Blue light special on POW TR(2/14)

[laseranimal]

The super mega epic valentine’s day TR



I suppose this story actually begins Tuesday morning, when I’m nudged awake by my wife who tells me “the warnings have been cancelled; we’re not getting any snow”. My head hits the pillow as I begin to curse in my mind and ponder how the forecast could have been so terribly wrong. My wife smiles with an evil grin and remarks “just kidding, they’ve upped the totals to a possible 30”, and umm, I got us a hotel room at Killington for tonight and tomorrow.” Did I mention I LOVE my wife :-) The rest of the day is a blur as I clear my schedule, pack my bags and eagerly check and recheck weather forecasts, waiting for some change that would signal the demise of the storm and the death of my powder. But alas as fate would have it there would be no stopping the storm, and by 5:30 pm, I, my wife, and the mini-animal were rolling towards Killington.

After a quick run through Wendy’s to feed the child, we roll into Killington to find the town quiet in expectation of the madness to follow. Bubbling with anticipation, and to prevent myself from going insane from waiting, I immerse myself in family things, which is a wonderful way to take your mind away from the ache of anticipation, and the rest of the night is filled with swimming, game rooms, and way too many viewings of Peter Pan. But soon, mommy and baby are sleeping and I am left with the dull hum of my brain and the ins and outs of the weather channels local on the eights. I ponder my obsession, what it means for my psyche and whether this fits the definition of “normal” but it’s too late for that. I’m trying to wrap my brain around the totals, the windspeed and direction, where it’s going to load, what chairs might run, and where the stashes might be later in the day. Sleep is but a tantalizing dream, as I toss and turn in bed, but mercifully slumber overtakes me and I sleep soundly until awoken by plows at 5 am.

I creep to the window, dreading to look out for I have been burned twice this year by mega-storms that have fizzled and left me standing like a jilted lover. But this was not to be one of those storms, oh no, there is a solid 5-6” on the ground and it is absolutely pounding snow at a rate of what appears to be 1-2 inches an hour. Now its time to play the waiting game, waiting for my wife to wake up, waiting for mini-animal to wake up, waiting to eat breakfast, waiting, waiting. The shuttle from the hotel leaves at 8:15 and drops off at Snowshed, which is both too late and too far for my taste, so I con my wife into giving me a ride up the access road to the K-1. Have I mentioned that it’s STILL dumping snow? I arrive at KBL at 7:50 am to find the mountain COVERED in a blanket of snow that is easily 8” deep and the snow just keeps coming down. After standing around for 5 minutes I realize that the thought of waiting around another hour for the lifts will probably drive me over the edge, so I make the decision to put the skins on my Powder Pluses and head up Bunny Buster. I figure I have enough time to make it to racers edge which will give me my choice of tracks down Highline or Conclusion.

The plan almost is stopped before it can begin by a snowcat cruising towards me from the K-1 area. I figure I’m going to be told that I’ve got to wait in line, but he just cruises right past on the way to the quad.

skinning up


About 40 minutes, and a sidehill switchback from hell underneath racers edge I’m standing on conclusion looking at 12-17” of wind deposited goodness skiers left below me.

mmmmm POWDER



Having seen slide activity 2 years ago while on the triple, I was pretty sure that it had the potential to go, and my thoughts were confirmed as I made a ski cut and a 4 foot section pulled out and ran about 20 feet, granted it was only about 6-10” deep but it definitely put me on my guard the rest of the way down.

As it was I timed it perfectly as I hit the Gondi line just as the cheer went up, the boxes were loading and I managed to hook up with Dromond at the top. After short introductions we headed to Cascade headwall and first tracks down double dipper in boot to shin deep wind rippled powder. We headed back up the box and decided to head over to Snowdon as it looked like the winds were loading that side of the mountain. On our way we stopped to take advantage of a reserved Chop Chop, which yielded sweet turns on a beautiful pitch.

Snowdon in the AM


We charged on to Snowdon where we pillaged knee to thigh deep powder on Low Rider, Patsy’s, and other tree shots which shall remain nameless. We also had our first encounter with snow that was too deep to ski in the woods below caper, we were a little lower then I anticipated and wound up on the wrong side of the ravine, it was literally waist deep powder that we had to slog out from. Squeeze Play was nice, but on a day like today, boot deep pow just wasn’t going to cut it so we headed up the Quad with plans to head over to the Jug. But we both needed a quick pit stop in KBL to defog our goggles from the merry slog out of Caper woods.


