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

[deadheadskier]

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.

I get that


As former 'bump addict' that still loves bumps, I think it goes without saying that most bump skiers would be 100% satisfied if they could show up to their home mountain and have 1, just 1, great bump run available to them 75% of the time. It's New England. Weather happens. Outside of the Northern Greens, expecting great bumps more than 75% of the time is unreasonable.

I would love to see an area, (Ragged for instance on Showboat ), line a seeded bump run with oscillating snow guns where you flip the switch one night a week when there's been no recent natural snow to freshen them up or fill in deep troughs.

Bump skiers are the minority, but we also have the smallest terrain needs of any 'genre'. I grew up skiing Okemo. I skied Sel's Choice 20-30 times a day and that's it. I was happy as long as the bumps were good on ONE trail.

 

[BushMogulMaster]

Bump skiers are the minority

We wouldn't be so much if more ski areas would offer lower-angle learning moguls, plus at least one steeper bump run.

I definitely like the idea of coating bumps with snowmaking in dry spells, and have thought about it many times before.

 

[2knees]

I get that


As former 'bump addict' that still loves bumps, I think it goes without saying that most bump skiers would be 100% satisfied if they could show up to their home mountain and have 1, just 1, great bump run available to them 75% of the time. It's New England. Weather happens. Outside of the Northern Greens, expecting great bumps more than 75% of the time is unreasonable.

I would love to see an area, (Ragged for instance on Showboat ), line a seeded bump run with oscillating snow guns where you flip the switch one night a week when there's been no recent natural snow to freshen them up or fill in deep troughs.

Bump skiers are the minority, but we also have the smallest terrain needs of any 'genre'. I grew up skiing Okemo. I skied Sel's Choice 20-30 times a day and that's it. I was happy as long as the bumps were good on ONE trail.

move to connecticut then. I'm seriously starting to think sundown is the only place in new england that you'll find bumps NO MATTER WHAT.

they may be icy at times, they may be on the short side and it isnt the steepest but upper nor' easter and temptor are always open and always have bumps.

ALWAYS.

 

[BushMogulMaster]

move to connecticut then. I'm seriously starting to think sundown is the only place in new england that you'll find bumps NO MATTER WHAT.

Don't forget Mt. Ellen. None of our bump trails have seen a cat this season (and the only one that was groomed last year was half of Cliffs), and barring extreme weather, I don't expect that they will.

 

[JD]

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.

They know their customer for holiday W/Es..

 

[deadheadskier]

They know their customer for holiday W/Es..

I would flat out tell the customers. "You want to ski Outer Limits? Learn how to ski bumps. The ski school desk is right over yonder."

 

[JD]

Don't forget Mt. Ellen. None of our bump trails have seen a cat this season (and the only one that was groomed last year was half of Cliffs), and barring extreme weather, I don't expect that they will.

All those trails are so fun when they are not bumped. Well cliffs is a little boring, but hammer head, tumbler, and the upper and lower lift line (Ovation and encore?) have some super fun natural flow....
Bush stoke...

 

[skiadikt]

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.

agree. i think that and the fact they blow wet snow are the major sources of the problem. essentially they seem to set 'em and forget 'em forming huge piles or whales. (that's prolly why double dipper slid last year and panic almost did this year.) throw in the fact that the snow is wet and sets up like concrete, you almost have to groom 'em. but after grooming you still have a hard icy surface underneath that forms lousy widely spaced bumps and that new nat snow has trouble sticking to.

now i skied k this weekend and thought those conclusion bumps were actually pretty good (not great, awesome) though i did seem to get walled out at the same bump every trip down. probably the best line was on powerline. they had mowed what i thought were pretty good bumps on snowmaking trails like dreammaker & wildfire and the natural trails like escapade, ridge run and north star. it was all very surprising to me since there hadn't been any weather disaster that forced them to groom.

 

[drjeff]

anyone in New England employ them?

I know that Mount Snow has a bunch of them, I don't think it's all 251 of them, but I've definately seen the ones on towers lining Canyon in oscillating mode.

