Ride Delaware ?

As always, I started off the morning with grand expectations of getting to the mountain at opening, which is currently 9 AM. Unfortunately, I slept like garbage, so I slept in until about 8 AM. I wasn’t too concerned, because I knew that it would be busy due to the holiday, that lines would decrease throughout the day, and that the storm would begin around noon, so conditions would ultimately be refreshed. I may be in the minority with this statement, but I would rather have slightly worse conditions than wait in a lift line to get fresh cord first thing in the morning. After snagging a coffee at our local market, I drove down to Killington and arrived in the parking lot at 10:30. Flurries were in the air and the temperature hovered around 28 degrees. All early season base operations are still out of the K-1 base lodge, but due to the construction of the new base lodge in front of the old one, a good chunk of the parking lot there is inaccessible and you can’t drive up the main road. I parked just off the access road on Vale road where there were shuttles waiting to shuttle us up to the base. Since the ticket booth is in the front of the old lodge, which is currently blocked by new construction, Killington setup a temporary ticket booth and stairs just below the new gondola cabin storage garage with a very nicely paved walkway all the way around it to the now heated K-1 Gondola lift corral. They really went above and beyond to make the temporary experience enjoyable. Since I already had a One Pass (Killington’s RFID card), I reloaded it online the night before and went straight to the lift. The K-1 lift corral was about halfway full, but I hopped in the singles line, and there were only about 15 people in front of me. Unfortunately, this happened to coincide with the same time they decided to remove a cabin from the haul cable, so the gondola was stopped, and the entire corral filled up behind me. After a ten minute wait, the gondola started back up and I was finally able to get through the gate. I was a little wary since it was the first time I had ever reloaded a lift ticket online, but I went right through without any issues. After unloading the gondola, I checked the thermometer at the peak, and it also registered 28 degrees. There was snowmaking ongoing at elevation, but it must have been about as marginal as it gets. There were intermittent snow showers and some freezing fog, so humidity had to be close to 100%. Killington was advertising 10 open trails today, but it is really only 5 distinctive trails at the top along with the Great Northern/Bunny Buster runout to the bottom. Downdraft was open, but since I didn’t walk around the unload at the top of the gondola, I missed it. Double Dipper was also open, but coverage was very shoddy and I didn’t want to beat my gear up unnecessarily. I mostly stuck to a combination of Rime, Reason, Upper East Fall, and Great Northern. I was pleasantly surprised that coverage was decent enough that they didn’t need guns on open terrain, which really helped visibility, since I’m sure the guns were running quite wet. Rime and Upper East fall had very similar conditions. Slick down the middle, but tons of packed powder on the side with some small bumps. Reason is the new Woodward park and looked to have a great setup. There were tons of jibhonks. I usually don’t mind, but the bottom feature is basically at the intersection of Great Northern/Upper East Fall/Reason, so there were tons of jibhonks blocking the trail off the gondola so they could watch their buddies hit the last feature. Great Northern/Bunny Buster was probably the best run of the day. It’s the widest trail, is slightly flatter, and it has the freshest snow, so it had the best conditions by far. I was pleasantly surprised that Killington made the unprecedented decision (since the World Cup started) to suspend snowmaking on Superstar to get t2b. They knew they could finish the course with the cold weather coming this week, and they have an extra week for course prep, so they went for it. Kudos to them. Overall, I mostly stayed at the top of the mountain off the brand spanking new North Ridge Quad. The singles line was basically ski on all day. I think I had to wait twice. Once was a line of 7 and once was a line of 3. I made the mistake around 1 PM of switching it up and going t2b, and despite the NRQ being ski on, the gondola was mayhem. The entire corral was full and the singles line was about 15 minutes long. After 6 more runs at the top, I asked a skier how the line was down at the bottom. He told me that it was only 5 minutes long, so I decided to go down again. I was pleasantly surprised to see that there was no lift line and I was able to walk right on. I took two more runs up top and finished my day with another run to the bottom. Overall, I finished my day with 14 runs. 10 off the NRQ and 4 t2b. It was a great first day and my entire body is exhausted. My legs were really starting to feel it at the end. I really wanted run #15, but my turns weren’t crisp and I knew I was on the verge of pushing it too far. It started snowing in earnest around 1, but it only amounted to about an inch by the time I left. I would grade today as an overall B+. I have yet to have a bad early season day at Killington, and I’m glad that continued. I still think the North Ridge pod of trails is one of the best early season offerings in New England, especially if it’s not t2b. There is solid tree skiing, some good bump runs, and a good cruiser. I’m looking forward to getting back out there tomorrow. As usual, pictures are below (I’m sure GSS skipped right to them):

