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Killington
Killington
Saturday, April 21, 2018
Submitted on April 21, 2018 by rocket21 (1436 Rating1436)
Session SessionFull Day
Lift Ticket Ticket TypeM.A.X. Pass
Lift Lines Lift Lines6 to 10 minutes
Snow Trail Conditions35% open; Spring Snow, Packed Powder
Glades GladesDid not venture in, but all still in play with plenty of base.
Moguls MogulsNot much early on, but plenty by lunch time.
Terrain Park Terrain Park(s)None left.
Run of the Day Run of the DayDouble Dipper
Food and Beverage Food and BeverageOnly one base lodge open, so it was very hard to find a place to sit. Only purchased fries ($5), since the prices are exorbitant, even for a ski area!
Comments CommentsBeautiful weather and conditions, but bad operations.

They were too quick to truncate operations. Only the K1 base lodge (and summit lodge) was open. As a result, the lodge was jam packed. People were parking all the way down in the Rams Head and Snowshed lots and having to walk up, since those areas are closed for the season. Canyon Quad was advertised as open, but they never touched it. Long lines from 10:00 onward at all open lifts (Superstar, K1, Snowdon Triple, and North Ridge Triple). Snowdon Triple got particularly bad in the morning, when they started loading every other chair (they actually had maintenance working on a tower while the lift was operating). Rams Head really should have been open. Some poor customer service too (customer service person greeting "what do you want"; food service person asking customer if they are a season passholder, and if not they'd simply ignore them and move on to the next person).

From 10 to 3, lines were generally 10 minutes on every lift, even if taking the singles line. The North Ridge Triple was down to a couple of minutes around 3, but the gondola was still up the stairway.

Onto the good stuff - the snow. The first couple of hours was mid-winter packed powder. Almost everything in on the Canyon side of Killington Peak was open. I even got to ski Catwalk off the top (i.e. going up the stairway) and Flume down to the bottom. Royal Flush was even open (nice in the morning, but toast after the sun baked it), as was Racer's Edge. The only thing not open off this side of the peak was lower Downdraft (probably due to ice). Double Dipper was beautiful, as they had groomed down the bulletproof moguls. Other than Royal Flush, trails were wall to wall with very little poking up.

One could take Blue Heaven to Launch Pad down to the Superstar complex. Ovation was groomed and beautiful first thing, but apparently the steeps got icy quickly. Old Superstar was ungroomed, but nice in the afternoon. Superstar was groomed and nice in the morning and bumps by afternoon. One could go as far over as Bittersweet and as far down as Highlander. All of these trails were wall to wall with plenty of snow.

Snowdon was hard to ski, as the triple is slow and the line was generally pretty long after 10. Open as far over as Chute (even with lift removal in progress) and down to Great Northern. Wall to wall snow cover on all of the trails.

Beautiful weather and conditions. The one benefit of not having enough lifts running was that the trails (apart from Superstar) were not too busy.

Apparently they'll only be operating the Superstar Quad after tomorrow, but there is some whispering about potentially opening the gondola next weekend if the snow/crowds warrant.
Link URLhttps://www.instagram.com/p/Bh2vq6ZHcMg
Rating Report Rating4 Rating4

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