Powdery natural snow bumps on Lower Vertigo

Clouds than Sun, 34* and a slight breeze @ noon.

Man, what can I say about today! What a day out there. I checked the Killington cams at 8am and the looked a little wet. I proceeded to do other things that needed to get done. By time I got there at noon things improved greatly. I was thinking that there was a couple inches of wet snow caked everywhere. That wasn’t the case by noon. The new snow that fell was dense, but not wet. Once cut up by skier traffic the wind seemed to dry it out, which made it ski better than what I was expecting.

My best runs were on Middle O and Upper Skyehawk. Middle O had lots of untouched on it and skiers right of Skyehawk had a lot of wind blown snow. Both skied great.

Superstar skied well too. The middle isn’t anything to write home about, but the lower had some decent loose snow on it as well as some good moguls. I skied over to way skiers left, where the old waterpark was and met up with some KSC/KMC Freestyle B Kids whom I used to coach last year. Skied a run with them and went my way.

From there I checked out the Needle’s Eye area. Holy cow is the skiing nice over there. Panic/Needles skied well, but I was most impressed with the natural snow bumps on lower vertigo. Some of the best that I have came across this season. I just couldn’t drag myself off of them. So soft and powdery.

The ski season isn’t getting any shorter. If you were waiting for conditions to improve, now’s teh time to be here.

No one on Superstar at noon during President's week. Weird.

Pow Bumps on the left, open pow on the right. Mid-Ovation

Hanging with the KSC Freestyle B kids

Needles Eye looked sweet!

Stichline. No Rocks even

I was loving Skyehawk today!

Looking up at Lower Skelark.

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

Some good skiing on Sunset '71

Mostly sunny with some high clouds 28* at 10:30

Today was an absolute treat for me. My wife, Sandy, who teaches at Rutland Middle School is off this week for Winter Recess. We actually had our fourth chance to ski together this year. Pico was somewhat crowed by Pico standards. Busier than what I have seen on any previous  Sunday that I have skied there this year.

The snow quality and grooming were top notch though. The main thoroughfare, 49er, was holding up surprisingly well with machined groomed  throughout. As one would expect, KA was a little more scraped off as it’s a quarter wide as 49er. It was still decent skiing though. Pike was open, ungroomed, looking boney and burly. We stayed away from it.

After quite a few 49er’s and two on the lower mountain we headed over to LPT and B-Slope. We found some of the best snow on the hill there. Upper B-Slope sits right in the sun and is always the first to soften. Today was par for the course for B. We did three runs on it before heading out separate ways.

Today was a  great morning for Pico.

Sandy getting her swerve on 49er

Sandy harnessing her inner Hannah Kearney with that hair doo during this turn initiation.

Smooth carving on Mid-Pike

looking up at Upper Pike

Carnage on 49er

Not very crowded for Presidents week and really nice snow too

Follow pics from mid-KA

Sandy getting her carve on B-Slope

Amongst the masses on B-Slope

Nary a soul in sight on B-Slope at 12:30 the Tuesday of Presidents week

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

Some soft bumps on Lower Skyelark

Mostly sunny, blustery 24* at 2:15pm

Got out late today as I had a busy day in the office. I must say I was very surprised how good it was for how late in the day I skied. I figured it would be super scraped off and kinda blah. It was actually far from that. I mean there was some occasional boiler plate that was easy to avoid, but the middle of the trails was mostly hardpact, not ice. You could grab an edge at any time. I skied the sides of the trails as they were more granular.

The best part of my ski day was Lower Skyelark. Killington has had the tower guns cranking there since Friday afternoon and they shut down this afternoon.  Skyelark was skiing great with some nice, soft bumps that went the distance. I got there for my first run and some some friends who were skiing it all day for the most part. Nothing like showing up fresh at 2:20 ready to roll when your friends have been at it for for 4+ hrs already. I could of skied Skyelark for the rest of the afternoon, but I wanted to ski around some to see what else ther was to report on.

Headed over to bear and skied Wildfire, which was surprisingly nice. Not crowded and granular snow. Up the Bear chair to OL where I skied the rope line. It was okay, but more scratched off than anything I skied today. Not worth a repeat. Up the SPE to the Stash. I rarely  ski that so I figure why not? It definitely had the best groomed snow on it that I found. Back up the SPE to Bittersweet that was surprising good for all the traffic that it sees. Completely edgeable throughout the whole trail. I ended the day skiing a couple more on Lower Skyelark before heading back to the shop.

Great late afternoon out there!

Natural snow on Old Needles Eye

Grisly had some sweet soft snow on it. earlier, but by 2:45 it was in the shade and starting to re-set

Good snow on Wildfire. Not bad for late afternoon on a holiday!

Lower Skyelark was happening this afternoon.

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

Go check out Middlebury Snow Bowl for a day. Good stuff 25 mins away from K

29* with sun in and out of clouds at 11am

Sorry this is so late, but we had a long day yesterday, and then a few drinks. I’ve learned to stay off the interwebz after a few drinks in me. So here’s Sunday’s report bright and early Monday Morning.

