Killllington 🎿🏂🏂🎿🎿🏂🏂🎿😀

[boston_e]

I agree, but I primarily avoid Killington on Saturdays so hopefully weekdays would still have some spots up there.

The Vale lots are also very convenient but that involves having to start at Rams or Snowshed. Guessing those will be altered or gone when the village goes in.

That’s my usual too - but don’t forget that with the snowshed and rams lots gone, lots more people will be trying to park at K1

 

[urungus]

That’s my usual too - but don’t forget that with the snowshed and rams lots gone, lots more people will be trying to park at K1

On KZone they are saying that 1/3 of the K1 lot will be lost to the village (as well as Vale, Snowshed and Ramshead). Combined with the loss of parking at Bear, Killington is soon going to go from one of the better ski areas to park at, to one of the worst.

 

[Newpylong]

KZone does not have access to any additional information as anyone else and since no ACT 250 application has been filed any statements as to what happens to any parking in the basin is conjecture outside of what has been publically stated. What has been stated is RH and Snowshed parking will go away and go remote.

 

[gittist]

Leave the parking lots as they are and make the hotel people take a bus! Keep dreaming?

 

[SkiingInABlueDream]

Wonder how summer parking for mtn biking will work with these changes. I never thought I’d care about anything Snowshed related but I've come to enjoy the summer "scene" there.

 

[gittist]

I wonder if they're trying to create Vail East?

 

[BodeMiller1]

Meow

 

[Zap71]

no snowmaking yet? Cannon blowing?

 

[Newpylong]

Why would they? Look at the 10 day. Good way to burn $100s.

 

[letitsnow1]

It looks grim for the wc, less than a month away

 

[drjeff]

It looks grim for the wc, less than a month away

If it's November 20th and the weather is still unfavorable, then worry...

They've gone from little to no snow on Superstar to passing snow control in roughly 4 days in the past

 

[icecoast1]

It looks grim for the wc, less than a month away

same story every year and they've always made it

 

[letitsnow1]

There's no snowmaking weather in the 10 day forcast, gotta get a real cold snap in the 3rd week to have a chance

 

[letitsnow1]

Honestly I hope they don't make it so they can put all thier snowmaking efforts into public terrain

 

[Smellytele]

Honestly I hope they don't make it so they can put all thier snowmaking efforts into public terrain

If they aren't making it on SS they probably won't be on North ridge either so just a lose/lose.

 

[ss20]

If they aren't making it on SS they probably won't be on North ridge either so just a lose/lose.

Yeah and if there was no WC who knows if they'd use the extra compressors for public terrain the immediate couple weeks after the event.

 

[letitsnow1]

Yeah and if there was no WC who knows if they'd use the extra compressors for public terrain the immediate couple weeks after the event.

Last year the extra compressors were in the parking lot ready to be picked up the day after they finished with wc snow

 

[skiur]

Last year the extra compressors were in the parking lot ready to be picked up the day after they finished with wc snow

Yeah, last few years, but that was under powdr, maybe the new management will keep them around for a bit. I also hope new management nixes the race camp after the WC and we get the Supe pod the weekend after the WC. Last year the public had to wait 2 weeks after the WC to get access to that pod.

 

[drjeff]

Last year the extra compressors were in the parking lot ready to be picked up the day after they finished with wc snow

I think that how many rental compressors they have and/or how quickly they go away after the WC snowmaking assualt is done, isn't as much of a "sign of weakness" as the skeptics may think it it.

The reality is, K, for a LONG time lagged way behind in the percentage of its snowmaking gun fleet that was low e. They have spent a bunch of $$ over the last few years, and sounds like they will continue to do so over the coming years, swapping the old air hogs out with much more efficient equipment, so flat out they likely don't need as much air as they used to, all the while being able to make snow on as much, if not more terrain as folks are used to back in the days when they had many more rental compressors for longer amounts of the season.

The reality is that for most resorts now, the amount of air they have available isn't the limiting factor like it used to be for what constitutes "maxing out" a snowmaking system, as it is how much water they can pump. And while K can certainly pump as much, if not more water as anyone, the advantage they had there isn't as large as it once was, and that's an area (pumping capacity), to my knowledge, where K hasn't made any significant increases in in a while. Time will tell if the new ownership addresses this, as as a whole, there's a bunch of things with that snowmaking system that need attention (lots of pipe replaced for sure), and that's not an insignicant amount of capital improvement expense either

 

[doublediamond]

The problems at Killington for snowmaking isn’t a reliance on portable old school air hogs. Their migration to Low-E is great and direly needed.

It’s not even capacity. It’s capacity to certain key areas (read “feeds”) that they lack.

Look to Mount Snow, 100% of their water can be pumped to the summit then distributed at that valve house to any possible route.

Look to Sunday River, they put in a 20” feed to make snow simultaneosuly on 3 routes there.

Yes Killington’s geography is a bit more complicated that either area. Killington has two pump houses on what’s more or less two separate systems. They can pump up from Bear and they can pump up from Snowshed. Bear feeds Bear (obviously) and can feed of Skye Peak including the top of Superstar and that vacinity. Or it can shuttle water over to Snowshed. Snowshed can feed the entire basin. But that means while they claim ~12,000 gpm capacity, in reality they can only do 6,000-8,000 in the basin. And even then the pipe there just isn’t big enough to send all that to where snow is needed at any one time. Making matters worse is they now shuttle water out of the basin over to Pico as well.

There is fundamentally no reason it takes so long to open the route from Northridge down to K1/the bubble or Caper et al. to open Ramshead. And their buildout philosophy requires those long traverses to be made first. Hopefully getting rid of Woodward will mean the 2nd early season park on Snowdon is smaller in scale which will free up water supply issues.

Simply put, larger pipes to the top with new valve houses are desperately needed

Fans of Killington state basically “well they don’t want to put money into anything in the basin until there’s certainty over the village; give it time.” The village has been a 20+year dream. But the reality is a lack of investment on this front by Powdr is crippling Killington. Yes there is a cost to reroute pipe, but that cost is miniscule to getting to bad PR of getting your a$$ handed to you in mid Nov-mid Dec by every other area.