Up the Gondi again and once again the South Ridge Area delivered the goods as we were rewarded with more untouched lines as the wind and snow were working overtime to give us fresh tracks on each run. It was on the falls brook run out that we had our first looks at the run which should have been opened about three weeks ago. After seeing numerous skiers descend the line of death, which obviously needed to be closed for patrol inspection and avalanche control work, due to the many hazards contained in such a scary line. After warning Dromond of the high consequences of skiing such a risky line, and trying to talk ourselves out of it, we both were unable to resist its siren song and the snow which was coming down harder. We jumped in for two laps before concluding that 12” of fresh snow was just not enough to get that run opened properly. I will add that once again I absolutely crushed myself on both runs, the first time attempting to billygoat a double stager through the cliffs, and the second time managing to stuff a tip into a 24” wind drift, double ejecting and knocking the wind out of myself. I scraped myself off the carpet and the two of us continued to find even fresher snow in the surrounding trees.

dromond rocking out


After putting the finishing touches on Bear, and the pounding snow showing no signs of letting up we needed to do some photoslutting, and since we hadn’t skied Needles yet it was there that we decided to head. Up the Skye Peak Quad we went and found ourselves at the top of Thimble/Dream maker. The entrance was scrapped off and we thought about finding another spot, but dropped into Dream Maker anyway and were rewarded with some of the best snow we’d skied so far, the wind had formed pillows that had to be 3 feet deep in spots.

Dromond getting the goods, did I mention its 2:12pm?


The snow was so rich and creamy smooth and we had it all to ourselves. Hardly believing our luck, at finding such amazing snow at 2:30 pm on a powder day we headed back up for a helping of seconds, but on a day as amazing as today, by the time we returned we were greeted not by sloppy seconds, but a refreshed run full of more powder.


dromond still getting the goods


On the way back up Skyeship, I convinced Dromond that despite the sketchy entrance to thimble it would be worth the price of admission. He agreed and once again we found knee deep pow, and some nice hucks off of the many ledges.


Dromond about to send it


Gorged on the snow, and wondering how it could get any better, we headed off to somewhere, after being nowhere, and then in the best run of the day, found virgin snow and first tracks in Skye bits at 2:45!!!!

Dromond about to check into the Killington White Room



Dromond bringing Sexy back



Thimble Goodness



The plan was to take the Superstar quad back up for some more Needles goodness, but the lifts were starting to go down, we couldn’t tell if it was just midweek hours, or if the wind was starting to cause problems.

[laseranimal]

The decision was made to head to Ramshead because I had promised mini-animal I’d take him snow tubing at Snowshed at 3:30 and Dromond and I figured we’d take our chances on finding untouched in the interconnect woods. Well we found it all right, but quad deep powder is hard to ski on a low angle slope, at one point both of us were pointed straight down hill and were stopped in snow up to our waists. After finding the godsend of a pre broken downhill trail and made it out to Swirl, I realized that I only had a few minutes before I would get the panicked phone call from my wife asking me if I was dead(yes dear I’m 5 minutes late, no dear I’m not dead). So I said my goodbyes to Dromond and raced down to Snowshed. Where I found my angst ridden wife who couldn’t find a spot to park, due to the 16-20” of snow that had fallen since they’d plowed the lot, and my toddler who despite all of the commotion had decided that he’d rather sleep then go tubing. So we decided to skip out on the tubing and head back to the hotel for some well deserved rest and relaxation. Due to the snow which was STILL coming down at obscene rates, we decided to bag dinner at Wally’s and I walked over to Baja Burrito for take out, rather then move the car out of our nicely plowed spot. It was over dinner that my wife told me that she had made the executive decision to cancel her lessons on Thursday, and stay an extra night. The rest of the night was fairly uneventful as we watched the snow pile up and the wind start howling. I slept well, muscles tired and soul replenished.



dude wheres my car?



no really we're in Killington VT it just looks like Utah


I awoke Thursday morning to find the winds howling, and thanked my lucky stars that I’d been up for Wednesday’s powderfest. I had a hunch the mountain would be on windhold and my hunch was confirmed as there were no Gondi cabins being loaded onto the line upon my arrival at KBL. After an attempted end run to Bear, where the situation was the same, I headed back to K-1 to find that the Snowdon quad was running and there were plans to get the Triple up and running as well. Note to all the Snowdon lift haters, despite 30-40 mph winds that knocked out every other lift on the mountain, BOTH Snowdon chairs were able to run and despite the fact that they were the ONLY lifts running on the mountain and handling ALL the traffic, you could STILL find fresh tracks on most of the trails and all of the woods at 10:45, so all you haters can STFU and leave Snowdon the way it is.

