Kmart 12/4-12/5

[Geoff]

We hit the preferred parking lot at 8:00 sharp on Saturday and the main Killington parking lot was already full. Apparently, people were delusional and thought 5" of snow meant we were due for an epic powder day. We did one lap on Snowdon and noted upper Bunny Buster was already closed for junior program. Highline was also roped off for Junior program. We then headed over to the Glades triple only to discover that 10,000 of our best friends were already there. 8:30 and a 15 minute liftline? We did a few laps there until we got hopelessly bored and then skied out down Snowdon. Looked across at the Superstar quad and saw 4 bodies in every chair of a high speed quad that was serving one trail. Opted to bail out at 9:45.

Sunday, we started out on the Superstar lift and got some good runs in until it became uncomfortably crowded at 9:00. We did one lap on the Snowdon triple down a very bullet-proof Highline and bailed for the day.

My worst fears about the impact of those $349 season passes has come true. Anybody want to buy a condo at Killington?

 

[Joshua B]

Brutal

Thanks for your honesty about the overcrowded trip.

 

[joegm]

ur right about the pass G...sadly though, come may, the place will be warm, w/ soft snow and sunshine... but empty and they will shut it down

 

[Chromer]

My worst fears about the impact of those $349 season passes has come true.

Whups. I guess I'm part of the problem...

Sugarloaf had cars in their 3rd parking lot on Saturday, which is a bit unusual for this early in the season. It's going to be a zoo once we get some snow. Good for ASC, bad for me.

OTOH, does K-Mart get as quiet on Sunday afternoons as the 'Loaf does? Everyone seems to head back to Boston around 1pm. Place turns into a ghost town.

 

[skiadikt]

gotta agree w/ geoff about his assessment of the crowds this weekend. other than for the bmmc or some other big event, i've never see it like this before. riding the k1 at shortly after 8am, we could see that the kbl lot was already filled and they were parking them on the access road. we usually hit the lifts at 8am, and in the past we could always count on getting in a few quiet runs before the hordes arrived at 9:30-10:00. no more. full corrals to ride the glades chair at 8:15 for a 45 sec run. yikes! at least the skiing up there didn't seem terribly crowded. snowden on the other hand, a horror show. had to make many forced turns or not turn when you wanted. scratching & scraping all around. you held on for your life through the mixing bowls. skye/bitter was only slightly better but with snowguns just adding to the fun. we lasted til about 1pm.

sunday usually the quieter day was a little better but still our first runs down skye/bitter were in a crowd. they are coming & they're coming early. hopefully things will ease up when more terrain is open but the word is definitely out about hitting the mountain early. i did think the snow conditions generally were pretty good considering the situation.

 

[Geoff]

OTOH, does K-Mart get as quiet on Sunday afternoons as the 'Loaf does? Everyone seems to head back to Boston around 1pm. Place turns into a ghost town.

K-Mart doesn't quite turn into a ghost town at 1pm on a Sunday but an awful lot of people bail out early. On a typical weekend, Sunday morning has 75% of the traffic of Saturday. The night clubs on the Access Road thin out the Sunday crowd and there are a fair number of Saturday-only day trippers.

 

[Sharon]

hmmm, I wonder if Mt Snow is experiencing the same thing.

I've got free lift tix from the Warren Miller film showing this fall to Mt Snow and Kmart. I want to hit them next weekend and was thinking maybe it would make more sense to hit Mt Snow on saturday and Kton on sunday.

Was considering checking out Mt Snow this weekend instead, but, with the weather the way it is, it may be worthwhile to wait a week.

I may break in my seasons pass at Greek Peak if they open, or, I may end up using it at Gore where I get 50% off with the GP seasons pass. Save VT for next week when there should be some natural snow and more days of snowmaking.