# Killington - April 21, 2007



## kcyanks1 (Apr 22, 2007)

*Where:*  Killington, VT
*When:*  Saturday, April 21, 9:30AM - 3:25PM
*Conditions:*  Spring conditions, mushy snow
*Weather:  *Hot, sunny, no clouds at all

*Deciding to go:  *So after I thought my week of trying to get someone to ski had failed, I got a call around 8pm Friday night from someone willing to go up for a day.  An hour later, and I had changed, packed, rented a car, picked up the car, and picked up the person I was skiing with, and we were on our way to Killington   With the estimated (and achieved) 2am arrival time, this was one of those days where driving to Killington was enough (no extra hour to SB).  So after less than 6 hours in bed (can't quite say "sleeping"), and only 12 hours after even deciding to go away, we were preparing for a great ski day 

*Trip report:* 

We marked at the Killington base.  The plan was to take a run on Roundabout and head over to Bear Mtn for a few runs, and then work our way back toward the Killington base.  Roundabout for some reason was closed at that point in the day.  So we headed toward Bear via Wildfire.  Pretty mushy already, but still plenty of fun.  As much as I want winter to go on forever, I guess I have to live with the fact that it is spring.. So that said, fun run.  Unfortunately, when we arrived at the Bear Mtn base, we saw that only the Skye Peak Quad was running -- no Bear Mtn quad (or Devil's Fiddle Quad, but that goes without saying).   At that point any idea of taking a couple runs on Bear ended, because the Skye Peak Quad is just too long to make it worth it.  OL looked like it would be fun, but I knew I'd have plenty of spring bumps elsewhere, and Devil's Fiddle was closed.

So we went over to Needle's Eye, took a run or two on Needle's Eye (not the liftline) and a run on Vertigo.  Needle's Eye was a nice cruising-type run, to the extent that is possible in spring conditions.  Vertigo had some rocks showing on the headwall (much of steep stuff outside of the snow-making Canyon trails did), but it was a fun run.  Then we headed down to the K1 base.  I did Skybits.  Tough snow for glades, but coverage was good enough.  Lots of dirt on the ground in the woods, and actually, throughout the day we saw the occasional downed tree, even on normal trails (e.g., Northstar had one, Big Dipper had one that was visible from the Canyon Quad).  I'm figuring last week's Nor'easter did a ton of damage.

Next was Ovation, which I did twice.  Top headwall was rocky as always.  First time I meandered down around the rocks.  Second time I found a place I could ungracefully (see my avatar, which Tin so nicely pointed to :smile but successfully jump.  Lower Ovation is a nice run -- too wide for my liking, but a nice pitch for a reasonable length.  First run I managed to avoid the rocks pretty well despite the warning sign up top about going elsewhere if you valued your equipment.  Second run I was not so lucky, hitting a number of concealed rocks.  I needed a tune anyways   This was only my second day on lower Ovation.  The other time was early April of either '02 or '03 after a late season storm and it was pretty rocky then too.

After Ovation we took an early lunch break for about 30 minutes.  It was probably around 11:15.  It was more the dehydration and need for water that caused us to stop, but once we were stopping, might as well take care of lunch and avoid the need to stop again.

After lunch we headed up to the Canyon.  I did Catwalk.  I can't remember if I've done it from the top before. It was a fun run, the type I really wish Killington had more of.  Too bad it's so short.  After Catwalk (the diamond portion) I traversed over to Escapade to lower Cascade, and took that and Flume, meeting my friend at the Canyon Quad (he didn't want to walk up to Catwalk).  Then we took knocked off Royal Flush, East Fall, Big Dipper, and Downdraft.  Royal Flush was taking a beating from the sun and had lots of bare spots.  It eventually closed later in the day.  It was a fun run, but I think I preferred the snow on the other Canyon trails.  

On the way to both Royal Flush and Eastfall we skied Powerline.  Nice that that opened that up, and a Catwalk-esque run.  Unfortunately like Catwalk it's just too short, but I like the narrowness.  

Next I skied Anarchy to Flume.  The top of Anarchy was pretty tight, especially for a marked glade.  A challenging run for sure.  It opened up a little more further down and I had more fun and was able to move a little quicker in there.  Lots of dirt and crap on the ground, presumably from the storm, but coverage was fine.  Not the ideal glade-skiing conditions, though.  Ended up on Flume.  Another nice run and had some thin cover in places.

Next we headed over to the Snowdon Quad.  Took a run on Northstar, another good one.  Also had some thin spots, including a downed tree across 2/3rds of the trail in one place.  We then went back up the quad and planned to take Racer's Edge to Highline.  As we crossed Royal Flush patrol was closing it.  He offered to let us go down, but we passed, as we had our run on it earlier, and while fun, it wasn't any better than other runs IMO.  When we reached the point where we'd take Highline, though, Conclusion was too much of a draw to pass up   When we were debating, a fellow skier nearby said something like, "Do it, when else have you had a chance to ski it on April 21st!"   That was enough influence, so onto Conclusion we went.  Headwall was rocky, but another fun run with some spring bumps. 

It was 2:30ish at this point.  We took the Gondola back up, and figured we might ski Roundabout (less of a risk to have your ticket pulled at 2:30 than 9:40).  It ended up being open, though.  My first time on that trail even though it's been on my list to ski for a while as far as trails at Killington.  Cool run, and it had plenty of coverage, so I have no idea why it wasn't open in the AM.  Unfortunately, what I didn't realize is that we'd have a TON of flats from the bottom of South Ridge to the bottom of Bear Mountain, making Roundabout probably not worth it.  Flats were tough for me all day, since my skis are probably pretty much wax-free at this point, forget about having the correct wax for the weather.  We headed back up the Skye Peak Quad, cut into Superstar, and ended the day there.  The lower headwall had huge bumps, bigger than what I really like, but it was fun, and how could I go to Killington in late April on a classic spring day and not ski what for years had been the spring run of the northeast?  

At that point it was 3:25, and we decided to call it a day.  If we got our rental car back to NYC by 9:09 we'd avoid extra charges for going over our 1 day + 29 minute grace period, and we figured we'd give it a shot.  Well, at 9:09 PM we pulled into Hertz ... how's that for good timing? 

So hopefully this isn't the end of my season, but it's been great to a get a day in these passed two weekends, and at least push my pathetically low total to 10 days and 1.5 hours.  For me it's not terrible.  I hope for about 12-15 days, but I'm not sure when I've actually reached the 15.  Next year I'll probably shoot for 15+, but I'll see.  I still don't want to admit that this season may be over though.  Next weekend isn't looking good, but I'll see what the weather and my schedule does and maybe have a finale the last weekend in May.

I have a few pictures that I'll look through and see if I have anything that's worth posting and if so add them to the thread.


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## kcyanks1 (Apr 22, 2007)

So here are the pictures.

Ovation headwall:






Royal Flush:





Big Dipper:





Double Dipper:






Lower Cascade:






East Fall (I think -- not very confident here, though, as at first I thought it was lower Cascade..  Then I zoomed in and saw the lift above the trail is a chair.  I think it might be the Glades/North Ridge triple.  The shape looks East Fall-ish):





Anarchy (mid-to-lower):


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## Newpylong (Apr 22, 2007)

Awesome picts. I took many of the same ones yesterday!  You got East Fall right...


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## kcyanks1 (Apr 22, 2007)

Thanks.  Hope you had a good day skiing too.  Too bad I didn't know I was going sooner, otherwise we could've tried to meet up for a couple runs.


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## thetrailboss (Apr 22, 2007)

Nice pics.  Just got back from there.  What a day.  Roundabout was open today.  Nice.  Northstar and Vagabond were great too...


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## kcyanks1 (Apr 22, 2007)

thetrailboss said:


> Nice pics.  Just got back from there.  What a day.  Roundabout was open today.  Nice.  Northstar and Vagabond were great too...



