Killington, VT 4/20/00

[randy w]

Today was a $20 VT resident day at Killington. The last one <BR>of the season will be on May 2nd. <BR> <BR> The day started with a full overcast with cloudbase about <BR>halfway down Superstar. At about 10:30, the clouds lifted and <BR>patches of blue sky appeared. <BR> <BR> There were three sections of skiing open - Snowshed (novice slope), <BR>K1/Glades/Canyon, and Superstar. The Canyon runout is gone, so <BR>you have to take the herd route down Snowden to get to the K1 base. <BR>Even with the 1+ inch of rain forecast for tomorrow, Killington <BR>is planning to push snow around and try to open K1 for the weekend. <BR> There were ski school classes full of British kids all over the place. <BR> <BR> I was only there until noon and I didn't want to spend much time <BR>walking back and forth between K1 and Superstar, so I did K1 first. <BR>There was still a nice amount of natural snow around up high and upper <BR>Glades Power Line and a few other off-piste sections were fun. <BR> I went over to Superstar and after a warm-up run, ran into some <BR>fellow Mad River shareholders and we did repeated Superstar and <BR>Bittersweet woods. There were parts which were like a bobsled run, <BR>hopping over a stump or blowdown here and there and zipping along <BR>on fast corn in the conifer shade. <BR> My friends went back to K1, talking about trying something over <BR>by the Light and wondering about the hike/traverse out. I stayed <BR>on Superstar because I had to leave soon and finished up with a <BR>couple of SkyeHawk headwall (good cover) to mid-S.Star woods to <BR>the steep pitch on the far left of the bottom pitch on Superstar. <BR> <BR> There were three ways down off of Superstar (S.Star, Skyelark, and <BR>Bittersweet), even without the rain in the forecast, it looks like <BR>upper Bittersweet and lower Skyelark are almost gone. Everything else <BR>has reasonable wall-to-wall coverage, except for the occasional <BR>sinkhole amd grooming ulcer. Superstar has major snow depth, if <BR>we get some cool nights where the base can set up, it should last. <BR> <BR> Fast corn snow in the trees and steep corn snow bumps. Wicked decent.