 

[Talisman]

Did you hit up Ovation? On Sunday that trail had good bumps and great faux sneaux and the snow into Monday should have just made it sweeter.

 

[Greg]

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

I think it's a combination of overgroomed snow and a majority of skiers that ski differently now that ski technology makes it easier to carve medium to long radius turns. Last spring at Killington was rough for bumps. Escapade had maybe 10-15 bump zippers, but trails like Cascade and Lower East Fall were so pinned down from months of brutal grooming that bumps couldn't form. East Fall gets beat on by the sun and I skied it on a 50+ degree sunny day and crappy GS bumps were the only thing that formed.

Still, I think even if the snow was prepared well, you won't see tons of zippers forming. You get it in the MRV because I think most bump addicts know there are better bumps up there. So until we break the vicious cycle of: bad or no bumps > most people can't learn to ski bumps > so they insist on more grooming > bad or no bumps > most people can't learn to ski bumps > so they insist on more grooming > bad or no bumps > most people can't learn to ski bumps > so they insist on more grooming.....I think seeding is the only answer, and on a few pitches.

As former 'bump addict' that still loves bumps, I think it goes without saying that most bump skiers would be 100% satisfied if they could show up to their home mountain and have 1, just 1, great bump run available to them 75% of the time.....Bump skiers are the minority, but we also have the smallest terrain needs of any 'genre'. I grew up skiing Okemo. I skied Sel's Choice 20-30 times a day and that's it. I was happy as long as the bumps were good on ONE trail.

All good points. Let's say two trails though - intermediate pitch and steep pitch so people can learn and then progress. The bottom line though is most ski areas have plenty of terrain for this.

We wouldn't be so much if more ski areas would offer lower-angle learning moguls, plus at least one steeper bump run.

Yep.

move to connecticut then. I'm seriously starting to think sundown is the only place in new england that you'll find bumps NO MATTER WHAT.

they may be icy at times, they may be on the short side and it isnt the steepest but upper nor' easter and temptor are always open and always have bumps.

ALWAYS.

Yep. And they don't have a ton of real estate to spare, yet they still do it. And it seems to be working for them.

They know their customer for holiday W/Es..

Most of the customers are a victim of this vicious cycle. That is true. And it's unfortunate that we'll probably never see this again:

Even more depressing for me personally is when Outer Limits looked like that I was a total gaper and just found myself traversing it and poaching the rippers' lines. Nevertheless, you mid-90's rippers left a big impression on me. It made be say to myself back then "I want to ski like those guys someday." I'm still trying to get there... :lol:

This is a depressing report. I was having high hopes for good mogul skiing Killington this spring. I really had the impression that the grooming was being toned down this year. Then the news of seeded bumps on Vertigo and more bumps elsewhere had me pumped that we could see a spring once again that looked like this:





Still holding out hope that we'll see some good bumps well into May. BTW, whatever happened to the Vertigo seeding project? Never heard anything more about it actually happening.

I've directed Tom and Chris to this thread.

 

[drjeff]

.

This picture brings back so many awesome memories Total mixed emotions

 

[Greg]

Total mixed emotions

Why "mixed"?

 

[drjeff]

Why "mixed"?

What OL was almost all the time then vs. what it is most of the time now

 

[RootDKJ]

anyone in New England employ them?

Even Blue has a few of these.

 

[ozzy]

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.

BMM,

I value your web insights and opinions, but how can you fairly judge the largest ski area on the east coast on just a hand full of runs with crap visibility??

In your report you didn't seem to ski:
Royal Flush- probably the best bumps on the mountain
Old needles eye- the second best bumps on the mountain
Old superstar
stichline
west glade
breakaway
pipe dream
big dipper
all these are skiing well and are great natural snow trails that never get groomed for the most part (well except west glade)

snowmaking trails that have moguls:
skyehawk (actually a nat snow trail, but gets a ton of blow over from superstar headwall)
skiers right of mouse trap
devils fiddle
skiers left of L. Superstar

yeah sure they mowed the place down for the long weekend, but have since cut back grooming. OL was left alone today as was L. Skyelark
I think the poor visibility (and yes it did suck yesterday and was way worse on tuesday) got the best of you. Not a lot of fun skiing around looking for stuff when you have less than a 2 chair visibility

 

[BushMogulMaster]

ozzy - you're right, and that was certainly a big part of it. But I've watched this place over quite a few years, and it's just been disappointing. I've skied at K the past two seasons as well, and have had essentially the same results (although usually found bumps on Northstar).

