Killington 5-5-07

[loafer89]

Area skied: Killington, Vermont.

Date skied: May 5th, 2007 from 9:30am - 3:00pm.

Surface conditions: Frozen granular (early) granular, corn snow, limited bare spots and mud.

We started out the day with a run down a frozen and unyielding Bittersweet/High Road. We timed this run too early and made our way back up to Skylark. The portion of the trail above High Road had some nice moguls which got much bigger in the afternoon:



There was only one break in the trail, but Warren and I had fun skiing over the wet semi snow covered grass to get to the rest of the trail:



Bittersweet became out trail of the day after it softened up and we took 5 more runs down it before leaving enjoying the bumps and the lack of people on the trail. On our last run some snowboarders had made a rail just below this break in the snow out of two huge logs.

Skylark had softer snow with more thin/bare spots and we only skied it twice as there was one very narrow and muddy area below the High Road intersection. Warren fell down while trying to side step down the narrow section and got covered in mud on his rear end.

Superstar was nice with a groomed flat and icy headwall but softer snow and bumps on the lower part of the trail. I am not the biggest fan of this trail as I have probably been down it 300+ times at least since I started late season skiing on it in 1993, so we only took two top to bottom runs on it:





The middle section does not have the 8-10' of base that it had years ago at this time of the year and the section below the headwall was down to about 1' by 3pm with some areas of brown snow showing through, which would probably require walking if they are opened another week. But this is how it looked at 10am:



At 1:30pm after taking in 9 runs, Warren and I decided to earn some turns and hike up to the peak to ski some of the copious amounts of snow still lingering on Killington Peak. We rode the Superstar Quad to the top of Skye Peak and then hiked up Nevis Walk/Launch Pad/Great Eastern. Warren got the light duty of carrying our poles and my helmet:



I guess that this is about a 3/4 of a mile walk and this was my first time earning turns on closed terrain. It was an easy walk, but tough for a 7 year old, so I carried the heavy stuff and we made it to the top of South Ridge in about 30 minutes:



Warren was very worried and concerned about only having the option of skiing double diamonds off of the peak and we had a choice of Cascade, Downdraft or Double Dipper, so we chose Double Dipper because it had the most snow with the least amount of bare spots.

The snow was fantastic, easily the best run of the day with silky soft corn snow and huge moguls and we had the trail 100% to ourselves.



The easy to carve, but not to slushy snow reminded me of skiing at Mammoth last June. Killington could easily have run the Canyon chair with a bare minimum of walking required at the bottom of the lift. Double Dipper looking down:



Warren actually had fun on Double Dipper and this was his first time skiing a Double Diamond off Killington Peak, and without a lift as well. He had fun skiing from patch to patch of snow on Spillway, but we did have a 10 minute walk back to the Superstar Quad.

We took one more run down Bittersweet, but the sno was like glue at 3pm with open water, slush and bare spots, and my toes/legs where hurting from the skiing and climbing, so we called it a day after 10 lift serviced and one hiking run.

Killington @4pm:

[thetrailboss]

I think I skied by you....on 4 Way. First run for me at 12 noon or so...

[shwilly]

I think I saw you, too. I saw a guy talking to his son W., but I would have felt weird saying "Hey, are you loafer89?"

It was a fun few hours and a good way to end the season for me. The weather and views were nice, the bumps were soft, and the mandatory mud gap on Bittersweet was kind of fun once I found a spot narrow enough to jump across.

Post-A41 I won't go to Killington much. If this was my last visit for a while, it's a good way to remember it, with slushy spring bumps on a sunny day in May.

[loafer89]

I updated my post with pictures and our hike to Double Dipper. I saw some of the crew from K Zone and we walked past them on the way to the car when we left, but I do not know anyone so we just went home.

A great day overall with a phenominal amount of snow still left on Killington Peak.

[snowmonster]

Thanks for the report and the pics. Heading up to K Sunday and I'm glad that there's a lot of snow to look forward to.

[loafer89]

There is alot of snow on Killington Peak and the Glades area looked well covered also. We probably should have done a few hiking runs on Rime and East Glade, but we elected to ski back to Superstar instead.

If a decent amount of snow holds into June. we might consider a hike for some turns.