to this post is incorrect.)</I> <BR> <BR>Yesterday's weather forecast suggested it would be a good idea to start and quit early today. That's how things turned out; the best part of the day was before noon. Snow reports said that Pico is open, but as I drove by the place this a.m. and saw only a thin stripe of white covering half of the Lower Pike, I continued on to the basin. (That 4-star pass has been languishing in my pocket, but thank goodness for coupons!) K-mart wasn't that much better, but at least there were four areas available: Showshed, Ram's, the Peak across to Rime (I think), and the Bittersweet-Skyelark loop. Showshed had a raggedy ribbon covering one third the width of the slope. Ram's was white top to bottom, but some brown patches were visible at mid-point. The Bit/Sky loop seemed to have the most coverage and the most traffic. I hung out on Snowshed (had to ski solo today and hate to be adventurous when I don't have an alternate driver available). The cover was a few inches of mach groomed over ice, and it held up pretty well under the morning sun and warm temps until noon. After that, everything was grey glop. One chairmate had been at the mountain all week and was moaning that her family would have to re-think their annual "pre-season" ski weeks. (Her husband was having a blast on the upper trails, but she was getting bored with only one short green trail.) Anyway, it turned out to be a good day to quit early and browse through some of the shops on the access road. Unfortunately, by 1:30 p.m., the wind was blowing a gale, and the rain was coming down in buckets. If only the mercury would drop in the mountains. . .