mulva
Member
3/16 - 3/17
Pico
First post, first TR...Decided to head up to Rutland with my wife for the weekend and ended up skiing Pico instead of Killington. We decided to mix it up and liftopia had a 2 day $89 lift ticket. For perspective, my wife and I are decent skiers and just got back into it last year after about 7 years off. We can handle most "expert" terrain and sometimes even look good doing it. We've never been to Pico. What a cool place!
On Tuesday they got nearly an inch of rain so we were working with 45 of 53 trails. A-Slope and Upper Giant killer were closed as was most of the marked tree skiing. Since Tuesday they reported 7 inches of snow. Pico was
skiing pretty well overall. Also going on was the U12 State Festival on B-Slope and Panhandler.
Day 1 (Saturday 3/16): We started on the Golden Eagle lift. It services some rally nice intermediate cruisers. Perfect for getting warmed up. Everything had 100% cover and nice grooming. They even had some seeded bumps on Fool's Gold. Did a few laps and moved over to the Outpost double which gives access to 550 vertical feet of super fun "expert" terrain. Only Bronco and Wrangler were open and we did 3 laps on each before going in for lunch. Both trails had good coverage and Bronco was getting pretty bumped up.
The lodge was crowded with kid racer parents but we found a seat without much trouble. Bread Boule of Chili was alright to me!
After lunch, we hopped on the Little Pico Triple which usually gives access to what looked like a really nice variety of advanced\expert terrain. Only B-Slope Cutoff and A-Slope Lower were open. B-Slope Cutof is a narrow, bumpy, winding traverse that leads to the wider, steeper B-Slope proper. Since B-Slope was hosting some racing, we took it to A-Slope Lower which was ungroomed and nearly untouched after a couple inches of fresh snow! Really fun stuff! We did 3 laps before moving to the Summit Express Quad which was all open except for Upper Giant Killer. Upper Pike was mostly icy/dust on crust except for extreme skiers left where the snow was really nice packed powder. Upper Ka was kinda icy as well but skiable if you like that sort of thing. Summit Glades had thin cover but nice bumps at the entries. The "glades" provided a lot of ungroomed fun! Not true tree skiing but a bunch of tree clusters to make it interesting in some semi-steep ungroomed. Did a few passes on this. To end the day, we found Sunset Woods off of Sunset Schuss. It was closed earlier but the ropes were down and there was fun in there to be had. Coverage was good for Mid-March woods with a few bare spots but overall, super fun and skiable! We took the Summit Express back up and found Birch Glades and some good tree skiing between Birch Glades and Lower Giant Killer! We called it a day at a little after 3. Started at 9, took a short lunch break and never saw a lift line. We were beat.
Had dinner and drinks at 99 in Rutland. 45 minute wait at 6:15 Saturday night. We found a seat at the bar and ate there instead of waiting for a table. Good variety of beer and the food was really decent!
Day 2 (Sunday 3/17) Colder and windier than the day before. Started by taking the Golden Eagle to the Summit Express. Warmed up on 49er and Lower Sunset which was ungroomed and really nice. Legs warm, but fingers and toes cold so we warmed up in the lodge for 20 minutes. Went back out and grabbed the Outpost lift to ski a little Bronco and Wrangler. To our surprise, we found that the entire pod was open but liftline/Pipeline and skiers left off that were marked as thin cover. No worries there! We started with Sidewinder which was semi-steep and bumpy with a few thin spots. A total blast to ski! We moved over to Pipeline which is a steep consistently pitched bump run under the lift. Again, some thin spots but a ton of fun! Did a bunch of laps on these 2 runs! Never even made it to Bronco or Wrangler. Doozie was open but looked a bit thin and we never tried it but it looked like an awesome tree run! We took a really quick break in the lodge to warm up and then decided to find Sunset Woods again then finsh up in the Poma Woods which just opened up. They were listing 50/53 trails open now! Both of these marked tree runs had decent coverage but the Poma Woods didn't give us the kick we wanted to end the day, so we took some traverses to try to find one last tree run. We failed. We took recently opened "Home Run" which had some really thin cover, over to A-Slope Lower which was ungroomed again but skied a bit. It was still a fun way to end the day at 1:45. Really early for us but we had to make it back home some 5 and a half hours away and we were really beat again as there were no lift lines and we skied since 9AM with no lunch break.
Overall, I was really impressed with Pico! It was really uncrowded and had some very nice terrain especially the Outpost Pod and all of the trees we skied. A-Slope and Upper Giant Killer looked awesome but thin and were not open because of the recent rain, unfortunately. If you're going to spend 3 or 4 days skiing at Killington, definitely consider a day at Pico. You won't regret it!
Other notables: We stayed at the Hampton Inn in Rutland. It's fairly new and really nice and includes a deluxe continental breakfast but is a bit pricy. It gives Hilton points too. Overall, recomended.