Glad you had fun!  From the report it seems that Conclusion and Lower Ovation closed up in addition to Royal Flush.  No surprise if that's true, but was that accurate?  What else did you get to ski?


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## thetrailboss (Apr 22, 2007)

kcyanks1 said:


> Glad you had fun!  From the report it seems that Conclusion and Lower Ovation closed up in addition to Royal Flush.  No surprise if that's true, but was that accurate?  What else did you get to ski?



Yes to all three.  RF was grass today...glad I got to it on Friday.  

Report coming soon...with pics too.


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## kcyanks1 (Apr 22, 2007)

thetrailboss said:


> Yes to all three.  RF was grass today...glad I got to it on Friday.
> 
> Report coming soon...with pics too.




It had plenty of grass Saturday too, but that didn't stop me!   (I'm sure it got worse)


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## Newpylong (Apr 22, 2007)

Yeah, I was suprises Lower O and Flush were open yesterday. They really shouldn't have been...not that I am complaining. I spent more time avoiding crap with fancy footwork than skiing Flush, lol.


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## kcyanks1 (Apr 22, 2007)

Newpylong said:


> Yeah, I was suprises Lower O and Flush were open yesterday. They really shouldn't have been...not that I am complaining. I spent more time avoiding crap with fancy footwork than skiing Flush, lol.



I think both were fine to be opened.  Lower Ovation had a thin cover sign and a don't ski it unless you want to destroy your equipment sign.  I figure Royal Flush had a thin cover sign too, but I actually came from Racer's Edge and didn't notice one that way.  My first run on Lower Ovation was actually quite successful from a rock-dodging standpoint.  Second run not as much.  Perhaps if my second run were my first I'd have never taken a second and wondered why it was open.  Five years or so ago though I'd probably be complaining here about how Killington opens trails with no cover.  Now I do my best to avoid the bare spots and rocks and then fix up any damage to my skis. Much more fun that way than avoiding trails because they aren't perfectly covered.


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## millerm277 (Apr 22, 2007)

Skis are meant to be abused....and, thin cover trails often have the best snow, and fewest people, as long as you don't mind dodging a rock or grass patch.


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## skiadikt (Apr 23, 2007)

i'll add my pennies to the report. definitely one of the all time great spring weekends. can't beat sunshine, 60 degree temps and an incredible amount of snow. kudos to k for running the needles quad, spq & canyon quad making access to all that terrain easy. stunned by the wall-to-wall coverage on some trails for late april. catwalk with virtually no exposure. you gotta be kidding me ... our faves were downdraft, mid-ovation & outer limits, with ol having huge perfectly spaced volkswagens. escapade/flume was a pretty sweet combo. thimble, upper needles, vertigo, north star all fun. even double dipper & east fall developed good bumps. surprised that they groomed wildfire for saturday and west glade seemed to have been recently groomed. made a couple forays into the trees. too sticky & soft with a lot of debris for our tastes. only difference between the 2 days was that on sunday things softened up quicker and the bumps got bigger. a number of trails like lower ovation, upper vertigo & royal flush, that were open and skiable saturday morning were toast by sunday afternoon.

hopefully the excellent turnout will convince the new owners that if you have snow and good weather, that an extended spring skiing season is worth doing.


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## Newpylong (Apr 23, 2007)

millerm277 said:


> Skis are meant to be abused....and, thin cover trails often have the best snow, and fewest people, as long as you don't mind dodging a rock or grass patch.




How about jumping a 10 foot bare spot or going into the woods to go around another grass ribbon? : ) That was Flush this weekend.... very interesting indeed, lol. Wasn't suprised I was by myself.


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## millerm277 (Apr 23, 2007)

Newpylong said:


> How about jumping a 10 foot bare spot or going into the woods to go around another grass ribbon? : ) That was Flush this weekend.... very interesting indeed, lol. Wasn't suprised I was by myself.



Okay...true, haha...but, pop them off, walk a couple feet, and keep skiing, lol. You should have expected that though...


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## Newpylong (Apr 23, 2007)

true dat, I did!


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