• Welcome to AlpineZone, the largest online community of skiers and snowboarders in the Northeast!

    You may have to REGISTER before you can post. Registering is FREE, gets rid of the majority of advertisements, and lets you participate in giveaways and other AlpineZone events!

Killington, 1/20/10 - The tamest "Beast" I've ever met :-(

BushMogulMaster

Industry Rep
Industry Rep
Joined
Mar 9, 2007
Messages
1,815
Points
48
Location
Leadville, CO
Dad and I headed down to big 'ol K this morning. Drove up to K1, cloud covering the peak. Got ticket. Went up K1. Took a token run on Juggernaut-Sassafras to get to Bear. Actually decided to ride the Skye Peak Express to take a warmup run, and have a look at the park (just for comparison... I don't ski much in the park).

Then rode up Bear Quad. Skied Outer Limits. Lame, from a mogul skiing perspective. It was groomed for the holiday weekend, and the "bumps" on skiers' right were atrocious... just big piles of "puff" with 25' sections of hardpack/chaulkdust/icy snowmaking between them. Back up Skye Peak quad and down Skyelark... more piles of puff with bad patches between.

Back up K1. Skied over to the Snowdon area. Up Snowdon Quad, over to Northstar, only to find it basically flat (Great Bear looked about the same). A patroller was skiing by, so I asked him if there were any real bumps. His answer? "Not really." Guess they groomed the whole mountain for the holiday weekend. He said the only real bumps he could think of were on Conclusion. The patroller was very cordial, and even apologized for the total lack of mogul terrain.

Took one run on conclusion. It was mediocre. Steep, natural bumps. But crappy, irregular bumps. Walls and gnarly ruts (<- not good gnarly, BAD gnarly). They have a nice looking bump course for KMS there, but the natural bumps were not very good. In fact, I think I inadvertently offended one of the KMS coaches. I was talking to my dad, saying how unfortunate it was that these were the "best" bumps on the mountain, and I didn't notice the coach standing at the top of the course until he gave me a dirty glance! At least I had a good run after that, so I didn't look like a total idiot. And it was actually a fun run, just not the greatest bumps.

So, after a thorough disappointment, and only a handful of runs, we left. Visibility was pretty rough, and conditions were just not that good. There was a couple inches of fresh on top of hard, overtilled snowmaking. I realized today how lucky I am to live in the MRV.

It was particularly disappointing for my dad, who was a supervisor at Bear Mountain in the late 80s. To see the deferred maintenance (i.e. Devil's Fiddle Quad line equipment), plus the total and complete lack of mogul terrain (Bear was his mogul haven in the day; even when he was a supervisor in the Upper Basin, he would sneak to Bear for his mogul fix)... quite sad, really.

I try not to be too nasty about other resorts, but the only thought that kept going through my head was, "this place is a joke!" I probably hit it at the wrong time, but that's irrelevant. If they go grooming every bloody trail on the mountain for each big holiday, I think that's unfortunate (not to mention detrimental to snow quality). And to see the remains of various old lifts (Devil's Fiddle, Needle's Eye, lower Northeast Passage) rotting away doesn't exactly lend the best appearance.

The mountain still has the "potential" to be an incredible ski area, and it still is incredible, from a scale perspective. It's a huge resort, and a neat combination of infrastructure. But it's certainly not any sort of "beast." It was fun to get out for a day and ski somewhere different, but I can't wait to get back on the mountain here tomorrow.

Took the camera, but nothing was really worth photographing today. Poor visibility + boring terrain = bad pictures.


If you like the concept of wide groomed runs all over the place, then you'd probably enjoy K. Not my thing.
 
Last edited:

BushMogulMaster

Industry Rep
Industry Rep
Joined
Mar 9, 2007
Messages
1,815
Points
48
Location
Leadville, CO
I should add, in all fairness, that there were, in fact, a couple of nicely groomed cruisers that were soft and fun. But that's not what I was looking for.
 

powbmps

Active member
Joined
Jul 8, 2007
Messages
1,334
Points
36
Location
NH
Well they got everyone all fired up early last week. Lots of talk, but not much came of it.