Pico
First post, first TR...Decided to head up to Rutland with my wife for the weekend and ended up skiing Pico instead of Killington. We decided to mix it up and liftopia had a 2 day $89 lift ticket. For perspective, my wife and I are decent skiers and just got back into it last year after about 7 years off. We can handle most "expert" terrain and sometimes even look good doing it. We've never been to Pico. What a cool place!
On Tuesday they got nearly an inch of rain so we were working with 45 of 53 trails. A-Slope and Upper Giant killer were closed as was most of the marked tree skiing. Since Tuesday they reported 7 inches of snow. Pico was
skiing pretty well overall. Also going on was the U12 State Festival on B-Slope and Panhandler.
Day 1 (Saturday 3/16): We started on the Golden Eagle lift. It services some rally nice intermediate cruisers. Perfect for getting warmed up. Everything had 100% cover and nice grooming. They even had some seeded bumps on Fool's Gold. Did a few laps and moved over to the Outpost double which gives access to 550 vertical feet of super fun "expert" terrain. Only Bronco and Wrangler were open and we did 3 laps on each before going in for lunch. Both trails had good coverage and Bronco was getting pretty bumped up.
The lodge was crowded with kid racer parents but we found a seat without much trouble. Bread Boule of Chili was alright to me!
After lunch, we hopped on the Little Pico Triple which usually gives access to what looked like a really nice variety of advanced\expert terrain. Only B-Slope Cutoff and A-Slope Lower were open. B-Slope Cutof is a narrow, bumpy, winding traverse that leads to the wider, steeper B-Slope proper. Since B-Slope was hosting some racing, we took it to A-Slope Lower which was ungroomed and nearly untouched after a couple inches of fresh snow! Really fun stuff! We did 3 laps before moving to the Summit Express Quad which was all open except for Upper Giant Killer. Upper Pike was mostly icy/dust on crust except for extreme skiers left where the snow was really nice packed powder. Upper Ka was kinda icy as well but skiable if you like that sort of thing. Summit Glades had thin cover but nice bumps at the entries. The "glades" provided a lot of ungroomed fun! Not true tree skiing but a bunch of tree clusters to make it interesting in some semi-steep ungroomed. Did a few passes on this. To end the day, we found Sunset Woods off of Sunset Schuss. It was closed earlier but the ropes were down and there was fun in there to be had. Coverage was good for Mid-March woods with a few bare spots but overall, super fun and skiable! We took the Summit Express back up and found Birch Glades and some good tree skiing between Birch Glades and Lower Giant Killer! We called it a day at a little after 3. Started at 9, took a short lunch break and never saw a lift line. We were beat.
Had dinner and drinks at 99 in Rutland. 45 minute wait at 6:15 Saturday night. We found a seat at the bar and ate there instead of waiting for a table. Good variety of beer and the food was really decent!
Day 2 (Sunday 3/17) Colder and windier than the day before. Started by taking the Golden Eagle to the Summit Express. Warmed up on 49er and Lower Sunset which was ungroomed and really nice. Legs warm, but fingers and toes cold so we warmed up in the lodge for 20 minutes. Went back out and grabbed the Outpost lift to ski a little Bronco and Wrangler. To our surprise, we found that the entire pod was open but liftline/Pipeline and skiers left off that were marked as thin cover. No worries there! We started with Sidewinder which was semi-steep and bumpy with a few thin spots. A total blast to ski! We moved over to Pipeline which is a steep consistently pitched bump run under the lift. Again, some thin spots but a ton of fun! Did a bunch of laps on these 2 runs! Never even made it to Bronco or Wrangler. Doozie was open but looked a bit thin and we never tried it but it looked like an awesome tree run! We took a really quick break in the lodge to warm up and then decided to find Sunset Woods again then finsh up in the Poma Woods which just opened up. They were listing 50/53 trails open now! Both of these marked tree runs had decent coverage but the Poma Woods didn't give us the kick we wanted to end the day, so we took some traverses to try to find one last tree run. We failed. We took recently opened "Home Run" which had some really thin cover, over to A-Slope Lower which was ungroomed again but skied a bit. It was still a fun way to end the day at 1:45. Really early for us but we had to make it back home some 5 and a half hours away and we were really beat again as there were no lift lines and we skied since 9AM with no lunch break.
Overall, I was really impressed with Pico! It was really uncrowded and had some very nice terrain especially the Outpost Pod and all of the trees we skied. A-Slope and Upper Giant Killer looked awesome but thin and were not open because of the recent rain, unfortunately. If you're going to spend 3 or 4 days skiing at Killington, definitely consider a day at Pico. You won't regret it!
Other notables: We stayed at the Hampton Inn in Rutland. It's fairly new and really nice and includes a deluxe continental breakfast but is a bit pricy. It gives Hilton points too. Overall, recomended.
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