Killington 1/3

Wednesday ski day with my father and many of his friends (I'll be there next week, the 10th as well) who all meet up every Wednesday throughout Killington's season. The summary: Snowmaking trails were great (Cascade and Superstar) with perfect man-made being laid down and people skiing it out into those soft, chalky, small bumps that usually pop up from on-going snowmaking. Groomed trails were ok, frozen ice cubes (not granular, larger chunks of ice) and some packed powder on trails that recently saw snowmaking. Anything ungroomed was not skiable. Don't bother trying, I did, it wasn't fun.

Reasoning: Above 3,000ft, the damage from last Sunday's ice storm was evident. Not necessarily damage to the forest (thought likely some) but damage to the skiing surface. Overall, Killington had more natural snow than I was expecting but the ice from Sunday was something else...brings new meaning to the skiers reference to an "ice skating rink."

Here's an intermediate, natural snow trail around midmtn elevation:
http://tinyurl.com/ygn6cq
1-2" thick, cannot edge, get an inner tube and pray, ice. It makes even beginner pitches downright scary and made me pause several times to wonder what the next best move would be.
Here's the top of Killington Peak...note the Catwalk trail sign. That's not rime ice on the trees...its just ice.
http://tinyurl.com/yhm3ho
Ice on instruments on top of the lodge.
http://tinyurl.com/yk6wqv
Ice on trail signs (note top right of sign stick, over 1" of ice).
http://tinyurl.com/yysz22
Ice reflecting off trees on the hill sides...making them glisten.
http://tinyurl.com/srpem

Watched a girl on skiers right on Superstar headwall get away from the snowmaking, fell, and rocketed at a bizarre speed on her back halfway down through the middle section! Superstar was quite good under the guns, though.
http://tinyurl.com/ydxudr
http://tinyurl.com/yfmfyu
http://tinyurl.com/yf7skd
Cascade was nice and soft under the guns as well.
http://tinyurl.com/y7mc82
Skied some trees...Steve's always up for doing something stupid and knows the in-bounds quite well. We branched away from the main pack to ski Light; we wanted to ski trees, so we did. It gave new meaning to "boney."
http://tinyurl.com/y7xg2q
http://tinyurl.com/vv7ql
http://tinyurl.com/y48a2r
Somethings really shouldn't be skied.

Groomed trails were business as usual, even if the skiing surfaces were ice cubes. The views were great, and nature put on a good show. It looked like winter in Vermont, which was nice for a change.
http://tinyurl.com/y2bvmh
http://tinyurl.com/y2yxjt
http://tinyurl.com/y8pgzg
http://tinyurl.com/y6ps2m

Overall, a very fun day. Conditions could've been better but that doesn't really matter if you're having fun. Will be back next Wednesday.

-Scott

Wow ... that ice on the ungroomed trails is just nasty, nasty, nasty. Did you not notice all that glaring ice before you started your way down the trail?

Haha...yes, I did but the top section was alright. The pitch was so low and a dusting to 1" they received a few days ago had filled in the bumps (you know how that goes) so it was pretty good for the first 100 yards...then we changed aspects, the pitched dropped every so slightly, and the wind had cleaned the place. Ended up skiing in the brush on the side of the trail as bark and other debris gave some traction.

what trail was that?

That first picture reminds me of a time when I was a kid and we got a similar ice storm over a foot of snow. My buddy and I actually skated on the hill behind his house. If you were careful not to put too much pressure on either skate you wouldn't punch through, and we got going pretty fast.

(That was in the early 70's)