I hope you’re here and enjoying your Holiday week. The conditions have been pretty good, considering the circimstances and yesterdays 10″ storm certainly helped things and further expanded terrain.

Another great day here in Killington. Today is more or less a transition day. People are leaving that were here for after Christmas and people are arriving for a long New Years weekend. No skiing for me today, but driving past Pico about 11:30 I saw plenty of empty chairs on the line of the Summit Express and the lower Golden Express had a full line, but many single and double riders. Over on the Killington side I can see that the major artery trails such as Bittersweet and Chute/ Mouse Trap don’t have as nearly as many people on them as they have had in past days. Yes, I realize that the Needles Eye chair is now open and that is spreading around the crowds, but overall the on-hill population looks light.

New terrain on tap for the New Years holiday include Skyeburst and Bearly for tomorrow which will open up Bear. I’m psyced about this as it opens up a new area to spread crowds, opens up a new parking facility as well as a lodge. Most of all, it opens up a top-to bottom run with a moderate pitch served by a HSQ. In my opinion, once Bear opens, many of the pieces of the Killington puzzle are in place.

We have some roving basinski.com snow reporters on the hill now. I’ll have some pics up later.

Jonathan Celauro started skiing when he was four and still hasn't quite figured it out yet. After college, he moved to Killington and now 16 yrs later, each comprised of 100+ day ski seasons, he's still trying to grasp the whole skiing concept. At this point he imagines his best option is to just go with the flow. "I still find myself dreaming of big mountain lines and deep powder snow." J.C. Shop Our Online Store

A buddy of mine shot this today. Drool..

Killington 12.29.11 from sLoPeS on Vimeo.

Jonathan Celauro started skiing when he was four and still hasn't quite figured it out yet. After college, he moved to Killington and now 16 yrs later, each comprised of 100+ day ski seasons, he's still trying to grasp the whole skiing concept. At this point he imagines his best option is to just go with the flow. "I still find myself dreaming of big mountain lines and deep powder snow." J.C. Shop Our Online Store

Pico. Big mountain skiing with a small mountain touch.

So when I left Basin Sports at around 8pm last night it was about 10* blowing like heck, about 10″ on the ground and still spitting some snow. I knew today would be a fantastic day.  I get home and tell my wife that she better get up early and get out there. My wife, Sandy, has a Pico only pass and my Killington/Pico pass has blackout dates. This week being some of the blackout period.

About 7:30 this morning as I’m up feeding our son, I gently wake her up. She springs to life with excitement about the fact that powder turns are about an hour away. She leaves at 8:10 and by 8;25 she finds herself waiting for the Golden Express at the base of Pico. She’s about 20 chairs deep when she sees some friends up the line that have three. She makes it a full chair. Up the Golden down Fools Gold to the Summit chair. From the top, she said it was 49er which was about three quarters wide groomed. She did two there getting some fresh before patrol opened up upper KA. She grabbed another two on KA before it was tracked. Then alternated another 49er and KA before calling it. She said that it was cold, bluebird and surprisingly not all that windy. She also mentioned that Pico snowmakers are doing what they do best on Easy Street> Middle Pike and that it looked like it was ready to go. She said there were plenty of track down Sunset ’71, but it was closed. Lots of sticks and brush coming through, but lots of powder turns in there. When I asked where the pics are for the basinski.com report, she replied “what are you nuts? I’m not taking my gloves off to take a picture. It was waaay to cold up there for that.” That’s her Pico report. I’ll be back out there on Sunday with my own personal spin on these reports. Stay warm out there!

Jonathan Celauro started skiing when he was four and still hasn't quite figured it out yet. After college, he moved to Killington and now 16 yrs later, each comprised of 100+ day ski seasons, he's still trying to grasp the whole skiing concept. At this point he imagines his best option is to just go with the flow. "I still find myself dreaming of big mountain lines and deep powder snow." J.C. Shop Our Online Store

Storm riding. Gotta love it!

Who says the early bird gets the worm? Well, that wasn’t the case today. Good things that come to those who wait. I unfortunately didn’t get out there today, but there were plenty of folks in here today that did.

After a sleety start early, it was just absolutely honking snow later in the day and with the wind swirling around, it was burring tracks fast. The wind was definitely your friend today. I mean it’s tough to say what was good and what wasn’t. It was nukin snow at 1/2-1″ per hour. Everything was good. Wish I was out there rather than writing about it, but I’ll get mine next week.

Last nights combination of sleet and mixed precip and straight up rain  will freeze and adhere well to the base. Then add six inches of snow on top of that and you’ve good a good time staring you in the face. My guess is that Patrol will be dropping ropes tomorrow as they get out there and check things Enjoy it people!

Looking Good!

More storm riding!

Nukeage!

Jonathan Celauro started skiing when he was four and still hasn't quite figured it out yet. After college, he moved to Killington and now 16 yrs later, each comprised of 100+ day ski seasons, he's still trying to grasp the whole skiing concept. At this point he imagines his best option is to just go with the flow. "I still find myself dreaming of big mountain lines and deep powder snow." J.C. Shop Our Online Store

Killington doing a nice job in spreading out the Holiday week skiers and riders and offering the most terrain in the East!

**UPDATE** We just received word that Killington will open at 9am tomorrow (Wednesday December 28). Basin Sports  will open at its regularly scheduled  holiday week time of 7:15 tomorrow

Another great day out there on the hill. I wasn’t there personally, but had first hand reports of those that were, and here’s what they had to say.

The crowds are here, but Killington is running lifts keeping lift lines to a minimal and doing a nice job at spreading out the crowds. The Superstar and Canyon quad had many single and double riders with a frequent empty chair going up. Most of the crowds stuck to the intermediate pitches on Snowdon and Rams Head. The expert terrain was relatively uncrowded. Cascade was the ROTD after it was again groomed out (and will most likely be daily).  East Fall was a bit more slick, not icy, but firm  then Cascade. The best skiing on the hill was up there today though.

The Superstar pod had more of the same. It was more crowded and more skied out, but one could easily avoid any slick or icy spots. The Superstar headwall was the most skied out, middle superstar skied very well, and on the lower portion the sides of the trails held the best snow. Lower Skyelark was pretty skied out as was Upper Bittersweet. Skyelark>Bittersweet made for a nice run though.

Our Shop hours this week are Monday-Thursday 7:15-9, Friday 7:15-mindnight, New Years Eve Saturday 7:15-9 and New Years Day Sunday 7:15-9

No lift lines and not full line going up on the Canyon Chair

Lots of single and double riders going up the Superstar Chair at 12:45

Some smooth carvin on a pack powder/machine groomed base

Jonathan Celauro started skiing when he was four and still hasn't quite figured it out yet. After college, he moved to Killington and now 16 yrs later, each comprised of 100+ day ski seasons, he's still trying to grasp the whole skiing concept. At this point he imagines his best option is to just go with the flow. "I still find myself dreaming of big mountain lines and deep powder snow." J.C. Shop Our Online Store