At least they blew snow on DF for a day.

(Bear was the sh*t back in the late 80's for sure)
 

frankm938

New member
Joined
Mar 24, 2009
Messages
324
Points
0
Dad and I headed down to big 'ol K this morning. Drove up to K1, cloud covering the peak. Got ticket. Went up K1. Took a token run on Juggernaut-Sassafras to get to Bear. Actually decided to ride the Skye Peak Express to take a warmup run, and have a look at the park (just for comparison... I don't ski much in the park).

Then rode up Bear Quad. Skied Outer Limits. Lamest thing ever. It was groomed for the holiday weekend, and the "bumps" on skiers' right were absolutely atrocious... just big piles of crap with 25' sections of hardpack/chaulkdust snowmaking between them. Disgusting. Back up Skye Peak quad and down Skyelark... more piles of puff with nasty tilled snowmaking between.

Back up K1. Skied over to the Snowdon area. Up Snowdon Quad, over to Northstar, only to find it basically flat (Great Bear looked about the same). A patroller was skiing by, so I asked him if there were any real bumps. His answer? "Not really." Guess they groomed the whole mountain for the holiday weekend. He said the only real bumps he could think of were on Conclusion. The patroller was very cordial, and even apologized for the total lack of mogul terrain.

Took one run on conclusion. It was incredibly mediocre. Steep, natural bumps. But crappy, irregular bumps. Walls and gnarly ruts (<- not good gnarly, BAD gnarly). They have a nice looking bump course for KMS there, but the natural bumps were not very good. In fact, I think I inadvertently offended one of the KMS coaches. I was talking to my dad, saying how lame it was that these were the "best" bumps on the mountain, and I didn't notice the coach standing at the top of the course until he gave me a dirty glance! At least I had a good run after that, so I didn't look like a total idiot.

So, after a thorough disappointment, and only a handful of runs, we left. Visibility was pretty rough, and conditions were just not that good. There was a couple inches of fresh on top of hard, overtilled snowmaking. I realized today how lucky I am to live in the MRV.

It was particularly disappointing for my dad, who was a supervisor at Bear Mountain in the late 80s. To see the remains of the Yan Devil's Fiddle Quad (on which he was loading 4 people on every chair back then, at 450fpm) just wasting away, deroped, combined with the total and complete lack of mogul terrain (Bear was his mogul haven in the day; even when he was a supervisor in the Upper Basin, he would sneak to Bear for his mogul fix)... quite sad, really.

I try not to be too nasty about other resorts, but the only thought that kept going through my head was, "this place is a joke!" I probably hit it at the wrong time, but that's irrelevant. If they go grooming every bloody trail on the mountain for each big holiday, I think that's pretty weak (not to mention highly detrimental to snow quality). And to see the remains of various old lifts (Devil's Fiddle, Needle's Eye, lower Northeast Passage) rotting away just makes it look like a place that doesn't care at all, in fact it gives it the appearance of being run-down and struggling to survive.


The mountain still has the "potential" to be an incredible ski area, but it's certainly not incredible right now IMO. And it is in NO WAY any sort of "beast." It was fun to get out for a day and ski somewhere different, but I can't wait to get back on the mountain here tomorrow.

Took the camera, but nothing was really worth photographing today. Poor visibility + boring terrain = bad pictures.


If you like the concept of wide groomed runs all over the place, then you'd probably enjoy K. Not my thing.

please send this to tom horrocks and chris nyberg. they are nice guys and are doing a good job overall, but ive been saying how bad the bumps are on outer limits and that it needs to be seeded. they seem to think its fine and only want to seed vertigo (which is flat and usually gets pretty good bumps anyway) all it would take is one steep run to be seeded and the bump skiers at killington would be happy
 

BushMogulMaster

Industry Rep
Industry Rep
Joined
Mar 9, 2007
Messages
1,815
Points
48
Location
Leadville, CO
Frank - I don't think seeding is the answer. Killington has enough good skiers to get natural bumps. The problem is with how they prepare the trail (combination of snowmaking and grooming practices). If they would keep the cats off of it from day one, it would ski into great natural bumps.
 

