Killington Tuesday Nov. 6, 2001

[RandyW]

Killington opened today with the "usual" that they have had for the past few years: <BR>- Ride in the back of a pickup truck from KBL (Killington Base Lodge) to the start of the Canyon Quad chair. <BR>- Ride up Canyon Quad - unload at the top of the Glades area. <BR>- Ski the Glades terrain. <BR>- When done, ride up Glades triple, walk 50 feet to the top of the Canyon Quad, ride the quad down, and then ride the pickup truck back to KBL. <BR> <BR>- Lift ticket was $25, the snow phone said 10 AM opening, but the first pickup truck left at about 9:30 AM. <BR> <BR>There was about six inches of natural snow and the Rime trail (Glades triple liftline intermediate run) had about 24 or so hours worth of snowmaking done on it - there are hydrants <BR>every 50 or 75 feet, so they can do a lot in a short time. <BR>Rime was well covered, they groomed lightly, and the water bars (diagonal drainage ditches) were there for catching some air, if needed, or falling if you didn't pay attention as you skied across them. <BR>The snow they blew was quite dense, but being Day One, there is still a lot of air in it. A few days of freeze/thaw and grooming will probably turn it into hardpack (unless they blow more <BR>snow - The snow guns were OFF this morning). <BR>Cloudbase was low - somewhere below Glades on East Fall and below the headwall on Superstar, but visibility was mostly okay, there were a few brief periods where the fog became dense and you had to ski by feel (just close your eyes). <BR>The crowd was seemed evenly split between 1 and 2 plank folk. <BR> <BR>No liftline all morning, when I left just after noon, I had to wait for about 4 chairs worth of a line in front of me. <BR>Suprise of the day was upper East Glade was open on natural only snow. There was even some untracked stiff powder on the edges. Yesyesyes. <BR>Lower East Glade was closed and when I <BR>skied^H^H^H^H^H looked down it there was heavy stiff powder with funky water bar drifts, <BR>especially at the bottom - it needs more snow. Turns required in this sort of snow are of the gorilla unweighting variety. <BR> <BR>With the 6+ inches of snow at altitude, all the trees were covered with snow and just being in the alpine winter environment was a joy, skiing was icing on the cake. <BR> <BR>- Randy <BR>-