Killington and Sunday River are Open for 18-19

EMSC

Well-known member
Both ski areas opened today Oct 19th after a short cold snap and only have short upper mountain sections open.

At Killington up/downloading as usual on the K1 Gondola with a hike on the peak walkway over to the skiing. Pass holders only for today and then general public starting Sat.

Sunday River has 2 short trail sections accessed by the mid-station and above on Locke. Although only open weekends till sometime in Nov.

Ironic that both opened in such short time and on the same day as ABasin. Though per snow reports they have 5 and 7 acres of skiing open on very thin bases (as low as 6"). Vs ABasin having 28 acres open (only one trail) and on a solid 18" base depth. Two very different methods of opening for the season for sure.
 
Really not that different. None of these places would be open without the snowmaking. The skiing is probably rather similar now. The eastern skiing will get worse the first time it rains, and it rains A LOT in the Northeast in November.

Patrick, better get out there and claim month #157 soon!!!
 
jamesdeluxe":2g477h69 said:
Tony Crocker":2g477h69 said:
Patrick, better get out there and claim month #157 soon!!!
You forgot the obligatory "tail wagging the dog" line.
No need to :dead horse: any more. Patrick is truly committed, might as well encourage it at this point. Eventually someone in the ski media should pick up on this.

On that Australian forum Patrick commented that he has more ski days in the Southern Hemisphere than in western North America. That's OK. I have more than 4x as many ski days in the Southern Hemisphere as in eastern North America. :p
 
EMSC":22t3lijj said:
Both ski areas opened today Oct 19th after a short cold snap and only have short upper mountain sections open.

At Killington up/downloading as usual on the K1 Gondola with a hike on the peak walkway over to the skiing. Pass holders only for today and then general public starting Sat.

Saw this coming before hand and I was hoping to go to Sunday River last Friday for opening, but having left from Ottawa at 6ish in the morning Thursday to deal with Montreal housing issues followed by a PIL concert that evening...I thought it was wiser to pass. I tied it in with my next trip to Montreal made it out this past Wednesday at Killington.

Conditions were really really nice (checkout my post on Instagram @madpatski)

Today Friday, MSS opened.
Tomorrow Saturday: Mount Snow and Wildcat (top to bottom) also open. NH and Maine got dumped on.
 
Patrick":6euii3l4 said:
I forgot to mention, but I started looking for a possible ski trip to South Africa. ;)
I might join you for that one: my last unskied continent and probably where I'm most likely to get it.
 
Tony Crocker":3vr1xmcq said:
Patrick":3vr1xmcq said:
I forgot to mention, but I started looking for a possible ski trip to South Africa. ;)
I might join you for that one: my last unskied continent and probably where I'm most likely to get it.

Morocco has definitely the best liftserved skiing on the continent, but you skiing in South Africa and Lesotho is pretty high the exotic scale.
 
The opportunity cost of going to Morocco in its short January/February season is high for most of us lift served skiers. My friend Richard traveled to Morocco once, passed by the Oukaimeden ski area in late February and saw it closed with only patchy snow on the ground.

The higher Atlas Mountains up to 13,000 feet are a noted destination for serious backcountry skiers. Ice Axe Expeditions, who run the Antarctic ski cruises, has run a couple of trips to Morocco.

Winter is peak safari season in southern Africa, good reason to spend 2-3 weeks there, during which it's easy to detour for a day or two of skiing, even though it's the WROD.
 
Looks like Tony may get comparatively lucky with his early-season NE trip. Here's a report from Magic in southern VT: 33 trails open/rock skis subtly recommended.

Needless to say: between now and his visit, things around here can change drastically, and not necessarily in our favor.
 
We are quite pleased with progress so far. There is a decent variety of terrain open at Killington and Sugarbush, more now than would be average for early December.

I do see a mixed precipitation forecast for early next week though.
 
We fly home from EWR early Dec. 8. We will definitely be in Vermont through Dec. 6, could ski up there Dec. 7 too and drive late.
 
Tony Crocker":fp55x6h0 said:
Now rain is forecast for our arrival day at Stratton Dec. 2. https://opensnow.com/dailysnow/newengland/post/12201 :twisted:

Wait a minute, we're talking about the NE in early December here. I'm pretty sure someone on this board (I'm too lazy to do a search) has repeatedly offered sound advice to avoid destination trips on fixed schedules to this region anytime of the winter, but especially in the early season. What Tony needs to do is change his plans and get to MRG/Sugarbush today or tomorrow. Should be great until the rain moves in on Sunday. The early season and the Sunday forecast might also work to keep the skier density pretty low on Saturday.

https://www.madriverglen.com/conditions/

https://opensnow.com/location/madriverglen

One more thing: why on earth Stratton? If Tony can't get up to MRG on Saturday, which picked up 27-33" from the storm cycle, Magic, which is reporting 16-23" from the cycle, is only 30 minutes past Stratton.
 
flyover":eckbbnov said:
I'm pretty sure someone on this board (I'm too lazy to do a search) has repeatedly offered sound advice to avoid destination trips on fixed schedules to this region anytime of the winter, but especially in the early season.
LOL, always great to throw people's words in their faces. :lol:

To be fair: as I understand it, this is a retiree's version of bringing your skis along on a business trip to the northeast -- i.e. not a true destination visit/they were already planning to be in the region for non-skiing reasons.
 
James is correct. Since we booked this trip over a month ago skiing rates still to far exceed the norm for early December. The weather/NASJA conference we are attending is at Stratton. We will ski there early Sunday until we get waterlogged and depart early Tuesday morning when the conference is over.

The front end of the trip was not flexible as Liz made lots of plans with her friends in NYC. Next Tuesday through Friday are completely flexible so we will range far from southern Vermont if that will improve the skiing.
 
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