Killington 11/19 Weekend

Date(s) Skied: 11/19 - 11/20/2005

Resort or Ski Area: Killington, VT

Conditions: Manmade, sunny, 20s-30s, no wind

Trip Report: Killington reopened this weekend. They were open the weekend of 10/29 due to a large snowfall. They closed afterwards and all the snow melted. This weekend they reopened with man made snow.

As much as I loved the conditions at Killington 3 weeks ago, it kind of sucked cause it spoiled me . Three weeks ago they opened with 22 trails and people were using plenty of other trails since the snow cover was so good. The crowds weren't too bad since they were spread out. This week, they opened with 11 trails. We stopped skiing by about 11:15 because it just became plain dangerous. I do have to give Killington credit, at least they did a decent job blowing snow, the cover was not bad.

Three weeks ago on Sunday, they had 40 trails. This week, 13 trails. Not sure what the conditions were like since we didn't last too long. We started early to try and avoid the crowds, good thing we did. As a result we were able to get one run in! We got on the K1 gondola at 7:50, skied down to the North Ridge Triple, got in line and the lift closed. Appears they had a power outage. So we skied down to the Snowden Triple, that was closed as well due to the power outage. The K1 Gondola was running on generator power and the line got really long, at that point, we decided it was time to quit. Well thank God it's only the start. Pics from this weekend can be found here: http://killingtonaccessrd.com/cpg/thumbnails.php?album=15

Wow, I was there on Saturday and I thought it was crowded then. I can only imagine how long the wait for K1 was with the other lifts down. At least the lack of lifts probably helped thin out the crowds on the trails a bit. It was a definite cluster at all trail crossings on Saturday.

NO power on those lifts? There must have been a mutiny!!!

OMG: THIS is what I remember of the first days of the 2000-2001 season when I skied at K-mart...look at the backup above waiting to get through.





That line is nuts...

bunny buster :lol: the biggest cluster i've ever seen. ticket prices aside, there is more than one reason i was at bush instead of kmart today! glad i made the right deicision based on the report.

riverc0il said:

bunny buster :lol: the biggest cluster i've ever seen. ticket prices aside, there is more than one reason i was at bush instead of kmart today! glad i made the right deicision based on the report.

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You did.

Yeah, it was not as good as three weeks ago, that's why I only did Sat.
Glad to miss the power outage!
How was the Grist Sat. night anyways?
I have not read anything.....

RustyK said:

Yeah, it was not as good as three weeks ago, that's why I only did Sat.
Glad to miss the power outage!
How was the Grist Sat. night anyways?
I have not read anything.....

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It was good, there was a good turnout and it was nice to see a bunch of Zoners that we haven't seen since last season. We stopped at the Basher house afterwards. Where'd you go to?

Looks like the gang got together. Thankx for the report.

report "correction".

first of all, to be spoiled by what happened 3 weeks ago doesn't make any sense. that's never happened before and unfortuneately it'll probably be a long time before it's happens again. what we had this weekend was your basic reality check. pretty much your standard killington opening weekend. if i recall last year was even more crowded. in any case we were happy to be skiing and some of it was quite good at times especially considering they only had 2 days to get ready.

saturday morning was fine. rime & upper east fall were as expected. a couple of good runs before they got scraped off. but there was plenty of good snow on the edges thanks to the gapers & skidders. upper double dipper was the best in the guns. upper bunny was also good in the guns. by 10am the mountain got very crowded and as one would expect with only trail at the bottom, lower bunny became an epic tangle of humanity though there was some great snow and developing bump lines on both sides of the trail. after lunch they were now blowing on upper east fall and that quickly developed some nice bumps and the crowds up there weren't all that bad. but again snowden was a different story. upper bunny & mid chute had now developed some nice bumps. upper mouse was uncrowded. the problem areas were the upper mixing bowl, which was a mess and lower bunny which defied desciption. take andy's pic and triple it. by mid-afternoon, the danger factor outweighed the fun factor so we called it quits to live & ski another day. nonetheless overall a good day that definitely did not suck. sure it was crowded but it was as expected.

sunday's mornings power problems and subsequent liftlines have been well documented. on the other hand, when you finally did get to ski, the trails obviously weren't that crowded since everyone was standing in liftlines. broke for an early lunch. came back out around 11:30 and voila the world had changed. a magnificent afternoon. virtually skied right onto the k1. all lifts running. sun was out. temps were warm. crowds were gone. upper double dip to upper east fall had turned into a very nice bump run. they shut the guns and opened upper downdraft. moving to snowden, upper bunny into mid-chute had some nice bump lines also. lower bunny wasn't even that scary. all-in-all turned out to be more than a very good day and a satisfying opening weekend.

skiadikt, I stand by my statement, it sucked. Yes, snow conditions weren't bad. Crowd was at a dangerous level. With regards to Sunday, if hanging around til 11:30 to start enjoying the day is your idea of fun,well oh that much more power to you. It is not my idea of a good time. We are each entitled to our opinions, that is mine. If you have a different one, all well and good, but I don't see that as a justification to say mine needs to be corrected.

andyzee said:

skiadikt, I stand by my statement, it sucked. Yes, snow conditions weren't bad. Crowd was at a dangerous level. With regards to Sunday, if hanging around til 11:30 to start enjoying the day is your idea of fun,well oh that much more power to you. It is not my idea of a good time. We are each entitled to our opinions, that is mine. If you have a different one, all well and good, but I don't see that as a justification to say mine needs to be corrected.

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you can stand by whatever you want, but you skied ONE run on sunday. how can you file an accurate report based on that? if you post a report, hopefully next time you'll at least spend some time on the mtn skiing so you can back it up.

skiadikt said:

you can stand by whatever you want, but you skied ONE run on sunday. how can you file an accurate report based on that? if you post a report, hopefully next time you'll at least spend some time on the mtn skiing so you can back it up.

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Wow! That's a lot of mouth from someone with only 8 posts. Welcome to the boards?????? Hope you stick around????? Your more than welcome to start your own trip report based on your experience for that day. Otherwise ... this is Andy's report BASED ON HIS EXPERIENCE and it's not yours to hijack and critique. Personally I got what I needed from Andy's report and thank him for his time.
:beer:

Gentlemen, let's all play nice.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion; both Andyzee and skiadikt deserve the chance to state theirs.

Seemed like a typical opening day to me at Hunter; Killington looked exactly like I would have expected, very crowded.

I don't care about crowds and would have skiied all day at K regardless, but I'm glad there was no crowd at Hunter.

The lower Bunny was CRAZY. By midday it was all bumped up and the wedge-runners were falling everywhere while everybody zoomed in every direction. There must have been 5 or 6 persons in each row on that narrow trail. It was like a mosh pit. I found it very humerous. The trick to having a good time was to LOWER YOUR EXPECTATIONS.

I know why Andyzee quit out at noon. Cause he's an IT worker and a fat old man! Speaking as regional director of upstate NY's fat old men league. My legs were toast by then too.

All and all it was a beautiful day and one I didn't spend in Troy.


Here's the pic's I took (yes I'm a gaper! try and knock me over!):
http://www.killingtonzone.com/forum...lery&file=index&include=view_album.php&page=1

RossiSkier said:

Here's the pic's I took (yes I'm a gaper! try and knock me over!):

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If you stop hiding I will! :wink: :lol: