by Albert Neubert
The very cold but short weather window last week allowed Killington to “officially” start the ski season in the East. Killington, near Rutland in central Vermont, also known as the “Beast” of the East, opened the Rime and Reason trails near the summit of the ski resort and both are served by the North Ridge quad chairlift that has nearly a 600 foot vertical drop. The only hiccup to their early start is that you have to take the Killington Gondola to the summit and then traverse the summit, going down the Peak Walkway, a mountain staircase, to reach the skiable terrain. When your ski day is finished, you have to repeat the process, except now you are going up the Walkway.
Killington also blasted its Superstar trail with tons of snow in preparation for the Audi FIS Women’s World Cup Slalom and Giant Slalom races which will be held there on November 24-26, which is also the Thanksgiving Holiday weekend. Given a very serious cold blast this week, Superstar might get snow control clearance to hold the races as early as this weekend. Also expect the Killington snowmakers to expand terrain open to the public to include top-to-bottom skiing and riding from Killington Peak to the K1 Gondola base. That will eliminate the need to use the Peak Walkway.
The very chilly weather in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, as well as the Adirondacks of New York will allow snowmaking operations to start at a number of resorts this week. In Vermont, Stratton, Okemo, Mount Snow and Stowe started making snow last week and some might even be able to open after this week’s snowmaking efforts. In New Hampshire, Waterville Valley, Bretton Woods and Loon cranked up the guns last week and should open by this weekend. The same holds for Sunday River and Sugarloaf, both in Maine. Gore and Whiteface, in northern New York, will be making snow this week but are likely to hold off opening until the next round of good snowmaking weather returns to the region. Hunter Mountain, in the Catskills, cranked up the snow guns on the Main Line Run down the middle of the front face on Wednesday afternoon, with a plan to make snow at every opportunity to meet an opening date right before Thanksgiving.
I spoke with Chip Seamans, President of the newly named Windham Mountain Club, in the northern Catskills, about their opening plans. He told me that the short term forecast looked good this week for testing the snowmaking system but there was not enough sustained snowmaking weather to actually manufacture enough snow for opening. Instead, he said their team will be watching and waiting for a shift to favorable temps so they get take advantage of every window to ensure an early start.
Vail Resorts, which owns Hunter Mountain in the northern Catskills, has announced really big plans for next season. First though, they also announced that longtime Hunter Vice President and General Manager, Russ Coloton, will be retiring this season. Coloton’s tenure spanned an era that started with the Slutzky family, the founders of the ski resort, through the Peak Resort purchase, followed by the purchase of Peak by Vail. I have had the pleasure of working with Coloton through that entire period and I have always admired him as one the best ski area managers in the business and a genuinely great person. I’ll be following up with an interview of Coloton in the near future since he has so much industry knowledge as well as his experience operating Hunter as the biggest Catskill Resort.
The second bit of news will delight skiers and snowboarders who frequent Hunter. It’s been a bugaboo of mine for many years. Hunter has an enormous amount of terrain on the front face of the resort, and in particular some really good trails and slopes on the lower third of the mountain. The problem is getting to it. The current B quad chair in front of the lodge takes you up at an angle to get near to the F lift triple chair that allows you access to the summit. But, it has relatively short 490 foot vertical rise and you can only access a handful of lower intermediate runs and a couple of really nice green circle novice trails.
The other problem is that the B quad gets overwhelmed on busy days when the Kaatskill Flyer six pack fills up and the lift line stretches out across the base area at times. Also, being a conventional chair and with lots of novices and small children, the lift becomes challenging to manage, slowing down frequently and stopping often.
Hunter’s management saw a very crafty solution to these issues. Subject to permitting approvals, the new plan for next season is to have installed a second high-speed detachable six pack on the front face. This lift will change ski patterns across the front face and even the Hunter One learning pod, also known as Hunter East. The new lift will not follow the same footprint as the B quad does now. Instead, the base terminal will actually start in the Hunter East pod and the summit will be located at the bottom of the 42nd Street trail on the front face.
The new six pack will also replace the E double chairlift at Hunter East as well as the B quad. There will be new connectivity to the Hunter East trail network from the summit of the new six pack but more advanced and expert skiers will be able to access the Gun Hill Road and Eisenhower trails, two of the better runs on the main mountain. The final result should be better traffic flow and less congestion across the base of the resort, and much greater access to under-utilized terrain on the front face.
I know I will be dreaming of the new six-pack this season as I still ride the B quad chairlift. I tend to ski Hunter most often, simply because it’s only 25 minutes from home but also when I want long and challenging runs covering the 1,475 vertical of the main mountain.
Think more cold in our area and happy skiing and riding!
You can contact me at asneubert@aol.com or you can visit my Instagram page at asneubert