I was really trying to make 2 points

1. Mowing down all of the big bump runs for the holidays is short-sighted, especially at such a large resort
2. The snow surfaces practices at Killington are making quality mogul formation next to impossible in a lot of areas


I looked at Royal Flush, btw, and it looked ok, but not great IMO. I also looked at a couple of those other runs you mentioned, and was not that impressed. I guess my standards are kinda high for bumps, based on where I ski most often (Bush and Mary Jane), and what Killington used to have. And the fact that a patroller couldn't point me to a good bump run is a shame. Not his fault... just seems to be a commentary on the mogul skiing there. It wasn't that long ago when any patroller at K could have pointed me to Outer Limits, knowing that I would find fun bumps. Not so anymore.

Anyway... it's all good. I've got tons of bumps to ski every day. Just always disappointing to see what's happened to what used to be the mogul capital of the east.

 

[frankm938]

BMM,

I value your web insights and opinions, but how can you fairly judge the largest ski area on the east coast on just a hand full of runs with crap visibility??

In your report you didn't seem to ski:
Royal Flush- probably the best bumps on the mountain
Old needles eye- the second best bumps on the mountain
Old superstar
stichline
west glade
breakaway
pipe dream
big dipper
all these are skiing well and are great natural snow trails that never get groomed for the most part (well except west glade)

snowmaking trails that have moguls:
skyehawk (actually a nat snow trail, but gets a ton of blow over from superstar headwall)
skiers right of mouse trap
devils fiddle
skiers left of L. Superstar

yeah sure they mowed the place down for the long weekend, but have since cut back grooming. OL was left alone today as was L. Skyelark
I think the poor visibility (and yes it did suck yesterday and was way worse on tuesday) got the best of you. Not a lot of fun skiing around looking for stuff when you have less than a 2 chair visibility

you can always find some sort of bump run if you know where to look. but you shouldnt need to look that hard. they should be on OL, right in your face as you pull into the parking lot, under the chair as you ride up. when i first started skiing K many years ago, you could always count on top to bottom bumps on OL. i didnt mind doing a 3 hour each way day trip to ski OL all day. its the reason i joined a ski house at K and eventually bought a house there. its frustrating to be there every wknd and see the kind of bumps that are on outer limits now. im sure there are plenty of people like patrick that come for the day, search around for good bumps and leave frustrated (most wont come back)
the easiest fix would be to seed a section of OL. im sure BMM's trip report would have been much different if there was a seeded section of OL.

 

[skiingsnow]

Bumps not as big, but Outer Limits does still get bumped up edge to edge

And they still let others bump up edge to edge too...

Superstar

Downdraft and Double Dipper

 

[skiadikt]

Bumps not as big, but Outer Limits does still get bumped up edge to edge

And they still let others bump up edge to edge too...

Superstar

Downdraft and Double Dipper

skippy you had to go back nearly 2 years in your archives to find pics to make your point. frankm & bmm's comments refer to when k WAS the mogul capital of the east which it clearly no longer is. and your foto of vertigo from yesterday shows minimal bumpage despite today's snow report touting vertigo as the place to go for bumps.

from friday k report:
"Enjoy sunny skies throughout the day while carving down 65 groomed trails, or check out the moguls on Escapade, Northstar or Vertigo."

moguls on vertigo???

or jbkmart's thursday report:
"So anyway, They groomed a strip down the middle of lower Vertigo. The groomer left big chunks of crud on both sides where the powder was. I don't know if you guys ever ski on frozen basketballs, but I thought that it wasn't that great."