I’ll post a pic here from the MRV shortly. I’m on my way back to DE after a morning session at Killington. There’s not supposed to be a changeover here at Sugarbush, but Killington is south of the full snow line, so tomorrow AM conditions will be a tossup.

Awesome news for you guys. I’m glad to see you’re going to get a decent amount of “bonus” skiing and riding in this year. I just got back from a session at Killington. If I can stay awake, trip report to follow.

I see what you did there...

Top snow gun on Freedom is back on... probably working their way back down and waiting until next Friday at this point. I’ve got to wonder if they were operating under their old policy and Vail saw it and was like “whoa boys, holdup. You can’t open until next week with the rest of them”

That sounds like it’s about the status quot right now for Vail. Mount Snow, Wildcat, and Hunter have all announced its likely next weekend for them as well. Okemo and Stowe waiting until the 23rd...

https://www.paskiandride.com/forums/topic/9713-boulder-trip-report/

10 years ago some of you hit Big Boulder November 9th and I think it was pretty good coverage. I think they added a second trail for Black Friday... I’ll see if we had a report or not...

Nope... I’m disappointed in them. False marketing and late openings. The way of Vail?

I saw that. The bottom has enough to be pushed out, but I don’t see any whale backs further up...

No more holiday train to Jim Thorpe though...

Anything before MLK is a bonus!!! WTGAI!!!

Not going out today. Killington is too much of a madhouse, especially since it’s not t2b and they jacked up the prices without the BoGo deal this year. The hope was to go to a Vail resort, but they all backed off of their early openings. I’m hoping for Bretton Woods tomorrow, or possibly Wildcat, but worst case I’ll hit Killington Monday and Tuesday. It will be ironic if BB opens first...

I honestly didn’t know we were feuding. He has the amazing ability to bring out the best in people!!!

It’s MGS (Mini GSS Syndrome)...

I also thought it was odd that there were still direct responses to previous posts...

Even the ones that are public (Sugarbush) are still run under leases that don’t allow you trespass, but people still do it. I don’t know what Blue’s policy is. I take it that it is no skinning...

I think it was Hazleton. It’s so far back in the annals of PASR lore that I’d have to look way too far to find it...

GSS is past the time of getting after it. I remember the old days of the Killington road trips and Hazleton roadside hikes...

It’s November. Shouldn’t everyone be open by now? At least, isn’t that the premise on which I started this thread?

I’m guessing that means that Blue doesn’t condone earning your turns? It’s pretty common up here. Moe already got after it, and I know some peeps were getting face shots over at MRG. Talk about ruling with an iron fist... It’s also fairly common on mountains with snowmaking before they open for the season, in case someone was going to point out that discrepancy.

Production looks pretty good at BB from the webcams right now, but until we can see the mini whale backs in the morning, who knows how much they really produced. At least they already had a couple inches down cooling the surface so everything tonight should have been a net gain. It looks like tomorrow is a repeat of today with a loss of temps midday followed by much more marginal snowmaking temps tomorrow night. I still think they get it done tomorrow, but they didn’t announce the opening “later today,” so that tells me that they still aren’t sure themselves...

Who is poaching it from below the main lodge tomorrow?

It looks like they had to stop snowmaking for about an hour today at BB. I looked at 2:30 and they were shutting them down, and about 3:30 they were turning them back on. It looks like a full out assault now. No opening announced yet? I just got to VT and it’s basically mid winter from Killington to Sugarbush. Sugarbush is over a foot at the peak...

What did it look like this year?