My son and I drove up to Killington and Gore mountain for 4 days of skiing during his spring break. We skied 2 days at Killington (3/4 and 3/5) and two days at Gore (3/6 and 3/7). Spring conditions with some fog and rain but overall a great trip. In the week leading up to the trip there was a fair amount of rain and some temporary trail closures, but at Killington at least most runs (apart from the glades) were still open. The one thing we did not want to happen was to get a lot of rain and then have a hard freeze overnight - thankfully this did not occur.
We left on Sunday morning (3/3) and reached Rutland, VT by around 6 PM. We stayed at the Comfort Inn, about a 25 minute drive from the slopes. We parked at the K1 Gondola area on Monday - on busy days there are other places to park to avoid the crowds, but there was no need to do that when we were there. There was no rain, but we did have to contend with fog throughout the day. We warmed up with a few runs over on the Snowden area, a run on Superstar, and then we headed over to Ovation:
Lower Ovation is legit steep but conditions were soft and forgiving. One area at Killington which I liked quite a bit was the Canyon area. This is a group of 4 runs (Cascade, Double Dipper, Downdraft and Escapade) with nice extended pitches in the mid to upper twenty degree range. They were running the Canyon quad (which they don't always do) so we were able to loop these runs pretty easily.
Of course no trip to Killington is complete without a few runs on Outer Limits. This run lived up to the hype - 1000 vertical feet of non-stop steep bumps. Conditions were soft but skiing in the fog added a challenge. For the final stretch we were actually below the fog and could finally see down to the base.
When we were there the runs with snowmaking had good coverage but the natural snow runs were thin. In some cases (like with Old Superstar) the thin areas were easy to avoid. For other areas (such as on Vertigo headwall) there were sections that were barely skiable at all. Others (like Wildfire) were somewhere in between. In general I was glad these runs were open but the thinner ones were definitely one and done for me.
Day 2 got off to a great start - no fog, great conditions. We started on Snowden again and took some runs on Superstar and the Canyon runs before heading back to Outer Limits. Around 11:30 it started to rain so we decided we would ski as much as we could without stopping for lunch before ending early for the day. We made it to about 2 PM. After a snack in the K1 lodge we packed up the car and headed to the Super 8 in Warrensburg NY for the next part of the trip at Gore Mountain.
From the Super 8 it is about a 25-30 minute drive to Gore mountain. They had a good selection of runs open:
The picture above shows the pod of runs at the top of the mountain, a very fun collection of blacks and double blacks. The one in the center is The Rumor:
When we were there conditions on this run were great. The top part is steep, which is followed by a somewhat steep part with some nice moguls.
Conditions on the rest of the mountain were more variable but still fun. When we arranged this trip we were hoping to be able to try out the glades but that was not an option during our trip. It was also disappointing that none of the runs in the historic North Creek Ski Bowl (opened in 1934!) were open. Still, there was plenty of terrain for the 2 days were were there. We did end up skiing through lunch that first day and calling it quits at 1 PM after about 15 runs due to more rain.
The last day of the trip was in many ways what we had been waiting for. No rain or fog. Things started a bit chilly but warmed up throughout the day. The Rumor still skied great and the other open terrain softened up and was a ton of fun. We made the traverse over to another section serviced by the Burnt Ridge quad and had a good time on Sagamore, a leg burning run with some decent pitches that gave you 1400 vertical feet. The new Backwoods run felt like the quintessential north east winding thru the trees run and offered up some great views. We skied bell to bell and caught the last chair for the upper mountain at the end of the day.
All in all a great trip. A couple days were cut short by the rain but we still managed around 80 runs over 4 days on a good selection of terrain with spring conditions, including some nicely steep runs. We got to experience 2 very different ski areas - Killington, which is a very built up destination resort, and Gore, which has a lower key vibe, no resort lodging and is just a very cool place to ski.
As a final note - a few days after we left both Killington and Gore received around 25 inches of snow Saturday night into Monday, opening up many of the glades and natural snow runs. We would have loved to have gotten some of that but that is how it goes sometimes. At least our travel was easy!
Funny, Ovation was my favorite run, though it was either the double black lower portion to follow or over to Superstar. Superstar was groomed and too crowded. The lower portion of Ovation was surprisingly steep. FATMAP shows it at 35 degrees. I definitely need the practice on it, but I only rode it once because it was icy, and there were better trails. Maybe there was another way out, but I didn't see it. So, I would have skied Ovation more if the exit was better. Double Dipper was very nice, but I prefer not to loop on gondolas. Canyon Quad wasn't running.
