Abandones slopes of Killington?

skiadikt said:

we had a few great pow days skiing those runs from mid-station at sunrise. but yeah a lot of work getting to & fro. however i do remember taking a beginner friend down there from the peak. it was one hell of a long run and once you got to the sunrise part, very uncrowded and non-intimidating-much more so than great eastern. she actually loved it. it was nice for what it was but no great loss as far as i'm concerned.

i don't get the "i don't ski k because of ramshead argument" ... sure those upper couple hundred of vert "could" be nice but there was only one narrow green trail up there (horn) and it would have been a mess with the additional traffic from a high speed quad. it makes for a great novice area with the current configuration. it's not like there's a lack of advanced terrain at k ...

Click to expand...

Didn't say it is strictly that. But that decision along with the shortening of Ram's Head in the way it was done were two reasons why I don't go as much. I don't own or rent at Killington - a big reason why I used to go there a lot was because it was so unique and had so many interesting trail pods. I would say the last vestige of that left is the South Ridge area. That personally was why I frequented the place, not just for the terrain - which you can find elsewhere.

They run snowmobile tours out of the old lodge now. Kind of cool to cruise the old trails.

Newpylong said:

Yes.

If you want I can search for an hour or so and hope to find the response from the Communications Director of K a few years back. The reason you mentioned (which I forgot), plus the one I did mention were the primary reasons why the are was closed. I believe there were also some others such as Black Bear habitat, etc.

Click to expand...

Search away. None of those people had anything to do with Killington in the 1990's when Northeast Passage was shut down. Tom Horrocks isn't exactly a long-time Killington person. Killington had 100% turnover in their management team and in marketing and sales. There's nobody left who worked at Killington in 1998-1999. If you really want to get an informed answer, ask Steve Wright up at Jay Peak. He had the communications job back then....

Flan said:

Pretty flat until the last pitch. What was the trail under the chair...Valley Plunge? .

Click to expand...

Not to be a nit pick but Valley Plunge is the last drop under the Gondola. A fun trail when it has snow on it.

Alex

Lake Hopatcong, NJ

Old Sunrise is still very hittable, you just need to park a car down on 100 or hitch. Right now it should be in prime condition.

Geoff said:

Search away. None of those people had anything to do with Killington in the 1990's when Northeast Passage was shut down. Tom Horrocks isn't exactly a long-time Killington person. Killington had 100% turnover in their management team and in marketing and sales. There's nobody left who worked at Killington in 1998-1999. If you really want to get an informed answer, ask Steve Wright up at Jay Peak. He had the communications job back then....

Click to expand...

Geoff -

Maybe I'm misunremembering, but I always thought that the closure of NEP was a likelihood due to the issues you raised - little traffic, low elevation and lousy SE exposure. However, the final nail in the coffin, or at least the public excuse, was that with the land exchange to affect the village and interconnect, NEP was no longer of use as a bridge to Parker's Gore. It's final raison d'etre now eliminated, it was clear that commercial considerations made future operation of this area non-viable (NEP triple was getting long in the teeth and would have needed a replacement within 5 yrs or so).

Tin Woodsman said:

Geoff -

Maybe I'm misunremembering, but I always thought that the closure of NEP was a likelihood due to the issues you raised - little traffic, low elevation and lousy SE exposure. However, the final nail in the coffin, or at least the public excuse, was that with the land exchange to affect the village and interconnect, NEP was no longer of use as a bridge to Parker's Gore. It's final raison d'etre now eliminated, it was clear that commercial considerations made future operation of this area non-viable (NEP triple was getting long in the teeth and would have needed a replacement within 5 yrs or so).

Click to expand...

You didn't need the NEP lift to get to Parker's Gore. The top of that lift still exists as the feeder from the Sunrise condos and is barely 100 vertical feet above the Falls Brook Trail. If they had expanded in that direction, the logical starting point was Bear next to the base of the Fiddle Quad.

It's certainly true that when Les Otten did the land swap and bought Pico, the obvious direction for expansion changed from south to west. Pico hated Preston Smith and would never sell to him. ANEP was basicly useless after the land swap and Pico acquisitino. You had maybe 10 days per year where Nor'Easter and The Judge were good. When they cut the Vale parking lot between KBL and Rams Head, ...and as skier visits declined... they didn't need the overflow parking. I remember when the Bear lot and Gondola base would fill and they'd direct cars to the NEP parking lot. That was back in the late 1980's when NEP was where they allowed snowboarding.

