Killllington 🎿🏂🏂🎿🎿🏂🏂🎿😀

[drjeff]

* Zero June openings pre-World Cup, but 5 out of 7 years post World Cup (excluding covid and superstar construction years)
* 75% of pre-World Cup years had October openings but only 22% (2 of 9) post WC

Going deep into May or June often has more to do with weather luck than how much snow they put on SS in the final build out. It has seemed, anecdotcally atleast to me, that while it's now taking another few weeks in the Fall for more consistent windows of cold air to arrive and stay, it also has seemed to me that April in particular and often into early May , have seemed like the cooler weather pattern has lingered a few extra weeks which has helped with later closing dates. Now this year, Mother Nature decided that often cold, juicy rain events was going to be her weekend modus operandi from say early/mid April on...

 

[mister moose]

* Zero June openings pre-World Cup, but 5 out of 7 years post World Cup (excluding covid and superstar construction years)

You also have to take into account the management style changes that occurred over time. Pre 2017 they stayed open as late as they could with decent skiability. (the Nyberg years were April or early May closings) Post 2107 the June Tshirts started and the June goal was strong. So strong they introduced rappelling down the headwall on ropes attached to snow cats, and multiple mud skiing stretches. They were willing to push it farther on less snow. So much less some years the snow was gone by noon on a lot of the trail.

They also now in the last 3 years have GPS snow depth in the cab, and can farm with far better precision. It's not just about how much snow was blown.

So yes, not much difference.

Going deep into May or June often has more to do with weather luck than how much snow they put on SS in the final build out. It has seemed, anecdotcally atleast to me, that while it's now taking another few weeks in the Fall for more consistent windows of cold air to arrive and stay, it also has seemed to me that April in particular and often into early May , have seemed like the cooler weather pattern has lingered a few extra weeks which has helped with later closing dates. Now this year, Mother Nature decided that often cold, juicy rain events was going to be her weekend modus operandi from say early/mid April on...

Every year is different, and I assure you this one coming will be different as well! For instance 24-25 had very good snow totals, but no big dumps, it just dribbled in all season, decent cold after Tday for the Christmas build, a good stretch from MLK into early March, a March heat wave, then an onslaught of rainy weekends. We will not see a repeat of that.

 

[joshua segal]

Between 1975 and 2000, there was October skiing 25 of 26 seasons. IMO, the loss of October skiing is all about climate change.

Some of that reflects in the late season when Killington (before the big snow making era) had mid-May skiing on natural snow. If the end of the season is going longer, it’s because of snowmaking. Before that, with a cool May, Killington made it to Memorial Day only a couple of times.

 

[machski]

Well, total depth may not matter as much now for a deep late season run for several reasons. As previously stated, GPS snowdepth tech on the Cats makes farming a more precise science. Second big reason they can go deep is they aren't open 8 days a week into the late season anymore. That was not the case back in the 80's and 90's, they were open everyday for skiing until it ran out. Depth definitely mattered in that era.