It may be that your trip helped inspire me to go, and it was a monumental trip, so thanks.
wgo wrote:
My son and I drove up to Killington and Gore mountain for 4 days of skiing during his spring break. We skied 2 days at Killington (3/4 and 3/5) and two days at Gore (3/6 and 3/7). Spring conditions with some fog and rain but overall a great trip. In the week leading up to the trip there was a fair amount of rain and some temporary trail closures, but at Killington at least most runs (apart from the glades) were still open. The one thing we did not want to happen was to get a lot of rain and then have a hard freeze overnight - thankfully this did not occur.
We left on Sunday morning (3/3) and reached Rutland, VT by around 6 PM. We stayed at the Comfort Inn, about a 25 minute drive from the slopes. We parked at the K1 Gondola area on Monday - on busy days there are other places to park to avoid the crowds, but there was no need to do that when we were there. There was no rain, but we did have to contend with fog throughout the day. We warmed up with a few runs over on the Snowden area, a run on Superstar, and then we headed over to Ovation:
Lower Ovation is legit steep but conditions were soft and forgiving. One area at Killington which I liked quite a bit was the Canyon area. This is a group of 4 runs (Cascade, Double Dipper, Downdraft and Escape) with nice extended pitches in the mid to upper twenty degree range. They were running the Canyon quad (which they don't always do) so we were able to loop these runs pretty easily.
Of course no trip to Killington is complete without a few runs on Outer Limits. This run lived up to the hype - 1000 vertical feet of non-stop steep bumps. Conditions were soft but skiing in the fog added a challenge. For the final stretch we were actually below the fog and could finally see down to the base.
When we were there the runs with snowmaking had good coverage but the natural snow runs were thin. In some case (like with Old Superstar) the thin areas were easy to avoid. For other areas (such as on Vertigo) there were sections that were barely skiable at all. Others (like Wildfire) were somewhere in between. In general I was glad these runs were open but the thinner ones were definitely one and done for me.
Day 2 got off to a great start - no fog, great conditions. We started on Snowden again and took some runs on Superstar and the Canyon runs before heading back to Outer Limits. Around 11:30 it started to rain so we decided we would ski as much as we could without stopping for lunch before ending early for the day. We made it to about 2 PM. After a snack in the K1 lodge we packed up the car and headed to the Super 8 in Warrensburg NY for the next part of the trip at Gore Mountain.From the Super 8 it is about a 25-30 minute drive to Gore mountain. They had a good selection of runs open:
The picture above shows the pod of runs at the top of the mountain, a very fun collection of blacks and double blacks. The one in the center is The Rumor:
When were were there conditions on this run were great. The top part is steep, which is followed by a somewhat steep part with some nice moguls.
Conditions on the rest of the mountain were more variable but still fun. When we arranged this trip we were hoping to be able to try out the glades but that was not an option during our trip. It was also disappointing that none of the runs in the historic North Creek Ski Bowl (opened in 1934!) were open. Still, there was plenty of terrain for the 2 days were were there. We did end up skiing through lunch that first day and calling it quits at 1 PM after about 15 runs due to more rain.
The last day of the trip was in many ways what we had been waiting for. No rain or fog. Things started a bit chilly but warmed up throughout the day. The Rumor still skied great and the other open terrain softened up and was a ton of fun. We made the traverse over to another section serviced by the Burnt Ridge quad and had a good time on Sagamore, a leg burning run with some decent pitches that gave you 1400 vertical feet. The new Backwoods run felt like the quintessential north east winding thru the tree run and offered up some great views. We skied bell to bell and caught the last chair for the upper mountain at the end of the day.All in all a great trip. A couple days were cut short by the rain but we still managed around 80 runs over 4 days on a good selection of terrain with spring conditions, including some nicely steep runs. We got to experience 2 very different ski areas - Killington, which is a very built up destination resort, and Gore, which has a lower key vibe, no resort lodging and is just a very cool place to ski.
As a final note - a few days after we left both Killington and Gore received around 25 inches of snow Saturday night into Monday, opening up many of the glades and natural snow runs. We would have loved to have gotten some of that but that is how it goes sometimes. At least our travel was easy!
@stephen - glad you had a good trip. 35 degrees for lower ovation seems about right to me. My son plotted it out using GPSvisualizer and got a similar answer. He actually made a graphic showing the length and steepness of several well known east coast runs. I will post it here when he is done. And If you end up going back to Killington this season I think they have started to let Superstar mogul up for spring bump season.
@woody the log cabin super 8 was fine. Rooms were a bit small but clean.
One more from Gore. The roped off liftline is skiable when there is enough snow.