Geoff said:

It's certainly true that when Les Otten did the land swap and bought Pico, the obvious direction for expansion changed from south to west. Pico hated Preston Smith and would never sell to him. ANEP was basicly useless after the land swap and Pico acquisitino. You had maybe 10 days per year where Nor'Easter and The Judge were good. When they cut the Vale parking lot between KBL and Rams Head, ...and as skier visits declined... they didn't need the overflow parking. I remember when the Bear lot and Gondola base would fill and they'd direct cars to the NEP parking lot. That was back in the late 1980's when NEP was where they allowed snowboarding.

Click to expand...

You didn't need NEP to get to Parker's Gore, but if the center of gravity of K was going to shift southward with that planned expansion, you'd need parking and a day lodge to access that terrain. Any further south and the topography starts to work against you in terms of getting people up the hill off Rt. 100.

Geoff said:

Search away. None of those people had anything to do with Killington in the 1990's when Northeast Passage was shut down. Tom Horrocks isn't exactly a long-time Killington person. Killington had 100% turnover in their management team and in marketing and sales. There's nobody left who worked at Killington in 1998-1999. If you really want to get an informed answer, ask Steve Wright up at Jay Peak. He had the communications job back then....

Click to expand...

I had no luck finding the response from Killington from a few year's ago - just a bunch of wiki type pages which obviously can't be trusted.

I emailed Steve, maybe he will reply and give me an answer.

It was clearly a combination of factors leading to the NEP closure after 98-99.

First of all, for clarification, Parkers Gore is located off the south west of Killington Peak, facing Rutland, visable off the back of Killington Peak. It is more or less directly west of NEP, on the other side of juggarnaut.

Killington aquired the Parkers Gore land in the 80's, but could only get permission to operate ski operations on it until April 1st. They held out for full permission (first nail in the coffin for NEP), which turned into a long fight over bear habitat etc. If was a loooong fight because Parkers Gore would have given them a major southwestern access point to the mountain. The area between the NEP and PG, where Juggarnaut and Solitude are, would have had trails cut with lots of high elevation beginner/cruising terrain, and would have basicly crossed the mountain range. Pres Smith seemingly really wanted to expand Killington like this....hence the SRT chair, NEP, etc.

When Otten bought Killington in the mid 90's, he immediately bought Pico, and didn't want to continue the fight for Parkers Gore. If was much more useful for him to swap that land for land at the K-base, to use for a village (2nd nail for NEP). Combined with other land Killington already had, it turned out to be worth $75M several years later when bought by SP Land/E2M.

In the end, closing NEP was one of the first signs of ASC's failure. The interconnect to Pico was started around '97, with the intention of finishing the next year. However they couldn't fully fund it, and installed the K-1 Gondola at the last minute instaid, in something like 9 weeks. After that, they went into cost cutting mode. The NEP was one of the first things to go, after 98-99....it simply didn't draw enough people to be worthwhile running, especially with the Skyeship providing much more effective access. You probably know the rest of the downward spiral. However, they still retain the NEP land and the right to operate skiing on it.

NEP can be best compared to other low priority trail pods at Killington....the SRT, the Little Pico Triple and Outpost Double. Potentially great, naural, low traffic skiing, but rarely opened, and not as appealing to the "masses", supposedly. Considering those lifts run only on weekends or holidays, and are not particularly crowded, there is not much motivation for Killington to re-expand down to the NEP.

However, one can also argue that these trail pods add considerable depth to the Killington skiing experence. I have seen lines a the Pico Outpost double, when it runs. The SRT does see consistant traffic almost every weekend, especially on nice days with good snow on the south ridge. Having these additional lifts and interesting terrain makes Killington more attractive to ski on the weekends or holidays, and more attractive to the advanced skier. This could potentially lead to more holiday visits, and more premium pass sales. Killington potentially has the locations for at least a half dozen fixed grip lifts and minor trail pods, and these lifts are the cheapest to install and operate. Perhaps some day we will see a return to the NEP.