Killington, VT 3/11-12/00

Raymond · Apr 18, 2000

(Note from the Administrator: This report was originally posted on 3/14/00. Due to our move to new servers, the date and time attributed to this post is incorrect.) After much debating and weather watching late last week, I decided to take the 4 hour drive from NYC to K. I was hopeful that the storm that everybody was tracking would live up to my expectations because with the recent thaw and then resurgence of winter, I expected concrete on the mountain. Saturday was what I expected. I arrived with my bros at 8:30 at Skyeship to find out that Stage II was closed. Not a good sign. There was fog everywhere. We took the Needles Eye Quad and proceeded to Bittersweet. It was hard but edgable. I am sure glad I tuned my board Friday night at Garry W's recommendation. I heard they were blowing snow all night on Superstar so we took the Superstar quad up. Up the chair we were greeted by fog and man made snow crystals that liked to cling to our goggles. The headwall was roped off but found our way via Skyehawk back to Superstar. Again, more fog plus icing of the goggles from the snowmakers. It was tough but the snow was good there. Icy bumps on the left, which I avoided. Mid trail was the place to be. On to the K1. Burton Snowboards had their Demo Truck set up so I stopped in for peek and to see if some of my friends were there. A couple of the tech reps said they were in Utah. K1 had minimal wait time. Proceeded to ride whatever was open in the Canyon areas, which wasn't much. After deciding that the trails were a bit hard after the previous weekends of POW then spring mashed potatoes, we decided to make our way to Ram's Head and give the park a try. Best move of the day. The hits were in decent shape and to my surprise, the landings were not too icy. That however did not prevent injuries. I saw Ski Patrol strapping in two people at the bottom of the first and third hits on to their dead sleds. Not a pretty picture. They closed off the park around 1, I guess due to injuries but my friends and I were able to sneak in one more run. We made our way to Bear and there I see Garry W carving his way down Skyeburst while I was on the chair. I yelled out to him but he was too busy carving it up under the Skyepeak Quad. We decided to call it quits around 2:30 that day. Sunday was totally different. The snow and ice made for an interesting day. My wife rode all the trails we did - she's an intermediate boarder who is deathly afraid of speed. She handled East Fall like a pro and took all the open trails on the Bear's Side. The snow great compared to Saturday - you could hold a really nice edge and make crusted powder turns on the sides. Fog was everywhere and got worse by 12. Bear Mtn was totally ungulfed. We called it quits around 2 again and headed back to Plymouth. As soon as we pulled into our house, the sun came out! All in all, a pretty good weekend. I expected much worse. Good cover and no lines. US Open at Stratton next weekend. Halfpipe on Saturday and Big Air on Sunday.

Killington, VT 3/11-12/00

Raymond

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