deadheadskier

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Mar 6, 2005
Messages
27,921
Points
113
Location
Southeast NH
Grooming Outer Limits for ANY reason other than after a freeze / thaw event or when it gets completely rutted out is pretty much sacrilegious in my eyes. It is THE signature mogul run on the East Coast, maybe even the country for that matter. Even grooming half of it is unacceptable. Killington has what? 200 runs? They don't need to make all of them accessible to the advanced intermediate crowd. There is no benefit for Killington by offering a groomed Outer Limits AT ALL.
 

frankm938

New member
Joined
Mar 24, 2009
Messages
324
Points
0
Frank - I don't think seeding is the answer. Killington has enough good skiers to get natural bumps. The problem is with how they prepare the trail (combination of snowmaking and grooming practices). If they would keep the cats off of it from day one, it would ski into great natural bumps.

the bumps sucked before they groomed it and the ones you skied on the right side that were all spaced out, have never seen a groomer. they seed the lower left of OL for the BMMC and it stays good until they shut down bear (usually a few weeks later). other than that, the only good bumps you can count on are on the golfcourse (the top of the trail, under the lift)
 

BushMogulMaster

Industry Rep
Industry Rep
Joined
Mar 9, 2007
Messages
1,815
Points
48
Location
Leadville, CO
It is THE signature mogul run on the East Coast, maybe even the country for that matter.

It hasn't been for quite a few years. They've been grooming half of it for ages, and they've even been grooming the whole thing under certain circumstances.

You have to drive another hour north to get to the mogul capital of the east now.
 

BushMogulMaster

Industry Rep
Industry Rep
Joined
Mar 9, 2007
Messages
1,815
Points
48
Location
Leadville, CO
the bumps sucked before they groomed it and the ones you skied on the right side that were all spaced out, have never seen a groomer. they seed the lower left of OL for the BMMC and it stays good until they shut down bear (usually a few weeks later). other than that, the only good bumps you can count on are on the golfcourse (the top of the trail, under the lift)

I still contend that seeding isn't the answer. Getting a better grip on snowmaking would be a good first step. The snow they've made on that trail is a big factor in those widely spaced piles of crud.

Plus, I suppose a lot of the bump crowd is visiting us up north now. Which is a good thing for us, but not for you guys at K.
 

mondeo

New member
Joined
Mar 18, 2008
Messages
4,431
Points
0
Location
E. Hartford, CT
Grooming Outer Limits for ANY reason other than after a freeze / thaw event or when it gets completely rutted out is pretty much sacrilegious in my eyes. It is THE signature mogul run on the East Coast, maybe even the country for that matter. Even grooming half of it is unacceptable. Killington has what? 200 runs? They don't need to make all of them accessible to the advanced intermediate crowd. There is no benefit for Killington by offering a groomed Outer Limits AT ALL.
Snowmaking whales a couple weekends ago warranted grooming. Very deceptive, therefore dangerous. Go off at what you think is a slow speed, expecting to only squeeze in a spread, and 15 feet in the air. I'm glad I didn't go off at what I thought was a moderate speed. Lost a friend for the season on one of them.

Fun, but dangerous. Can't blame them for grooming - maybe for not adjusting gun position during the blow.
 

BushMogulMaster

Industry Rep
Industry Rep
Joined
Mar 9, 2007
Messages
1,815
Points
48
Location
Leadville, CO
Snowmaking whales a couple weekends ago warranted grooming. Very deceptive, therefore dangerous. Go off at what you think is a slow speed, expecting to only squeeze in a spread, and 15 feet in the air. I'm glad I didn't go off at what I thought was a moderate speed. Lost a friend for the season on one of them.

Fun, but dangerous. Can't blame them for grooming - maybe for not adjusting gun position during the blow.


