Flat and fast. Love winter!

Hello and hope everyone had a Happy Holiday yesterday and is enjoy the start to their holiday week! I did not ski today, but I have some first hand information from Lorraine that did. She skied  first crack this morning, from 8:30-10:15 under mostly sunny and 25 degrees. There was an inch or so of accumulation last night as well. Always a plus.

She reports that she skied only the  expert trails today which included East Fall, Highline, Cascade, Super Star, Skyelark and Bittersweet.

The rest is a summarized from her: I was amazed at how few people were skiing on the trails where I skied. I would say overall you would consider today firm (not icy). If you paid attention even late in the afternoon you could find a nice route on every trail where the soft snow accumulated.

After being in Utah a couple of weeks ago, I have come to really appreciate Killington’s snowmaking. In a year like this when no one has snow Killington really shines again.

Look for additional trails to open this week.  I hear Cruise Control at Needles Eye will be open on Tuesday and the guns are on Skye Burst top to bottom at Bear.

Lorraine -  Happy Holidays

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

25 degrees, cloudy with flurries. Hey everybody, guess who? That’s right, it’s Dave, back at long last in the Basin Sports Snow Report Operations Center (BSSROC.) Oh, and Merry Christmas too. If you’re anything like me, your favorite way to celebrate Christmas (or any other holiday, really) is to get up, drink coffee, take a few runs, and then overeat; mission accomplished. For brevity’s sake, I’ll only concern myself here with the skiing part, but first a little background.

Today was, I’m ashamed to admit, only my third day of skiing at Killington this season. I had not slid down The Beast’s mighty flank since December 10th and thus had no idea what to expect. I did have a vague recollection of some un-wintery weather having passed through these parts last week, but at the time I was in Utah dealing with an entirely different strain of un-wintery weather and, thus, selfishly unconcerned with Eastern un-wintery weather. At any rate, what I found today was quite wintery.

Open terrain had expanded, new lifts had opened, snow had poured forth from both the heavens and the snow guns. While it’s true that there were areas of firm and shiny appearance, I chose to concentrate my efforts on Cascade and East Fall, two slopes that had been buried under mounds of fresh machine-made packed powder. Moguls formed on those two trails, fairly soft moguls, but large ones that tested spindly legs unaccustomed to daily skiing. I’m speaking of my own legs here, but probably others as well, who knows. In all, I was quite pleasantly surprised. The Beast comes through in a pinch like no other mountain I’ve ever seen. Lucky for all of us it looks like Mother Nature is going to play along too, for the foreseeable future at least, and give us a bit of natural snow and seasonable temperatures. Let us hope that winter is finally here to stay.

In other matters, I see that my profile photo has been updated. This is great news, I like that I now look more like a skier and less like a used car salesman. Also, I’d like to thank Jonathan for picking up my slack here at the Snow Report these last few months. I’m a bit nervous, truthfully, because he’s quite a bit more useful around here than I am as it is, and now an accomplished blogger as well. I may have to step up my game a bit. Anyway, thanks Jonathan.

Basin Sports Holiday Hours:

Monday- Thursday 7:15-9 and Friday 7:15-midnight.

Dave Young is a former ski tuner from the Midwest. In fact, he was once assistant to the assistant manager at the biggest tuning shop in the mall. These days he mostly skis, photographs other people skiing, or hangs out in coffee shops pretending to write about skiing. Shop Our Online Store

For those of of you that are still thinking that we still don’t have snow here at Killington, check out the world through Fred Scott’s eyes this morning…  Happy Holidays all!!!

The shop will be open tomorrow,  Christmas Day 7:15-7. Then Monday- Thursday 7:15-9 and Friday 7:15-midnight.

Vin Quenneville has worked at Basin Sports since he escaped Connecticut in 1997, managed Out of Bounds Snowboards since 2000 and launched Basinshopping.com in 2007. "I live for riding my bike in the summer and ripping tight tree lines in the winter." V.Q.

Basin Sports one and only Amy Smedly on Superstar Headwall

Light snow and 32* at 9:30. I wouldn’t exactly call it a powder day, but Killington did receive 4″ overnight of somewhat dense snow.

I skied 9:30-11:30. First run was up the Snowdon quad then Upper Chute to a hard, hard traverse to Highline.  Upper chute was great. Not to tracked. Highline had some decent snow on the sides, but the center was scraped down. Then I moved over to maximize my time with the Superstar chair. Snow was pretty decent enough though. loose stuff that got pushed into piles on top of a pack powder/machine groomed base.

I didn’t head up to K Peak today, but they are making snow on Cascade as well as the run out and they were spinning the CQ4. I’m hoping East Fall and Cascade are ready to go soon to start and spread out the crowds and get some more challenging terrain.

The holiday week forecast looks great too. Very cold and snow showery. With overnight lows in the single digits, snowmaking production will crank it out. Just in time for everyone who is headed here for an extended period. Also, as of 1:25, it’s still presently snowing!!

Just a quick note. The shop will be open tomorrow, Christmas Eve from 7:15-8. Christmas Day 7:15-7. Then Monday- Thursday 7:15-9 and Friday 7:15-midnight.

Have a great Holiday Folks. I’m off on Saturday and my pass is blacked out. My wife and I are planning on Pico on Sunday and I’ll give a report them. My pass is also blacked out all next week, so the one and only Dave Young will be back doing his reports.

Looking good at the junction of High Road and Bittersweet

Highline

The Umbrella Bars looks awesome. Cant wait to check them out!

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

Randy Grasso tearing up Lower Superstar

Another nice morning out there today. 32* with summits obscured by clouds. Skied 10-11:30 this morning. Weird conditions on the top half of Skye Peak this morning. Grooming occured last night when temps were above freezing. Then this morning things dropped below freezing seizing up the snow. Skier traffic then broke that up leaving ball bearings. After a couple more runs, skier traffic broke up the ball bearings and turned things to a more consistent granular. This was from the top of superstar to say just above High Road. Below that never set up and was cream cheese soft making Lower Superstar the ROTD

I skied Superstar a few times and a couple Skyelark>bittersweets and Bittersweet top to bottom. Upper Bittersweet still had big snowmaking whales from recent work done there and Lower Skyelark was closed for alpine training so that left Lower Superstar and Lower Bitter as the ways down off the Superstar chair.

All in all it was a pretty decent morning and the snow was soft on the bottom half and required more work to grab an edge on the upper half.

Tomorrow morning at 7am we’ll be ending our facebook contest where we’ll be giving away a pair of limited edition Orage Line X skis. Check us out on facebook to see who the winner is. At last count yesterday afternoon. The winner, Daniel Asam, was ahead of Ryan Healy with just 87 likes. Lets see who pulls it out with the most likes and takes home the skis

Skiers right on Lower SS was the ROTD

High road looking up towards Upper Bitter

As good as a picture can get with a 3.o megapixel Blackberry

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