Killington Resort Debuts $8.4 Million in On-mountain Improvements for 2008-09 Season

[o3jeff]

I'm thinking he'd really like hitting up Sundown,Stowe or Killington.

Fixed it for you;-)

 

[millerm277]

Snowshed crossover was one of many crossover trails at Killington which linked one mountain area to another. By eliminating the Snowshed crossover several trails now are non-interrupted top to bottom runs. If you can view an old trail map you'll see the difference.

Yes, but by eliminating it, you also have eliminated other things. Some examples: Early/Late season skiing of the upper half of the runs around Needles/Backside of Skye when the lifts aren't running, is no longer possible, because there's no return. Same goes for Wind Hold days, if the K-1 is running, you could previously access all of that. IF they had actually closed the crossover on weekends and holidays like they were supposed to in the past, and left it open during the week, it would have worked much better, by not restricting movement midweek when the transfer lifts are closed and there aren't many people crossing anyway.

I have an old killington map. I'll look at it when I get to the office. Thanks.

I believe there are a bunch of older K maps at teachski.com

 

[danny p]

Yes, but by eliminating it, you also have eliminated other things. Some examples: Early/Late season skiing of the upper half of the runs around Needles/Backside of Skye when the lifts aren't running, is no longer possible, because there's no return. Same goes for Wind Hold days, if the K-1 is running, you could previously access all of that. IF they had actually closed the crossover on weekends and holidays like they were supposed to in the past, and left it open during the week, it would have worked much better, by not restricting movement midweek when the transfer lifts are closed and there aren't many people crossing anyway.

all valid points, to some the glass is half full, to some, half empty.

 

[RootDKJ]

I can't even begin to count the number of times I've seen someone turn a group of people reading a trail map or taking a break on the Snowshed Crossover into a bunch of human bowling ball pins. This is a really good improvement.

 

[skiadikt]

Yes, but by eliminating it, you also have eliminated other things. Some examples: Early/Late season skiing of the upper half of the runs around Needles/Backside of Skye when the lifts aren't running, is no longer possible, because there's no return. Same goes for Wind Hold days, if the K-1 is running, you could previously access all of that. IF they had actually closed the crossover on weekends and holidays like they were supposed to in the past, and left it open during the week, it would have worked much better, by not restricting movement midweek when the transfer lifts are closed and there aren't many people crossing anyway.



I believe there are a bunch of older K maps at teachski.com

i agree. closing the crossover is a mixed bag. you can argue for uninterrupted top-to-bottom runs but the only run that really had a serious crossover traffic problem was skyeburst. needles & vertigo to a much lesser extent. and on those runs the crossover provided mid-run rest point for many skiers which i don't think is going to change. and like millerm said, it enabled them to open a significant amount of terrain without running a lift. you could do laps on upper skye burst, dreammaker, thimble, needles, needles liftline, vertigo in addition to the easier terrain on the backside simply by running the superstar quad.

eliminating the crossover isn't a new idea. asc tried it when they first took over, announcing "the snownet trail with more top-to-bottom fall-line terrain". they even eliminated the crossover from the trail map. it didn't last the season and by the next season snowshed crossover was back on the map. it remains to be seen how committed powdr is to this concept, as it means running additional lifts to ensure that certain terrain is accessible for all abilities. is it cheaper to run a lift or open a crossover - we'll see ...

 

[Geoff]

The very bottom section of Caper (That lets a beginner skip crossing Chute.), used to be known as Lower Great Bear. Anyway...your comment doesn't make sense then? Great Bear is natural snow only.

I've had season passes at Killington since 1981. Caper was always the name of the novice trail that ran from Rams Head back to Snowdon.


Making the train from NYC to Rutland more well-known might help...

Off Topic-While looking up the train, this made me laugh: In FY07, on average, forty-six passengers boarded or detrained daily at Rutland, making it the busiest station in Vermont.

There are huge problems with that train. It is far too expensive. The schedule is useless. It takes far too long. If you ran a 5pm Friday night express from NYC to Rutland stopping once in the outer NYC suburbs around the Tappan Zee bridge, a 6pm express from Rutland back to NYC on Sunday night, and priced it so it went out full all winter, you'd have a winner.

Van pools are probably the way to go since you don't need a commercial license to drive a van pool van. If you can put 10 people in a Dodge Sprinter, you're pretty green. You'd have to dramatically improve local bus transportation at the resorts comparable to what western destination resorts do.

 

[Highway Star]

i agree. closing the crossover is a mixed bag. you can argue for uninterrupted top-to-bottom runs but the only run that really had a serious crossover traffic problem was skyeburst. needles & vertigo to a much lesser extent. and on those runs the crossover provided mid-run rest point for many skiers which i don't think is going to change. and like millerm said, it enabled them to open a significant amount of terrain without running a lift. you could do laps on upper skye burst, dreammaker, thimble, needles, needles liftline, vertigo in addition to the easier terrain on the backside simply by running the superstar quad.

eliminating the crossover isn't a new idea. asc tried it when they first took over, announcing "the snownet trail with more top-to-bottom fall-line terrain". they even eliminated the crossover from the trail map. it didn't last the season and by the next season snowshed crossover was back on the map. it remains to be seen how committed powdr is to this concept, as it means running additional lifts to ensure that certain terrain is accessible for all abilities. is it cheaper to run a lift or open a crossover - we'll see ...

Good point....at the moment, it looks like they'll be putting up fences to block the crossover, because they still need to use it to drive snowcats and snowmobiles around the mountain, especially at night. I think we'll see it open when there's wind holds or early/late season.

Remember last year when they claimed on the website they were going to block the Great Northern Crossover at Rime, early season??? Force everyone down upper east fall??? Yeah, that never even happened. Somebody wasn't doing their homework on traffic flow.....Nyberg? Anyway, I'll believe it when I see it....might last for a few weeks and then be given up on.

Overall, they really need a more permanent and streamlined solution....

 

[Highway Star]

With the current lift configuration, October openings are going to be a rare occurance. It's very difficult ot make snow on lower Great Bear in October and early November. It faces east and it's relatively low elevation. When they eventually replace one of the Snowdon lifts with a high speed lift that has download capability, they have the ability to easily get people up to The Glades (or Northridge or whateverthehell they call it this year) for October skiing. I walk up Killink frequently in April after they stop running the Snowdon lifts to get to the nice unskied corn snow on Northstar and Great Bear. From the Great Northern wrap-around, it's only a 5 minute walk. There's a power line parallel to Killink and they could stick their handle tow there for a couple of weeks to save the walk.

Still floating that one....never going to happen, and is completely absurd.

If you want to up/down load, it makes about 100x more sense to put a 400 ft long handle tow on upper downdraft, and tow people back up to the K-1 terminal AND the summit lodge.