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Revitalizing Bear Mountain
[This article appeared in the 2018 edition of 4241 Magazine, an annual publication of Killington Resort with a circulation of 130,000.]
Killington Resort peers into the future with a new development partnership, bringing luxury lodging, a new chairlift and a renovated base lodge to Bear Mountain
by Dave Young
On April 3, 2017, Killington Resort president and general manager Mike Solimano delivered his annual spring presentation to the Killington community. For many, the most exciting news of the night was Solimano’s announcement of a development project known as the Bear Mountain Revitalization Plan. The project, a partnership between Killington Resort and independent developer Ottauquechee Realty Advisors LLC (ORA), is designed to bring $110 million in real estate and infrastructure improvements to the resort’s Bear Mountain and South Ridge areas, beginning as soon as summer of 2018.
Base Camp at Bear Mountain
Phase one of the new development, called Base Camp at Bear Mountain, includes construction of six or seven new, multi-family condominium buildings, as well as about $8 million in on-slope amenities like a new fixed-grip quad chairlift on South Ridge, an extensive Bear Mountain Base Lodge renovation and a plan to enhance traffic flow in the Bear Mountain and Needle’s Eye areas.
According to Solimano, priority in the mountain resort business goes to maintaining existing resort infrastructure over building new amenities. When it comes existing infrastructure, no Eastern resort has more than Killington. Combined, Killington and sister resort Pico Mountain count six base lodges and a summit lodge among their facilities. The two ski areas share an extensive snowmaking system that relies on more than 100 miles of buried and aboveground pipe. And it takes 28 lifts, including seven high-speed express quads and two gondolas, to serve the nearly 2,000 acres of skiable terrain within Killington and Pico’s boundaries. With that much equipment and terrain to take care of, keeping the facilities aesthetically up to date is a challenge, and adding new amenities is often financially out of reach.
“Killington, along with its parent company Powdr, reinvests millions of dollars into the resort every year,” Solimano said. “Some of that investment goes to high-profile projects like the Peak Lodge or the recent Preston’s Restaurant renovation, but much of it is spent behind the scenes, on projects like lift upkeep and snowmaking-pipe replacement. Maintenance projects don’t have the sex appeal of a brand-new base lodge or chairlift, but they are arguably more necessary for us to deliver the kind of on-mountain experience Killington is known for. Still, our guests expect us to always keep improving our facilities, and our job is to find ways to do that.”
The need to balance upkeep of existing infrastructure with investment in modernization is a chief concern of mountain operators across the industry, and it’s a problem for which Killington and Powdr seem to have a solution. “Partnering with an independent developer is a good, mutual fit,” Solimano added. “Killington can tap into additional capital, and the developer gains access to the most attractive locations for a project. Our guests win, too, because the resort experience improves for everyone, whether they visit for the day, a week or every weekend, like our season passholders.
Mike Solimano is most excited by the prospect of the new South Ridge lift. “Replacement of the South Ridge chair has been the number-one requested improvement by our core group of guests for the last several years,” he said. “The removal of the original South Ridge Triple, in 2011, decreased access to what some consider the best powder skiing on the mountain and made it more challenging for novice skiers and riders to enjoy Bear Mountain Base Area.”
Built in 1977, the original South Ridge Triple ran from near the top of the Bear Mountain Quad to just below the summit of Killington Peak, accessing some of Killington’s best natural-snow terrain—trails like Breakaway, The Jug and Roundabout Glades, as well as gentle cruisers like Bear Trax and Pipe Dream. Long-time Killington skiers remember the South Ridge Triple as the lift with a left turn, its uphill line following an unusual path as it diverged from the downhill line and traveled around a midpoint bull wheel, catching unsuspecting riders off guard with a somewhat jarring swing to the left.
Return of the South Ridge Lift
The new South Ridge Quad will forego the left turn, a remnant of a long-forgotten mid-station on the old lift, instead following the original lift’s downhill line on The Jug, where some of the old towers still stand. The new lift’s upper terminal will sit at roughly the same elevation as the original, slightly below the summit of Killington Peak, where wind is less likely to impact operation. The new quad will provide easy access to South Ridge terrain, as well as allowing skiers and snowboarders of all ability levels another access route from Bear Mountain to the resort’s north side. The new lift will also help to ease crowding on the Skyepeak Express Quad, which sees heavy use moving skiers and riders from Bear Mountain to Skye Peak on busy days. The lift will be the first step in the phase-one build out, and installation is expected to begin during summer 2018.
Snowshed Crossover Revisited
With the South Ridge Quad in place to efficiently ferry guests up the mountain, a second on-slope improvement, featuring a unique tunnel and bridge system, is planned to smooth the flow of skiers and snowboarders back down. The bridge and tunnel will eliminate several unwanted intersections between Snowshed Crossover, a connector trail, and two expert-level trails that it crosses.
If it seems like you’ve heard the name Snowshed Crossover before, you probably have. For years, the trail traversed from the summit of Bear Mountain directly to the Snowshed area. It was closed in 2008, following construction of the Stash Terrain Park and the Skye Peak Express Quad to eliminate its intersection with the Stash and Skyeburst trails.
In the years since the crossover closed, skiers and riders descending Skyeburst or the Stash have enjoyed unimpeded, intersection-free runs, but traffic flow out of Bear Mountain has been more difficult, especially for learning skiers and snowboarders. With a ski bridge to take crossover traffic over one of the intersections and a tunnel to direct traffic under another intersection, the new configuration will allow for the reopening of Snowshed Crossover. Terrain park enthusiasts will get an additional benefit—the ability to connect the Stash with the Dream Maker Park, creating a top-to-bottom, expert-level park run unparalleled in Eastern North America.
