SKIING A MOUNTAIN THEY CALL THE BEAST OF THE EAST
Good news! It’s Groundhog Day and Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow this morning. That means we’re in for six more weeks of winter. And if you don’t trust Phil, know that I also saw my shadow today while skiing at Killington, and that also means six more weeks of winter. That’s two highly accurate forecasts in favor of a prolonged winter! Will they verify? We will just have to wait and see on that.
Seeing my shadow. Six more weeks of winter!
Crowds weren’t an issue today. I had most lifts to myself!
*Just a heads up that I don’t know this mountain well, so most pictures don’t have captions.*
Today was a really nice day at Killington. It was a little warmer than it’s been and the sun was out. I’ve been to Killington a few times, but I’ve never actually been there when there’s been more than 40 or 50 runs open, as I’m typically there early or late in the season — so it was nice to see a day when the mountain was nearly 100% open.
Killington is nicknamed the Beast of the East, and for good reason. It’s one of, if not the, largest ski resorts in the East, with 155 runs amounting to 73 miles of terrain stretching across six mountains. In total, there are more than 1,500 acres of skiable terrain, according to the mountain’s website. For the East, it is a huge ski resort and it skis like it. This is not a mountain where you’ll ski it all in one day, especially when factoring in trees and natural-only terrain (and there’s plenty of each). You may have noticed I didn’t outright say it’s the biggest ski resort in the East, because it depends on which metrics you use, though Killington does lead in a number of them.
I learned last season at Sunday River (another huge East Coast ski resort) not to get so wrapped up in seeing everything that you end spending all your time traversing and not really skiing, so my plan today was to go pod-by-pod. I’d ski a few runs and move on. That plan worked out really well and I ended up skiing all the main areas of the mountain by the end of the day. Still, there are a lot of trails and glades I didn’t ski, but that just means I’ll have to go back soon!
On the groomers, conditions were great. There was packed powder everywhere, though there were some windswept spots here and there. It varied from trail to trail, of course, but the natural terrain was in pretty good shape as well, though there was some rock you had to watch out for at times. The trees were in a similar state, but it was all manageable. I actually really enjoyed the trees I skied, which were all off the Snowdon and Ramshead pods. The spacing in these trees was great.
Outer Limits.
Superstar.
The top terminal of the Skyeship Express Gondola Stage II.
Some of my most memorable moments today include skiing Outer Limits, skiing Superstar with a ton of snow guns cranking out snow on it, and riding the Skyeship Gondola. Killington has two gondolas: K-1 and Skyeship. K-1 goes from the K-1 Lodge up to the Summit, while Skyeship actually has two phases, and starts way down on the mountain. I’d never ridden Skyeship, nor skied the terrain off it, and for that reason it was memorable. It’s a long ways down the mountain to get to the bottom terminal of the first stage, so I just did the second stage. As for Outer Limits, this is a seriously steep run and it was very firm down the middle today. It was bumped up on the right and I decided to ski that side most of the way down. What a workout! This was my first time ever skiing this run, and I’d love to see how it skis under softer conditions.
I gotta say, Killington has got some interesting views. There were a few places where you could see the Franconia Range, and probably the Presidentials, too, over in New Hampshire, as well as the High Peaks in the Adirondacks at the same time. I don’t think it has the best views in Vermont, but they’re pretty good.
Never Quit Skiing,
Lincoln