My Merchant pass was blacked out on Sunday, so Sandy ,our lil’ one year old Derek, and I packed up and headed 25 mins up 100N to Middlebury Snow Bowl. If you’ve never been, please do yourself a favor and head up there. If for nothing else, a change of scenery and a different pace. So we get there at 11 and there’s 200 or so  cars in the lot. You won’t find that at any ski area the Sunday going into President’s week. My wife Sandy skis for six runs while I walk around with the little boy in the front pack.  Then I settle into the kids only corner that they have set up in the upstairs portion of the lodge which was totally uncrowded and clean. The lodge itself was rather uncrowded. At least the upstairs. There was always a vacant table and chairs.

Sandy returns after an hour and a half and then I head up. This is my third time there and the place is pretty cool. Not only is it steeped in ski racing history, but it’s a cool little hill, with lots of funky fall lines. Not bad for a place with 1, 050′vertical. There are three lifts total, but realistically there is a double that serves the lower part and a new to them (used) peak triple chair that they replaced their old relic double with a couple years ago.

At this point, it’s 12:30 and I’m getting on snow. No matter the place is deserted and there is fresh snow all around.  I head up the peak chair and down their main corridor, Allen. You can tell that this is a racing trail, and a racing ski area for that fact just by how they made snow on their expert terrain.  Firm underneath with a few inches of new new on top that was groomed in. Second run I try their other main route from the top, Ross. They were making snow on Ross which made it ski even better. Ross skis more directly down the falline than Allen. Third run I go venturing into the woods. I try Proctor Glades. Plenty of untouched freshies all around. I played around between Ross and Proctor for the next few runs before I switched off to hang with the lil man, who promptly took a nap in the front pack, while Sandy headed back out to ski some more.

The area where Snow Bowl sits makes it catch a lot of snow. There is a good 18″+ base of natural up there. It was very weird because just a mile west of that there was no snow on the ground. Very strange to have such a difference in such a short span. It seems that the infrastructure of the place is pretty solid too. I mean they’re still making snow, every snowmobile I saw was a new SkiDoo, plenty of fixed grip tower guns and plenty of portable tower guns stacked around the base area. Even where they were making snow, they had new hoses connected to quiet snow guns that were producing a nice dry product.

My one quirk that I would have is that they are toughto get information out of. They’re on facebook, but rarely  interact. Their snow report website is run by snowcountry.com, so you don’t get any inside beta, just how many lifts and trails are open. The best way to see what’s up with this is by, gasp, actually give them a call and seeing what’s up.

I would suggest going up there for a day and checking it out. They’re open daily with weekend lift tickets being $46 and midweek $32 (half price midweek tickets if you bring a non-perishable food for their food drive). They always run preseason specials where they have $20 tickets, too. Yesterday was a $25 retro day and the place was still vacant.

Enough of me talking. Here are some pics.

This was taken at 1pm on a Sunday on an open trail

Plenty of Sunday afternoon pow. Didn't even have to look hard for it.

Still making snow too!

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

I was so amped to get virgin fresh that I didn't take a pic of the first run

2-3″ new snow. Sun and clouds. 30*

I skied Pico today. A few reasons made that for my decision.

1. Pico lift served ends in about six weeks, so get it while the lifts are still spinning
2. While driving past, the lot was EMPTY and there was freshies everywhere
3. I know that there is a solid base and I was hoping that this 2-3″ of dense snow will make it skiable
4. I had to go to the post office to drop off some international shipments heading to Denmark and Romania. I didn’t feel like driving up Killington road twice

Well, I definitely made the right decision. As I’m walking up to the Golden Express, I see that no one skied Bronco. I skied it last week and it had a smooth sealed base. Now I just hope that this little bit of snow would help it ski well.

Basically, I skied Bronco six times, laid all six tracks and never crossed a one of them. the 2-3″ of dense fresh skied more like 6 or so of lighter snow.

After skiing out bronco, I saw people coming down Pike and UGK. FINALLY after all season, the two best trails at Pico open. Didn’t ski UGK, but did ski Pike and it was awesome. Very technical and tons of lines to be had in there. Sure it was thin, but it was finally legally open.

Today was a good day!

Here are the pics in their 3.1 megapixels of glory:

Second run

Second run cont.

Yup, you guessed it.

Keep in mind, this second run is about 11:20

View wasn't so bad either

nothing better than looking back at your hike to and seeing NO ONE in sight

Top of run 3

Bottom of run 3

Bottom of run 4

If I was the only one to lay tracks on Bronco, you know Pipeline lays virgin

Bottom of run 5

Looking at the best way to snow farm this out and not cross any of my tracks.

Last run on Bronco. All six tracks laid by me, not one crossed.

Hats off to Patrol for getting this open

Tons of options and technical skiing

Skiers left to skiers right at tower 16. Legit!

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