That's poor snowmaking. It's not difficult to make wide-dispersal snow that doesn't require grooming. You just need to commit to babysitting the guns.
 

deadheadskier

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Mar 6, 2005
Messages
27,921
Points
113
Location
Southeast NH
It hasn't been for quite a few years. They've been grooming half of it for ages, and they've even been grooming the whole thing under certain circumstances.

You have to drive another hour north to get to the mogul capital of the east now.

Perhaps I'm nostalgic.

I'll admit, I haven't skied K since the spring of 2001 and really only a handful of times since I graduated HS in 94. But from 84-94, I skied at K 5-10 times a season and Bear Mountain was all bumps every time I went and great ones at that. Much like it is at Sugarbush North today.

I'll give you that Sugarbush, North especially, is the bump capital of the east now. It still does not nor will it ever have the one trail like Outer Limits apparently is no longer.

I have three lift tickets to use in Vermont this season. 1 will be at Stowe, 1 probably Sugarbush and the last I'd love to use at Killington in March where I hope I find great bumps.
 

deadheadskier

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Mar 6, 2005
Messages
27,921
Points
113
Location
Southeast NH
That's poor snowmaking. It's not difficult to make wide-dispersal snow that doesn't require grooming. You just need to commit to babysitting the guns.

You know what I've been thinking of for the past several years with the advent of seeding (necessary in 95% of NE ski areas) is wouldn't the next logical step in technology be automated oscillating tower snow guns? Get the right temps with minimal winds and bam, at the flip of a switch evenly refresh the bump field with 3 inches of fluff over night when it's needed.
 

frankm938

New member
Joined
Mar 24, 2009
Messages
324
Points
0
I still contend that seeding isn't the answer. Getting a better grip on snowmaking would be a good first step. The snow they've made on that trail is a big factor in those widely spaced piles of crud.

Plus, I suppose a lot of the bump crowd is visiting us up north now. Which is a good thing for us, but not for you guys at K.

i know smitty went up there, but the same crew is still at K that has been there for years.
not sure its the snowmaking, because even after a natural dump, OL bumps are spaced out. i thinks its the wide skis and snowboards getting on the trails right after it snows. they make longer turns which result in spaced out bumps.

in any case, the bump skiers at killington would appreciate if you gave killington management your opinion on the OL bumps
 

BushMogulMaster

Industry Rep
Industry Rep
Joined
Mar 9, 2007
Messages
1,815
Points
48
Location
Leadville, CO
You know what I've been thinking of for the past several years with the advent of seeding (necessary in 95% of NE ski areas) is wouldn't the next logical step in technology be automated oscillating tower snow guns? Get the right temps with minimal winds and bam, at the flip of a switch evenly refresh the bump field with 3 inches of fluff over night when it's needed.

Several manufacturers already offer automatically oscillating guns.
 

BushMogulMaster

Industry Rep
Industry Rep
Joined
Mar 9, 2007
Messages
1,815
Points
48
Location
Leadville, CO
i know smitty went up there, but the same crew is still at K that has been there for years.
not sure its the snowmaking, because even after a natural dump, OL bumps are spaced out. i thinks its the wide skis and snowboards getting on the trails right after it snows. they make longer turns which result in spaced out bumps.

in any case, the bump skiers at killington would appreciate if you gave killington management your opinion on the OL bumps

Not just talking about Smitty and the KMS guys... I just mean the bump skiers in general.


The problem with the snowmaking is that it is underneath the natural, no matter what. You get a 2 foot dump of natural on hard/slick snowmaking, and within a few days you'll have pushed piles of crap with snowmaking between them.
 

2knees

New member
Joined
Nov 17, 2004
Messages
8,330
Points
0
Location
Safe
this is a depressing report.

and i mean no offense to you bmm, it's just sad to hear.
 

BushMogulMaster

Industry Rep
Industry Rep
Joined
Mar 9, 2007
Messages
1,815
Points
48
Location
Leadville, CO
anyone in New England employ them?

I'm 95% certain our Polecat in the base area at Mt. Ellen has an oscillator on it. I think we also have a Ratnik Snowgiant II or V on an oscillating tower mount. I'm sure other places have them.

There's a lot more to it, though. It's both science and art.
 
Top