The snow Thursday was wind hammered and heavy, a stark contrast to the wonderfully creamy stuff we had been skiing previously. Also in contrast was the vibe around the mountain, as the junkies who couldn’t make it up Wednesday, appeared at the K-methadone clinic for their powder fix but were out of luck, and didn’t stop complaining about it. Calling the snow Sierra cement might have been a compliment, but the sun was out and the Snowdon trees were nice as always and Highline to interceptor was the run of the morning. Feeling tired from yesterday’s gluttony, and noticing the Gondi cars were being strung onto the line, I decided to wait the 25 minutes for the opening. Fortunately the K lift staff was doing the best that they could to get the lifts up and running and were super about getting information out to those of us waiting in line. Unfortunately I had the bad luck to be standing in front of two racist bigots who did nothing but complain the whole time, that Killington was just trying to save the powder for the weekend crowd by not running any lifts (obviously it was a conspiracy to screw the midweek skier, except they had all the lifts running yesterday when the snow was better). Then they were yelling about the $10 an hour foreign lift staff and offering to pay them a quarter more if they’d run the lift. Then they started in that they were paying a lot of money to ski Killington and the winds were dying down so why aren’t the lifts running? Just then a 50 mph blast came through and whipped snow like ice daggers. But even that didn’t stop them, so finally I turned around and told them point blank that if they REALLY wanted to go ski the untouched powder at the Summit, they ought to quit their bitching, put their skis on their back and hike for their turns. They replied (as if hiking was beneath them) that they don’t hike because that’s what ski lifts are for, so I shot back “then shut up until it opens”.


Mercifully the Gondi opened soon afterwards, and I had first tracks down Dipper again, but instead of the smooth velvety consistent powder that I found Wednesday, it was replaced with wind crust, wind slab, and wind deposited snow. I went back up the Gondi hoping to score tracks on superstar, but escapade looked like it was holding good snow due to its more sheltered location, so I dropped in and scored some nice turns, on the middle part of the run, but the best turns were had on flume, where there was 6” of snow that was sheltered from the winds wrath. My legs were burning and unlike the previous day the powder was not being replenished, and rather then stand in the Gondi line for 20 minutes for sloppy thirds. I decided to take one more run up the Cripple and call it a day. I was glad I did because I once again found great turns in Chop Chop, while it wasn’t the unspoiled canvas of a day prior, it held enough snow for some quality turns.

The rest of the late afternoon and early evening was spent soaking in the hot tub and digesting the spoils of the past two days.


Excellent dinner was had at Casey’s where the mini-animal sat engrossed by the toy train and its many loops around the restaurant.
Friday dawned windy once again, and after sadly having to pack up we took the mini-animal to Ramshead for some turns of his own. However due to the wind we only managed to get one lap of the magic carpet before the two of us decided that the single digit temps and blustery winds made skiing not so much fun. So the three of us headed home with smiles all around.

[Cirquerider]

This East Coast stoke is a nice break from the springtime blossoms on the almonds and plums here.

[train07]

Nice Laser,
Sorry for that foray to Bear. Magic had it's own wind buff issues so you made the right decision to stay. Your wife done good. No need for any accidents.

[gamma]

nice tr!

[laseranimal]

Nice Laser,
Sorry for that foray to Bear. Magic had it's own wind buff issues so you made the right decision to stay. Your wife done good. No need for any accidents.

yeah definitely looks like Wednesday was the right call

[truth]

All that pow is cool and what not but the best part of this TR is your wife pwning you. She's a keeper. Nice work.

[powstash]

excellent read. and yea, she's def a keeper

[Dromond]

Nice write-up man. I love the photos, blurry and all. What a sweet day! And that was my first of 4 (four!) pow days this week. Crazy!!