Killington 1-27-11

[Ride Delaware ?]

Had another awesome day at the mountain today. I will try to keep this one shorter than yesterday. It will help that I took less pictures. However, I will be adding a picture from yesterday that I forgot to post. Here we go.

 

I had another rough start to the day. I was ready to hit the slopes by 9:15, but my dad wanted to go get a couple pictures with me, so there was a little holdup. We arrived at the shuttle stop at 9:30, but the driver didn't get there until 9:50. Once we got to the Snowshed lodge where the bus drops us off, my dad wanted to get some batteries for his camera, so that took some time. Finally around 10 AM I was on the Snowshed Quad. I looped underneath it to the Northbrook trail that heads over to the Skyeship Gondola Stage 2. We took that to the top of Skye Peak and went down Great Eastern to the bottom of the Skyeship Gondola Stage 1. The snow was a little faster today since it warmed up a little bit yesterday and firmed up overnight. It was groomed and in excellent shape. After a couple runs off the top of Skye Peak, which also included a run down Cruise Control, we decided to head over to the Snowdon Quad so my father could get some shots of the woods. I messed up on my directions and accidentally took us the wrong direction down to Bear Mountain. We took the top of Skyeburst where we went our separate ways down to the Skye Peak Express Quad. I took an ungroomed run with snowmaking which was a little bumpy with some chalky powder on the sides under firing snowguns. My father proceeded down Bear Claw which had been used several days ago for the jumps for the Dew Tour. They had been working the past couple days on removing the jumps and grooming them out. After four days of grooming, they were ready to go. Here was a picture from yesterday with a groomer on top of the jumps:

 

 

After going back to the top, we took Skye Lark over to the K1 Gondola and rode down Chute to the Snowdon Quad. We went back to the top and proceeded down Frolic where I immediately went into the woods while my dad went down to get his camera ready. I took these two shots of the Frolic/Patsy Glades again. They were in excellent shape again. Very few people had found the top section:

 

 

 

At the bottom of the woods where it segues into Caper, my dad got some footage and then headed back to the condo for lunch. I decided to skip lunch again, and headed back to the Snowdon Quad to hit up the Low Rider and Frolic/Patsy Glades again. After hitting those trails again, I jumped over to the North Ridge Triple to hit up the unmarked Powerline Glades. I got some great runs in again. They are tight, but definitely a bunch of fun. I was going to go to the top and try them out again, but the NRT was having some technical issues and was shut down. Therefore, I decided to take Reason to East Fall to the K1 Gondola. Reason is usually the early season terrain park, but with Bear Mountain in full swing, the park had been removed and I found some excellent corduroy at 12:30. Here is a picture looking down from the top with the lone tree sitting out in the middle of the trail:

 

 

When I got to the top of the K1, I decided to head back over to Bear to try out some of the other trails they had groomed out. I took Blue Heaven to Pipe Dream which I don't know if I had ever been on before. It parallels the South Ridge Triple, which is an interesting lift in that there are two set of lift towers about 50 feet apart. The ascending side is on Pipe Dream while the descending side is on the other side of two sets of trees and a trail. Very different. It is an older lift and is only used on busy weekends. That being said, Pipe Dream was pretty ugly. It was groomed, but it was wind scoured and tough to hold an edge. Here is a picture of Pipe Dream looking over toward Bear Peak where snowmaking was in progress:

 

 

I then proceeded to go down Bear Cub, which loops all the way around Beark Peak. I don't know if I had ever ridden it before, but it was a long beginner trail that had good pitch at times, and also very slow at times. On the way down it, I saw the Devil's Fiddle Chairlift. It is no longer in commission. It had no chairs and most of the sheaves seemed to be deteriorating. I decided to take a picture:

 

 

I then hopped on the Bear Mountain Quad which parallels Outer Limits. Since I did Outer limits the day before, I decided to try Devil's Fiddle. Although it is classified as a Double Black, I had seen the runout by the old lift, and it was pretty tame. I started down it and realized I had made a very bad decision. It was a natural snow trail that was ungroomed and had some massive hardpack and ice moguls. Some of the first ice I had seen the whole trip. I was able to navigate the edges of the trail in a decent time and avoid falling. I then headed to the top of the Skye Peak Express and headed down Great Easter to take a little break. I then went down Cruise Control which was in great condition even at the end of the day. After that, I was going to hit Great Eastern again, but decided to call it a day. I took Skye Lark to High Road and eventually the Whiffletree trail off of the Snowshed Slope.

 

After getting some firewood, I decided to go to the hot tub. It was 104 degrees, and after about 10 minutes I decided my muscles were pretty relaxed. I came back to the condo and showered. We decided to go out to dinner tonight, and headed to the "world famous Wobbly Barn." The steak was excellent, and I had a Wobbly Barn Red Ale which was also pretty good. Since my parents brought me on the trip, I decided to foot the bill. It was a hefty bill, but the food was good, it is a resort, and it was the least I could do.

 

We leave tomorrow, but I plan on getting in a half day before we head out around 12-1. I am going to check the conditions report in the morning, but if it is well groomed and running to the summit, I plan on hitting Pico. If I don't get the trip report up tomorrow night, expect it Saturday.

[burton71]

Sweet, looks like they have a solid amount of snow up there. I'll probably be making the drive up after work today and riding there all weekend.

[Ride Delaware ?]

Yeah, and it looks like more on Wednesday in PA... Ill be back in DE, so I guess that's just as good for you guys...