Bear Mountain Base Lodge 2.0
Steve Malone, managing partner of ORA, is understandably excited about his new lodging units, but as a passionate Killington skier and a Bear Mountain regular, he also grows more animated speaking about the Bear Mountain Base Lodge makeover.
“Think about it,” he said. “Right now, if you’re in the bar at Bear Mountain, you’re sitting at the base of some of the most impressive ski and snowboard terrain in New England, and you can’t even see the slope. The current bar has a view of the parking lot.”
Scott Harrison, Killington Resort’s director of hospitality, is thrilled to offer an upgraded guest experience at Bear Mountain Base Lodge.
“We’re going to completely change the layout and open up the slope side with glass so you can sit at the bar and view one of our signature trails, Outer Limits,” Harrison said. “We’ll also be upgrading the food offerings, with a larger selection of made-to-order options arranged in a food court, similar to the concepts at the Peak Lodge and Snowshed Base Lodge.”
Slopeside Luxury Living
The phase-one design features multi-family buildings configured as “stacked flats,” in which each individual unit occupies part of a single floor, with 18 units per building. Landscaped courtyards separate the buildings, giving each unit access to shared amenities like outdoor hot tubs, fire pits and heated patios. Underground spaces provide enclosed parking for owners and guests. The project is sure to grab the attention of both prospective homeowners and guests looking to rent a top-tier vacation home.
According to Solimano, “We know we have a shortage of lodging options during peak periods, and we also know that there is a demand for newer, more upscale offerings. This is a great opportunity to upgrade our lodging inventory.” Malone also points out that these will be the first new ski-on-ski-off condominiums to be built in Killington in many years.
The $25-million second phase of the project consists of an additional 18 duplex units to be built at the base of Bear Mountain in an area bounded by the Spacewalk, Bear Cub, Outer Limits and Devil’s Fiddle trails. Construction of phase two is slated to begin in 2020.
Malone cautions that there is still work to be done before he can break ground on phase one, not the least of which involves acquiring an Act 250 permit, which requires a stringent environmental assessment by the State of Vermont.
Malone has good reason to be optimistic, though. “I have a 100 percent [success rate] for receiving Act 250 approval on my projects,” he said, an impressive feat considering the large projects he has built in the past, including Top Ridge and The Lodges, two developments in Killington’s Sunrise area. If all goes according to plan, he hopes to be accepting non-binding reservations for phase-one units by late November 2017.
Mike Solimano is optimistic, too, though his optimism is the kind tempered by long experience with resort projects. “The improvements in phase one of this project will have an immediate positive impact for our guests, and we’re anxious to get started,” he said. “Of course, we’ve been involved in enough building projects to know that unforeseen delays are always possible. That said, I’m still quite hopeful that we will be able to meet this timeline.”
Only time will tell exactly when the phase-one build out begins, but it certainly won’t be long before Killington powder seekers once again have lift access to their favorite South Ridge stashes. And prospective Killington homeowners will soon have a number of newly constructed slope-side options to choose from.
For more information on the revitalization project, visit Ottauquechee Realty Advisors at ora-bearmtn.biz.
Tribute: K-3000 Snow Gun
[This article formed a blog post on killington.com and a slightly shortened version appeared in the 2018 edition of 4242 Magazine, an annual publication of Killington Resort with a circulation of 130,000.]
Like a fine wine, this workhorse just gets better with age
by Dave Young
When Killington Resort successfully hosted the 2016 Audi FIS Ski World Cup at the end of an unseasonably warm and snowless November, it was an accomplishment made all the sweeter by the fact that Killington was the only resort in North America that could have hosted the event that weekend; there was simply not enough snow anywhere else. That Killington’s Superstar was the lone trail on the continent to feature a World Cup-worthy surface that late-November weekend came down to several factors. Sure, there was a little bit of luck involved, but you could also say that Killington’s Mountain Operations Team made its own luck, through hard work, smart strategy, and applying the right tool for the job. In that particular case, the right tool happened to be a slightly obscure piece of 1980s snowmaking technology known as the K-3000.
Few outside the tightly-knit community of professional snowmakers have heard of the K-3000, and fewer still know that it was developed right here at Killington Resort. But inside the offices and planning rooms of Killington’s mountain operations complex, the K-3000 is spoken of in reverential tones. As Jon Kuehn, a veteran Killington Snowmaking Foreman who worked on the World Cup snow told me, “there’s no other snowgun like the K-3000, and no other snowgun I’d want to use under the tough conditions we faced before the World Cup.”
Slavko Stanchak is the man behind the venerable K-3000. A mechanical engineer who started working in Killington’s Research and Development department in 1978, Stanchak built the first K-3000 prototype in the department’s machine shop in 1983. According to Stanchak, the K-3000 had two characteristics that made it unique at the time. “It was designed to run at a higher water pressure than its predecessors, about 350 psi, and it was the first snowgun designed with a field-adjustable nozzle to accommodate temperature and humidity changes.”
Hidden away behind its brass nozzle and stainless steel casing, Stanchak explained, the internal chamber of the K-3000 is where the alchemy of air and water turning to snow begins. Inside the gun, high pressure water is introduced into the center of a cone of pressurized air. As the air and water try to squeeze through the adjustable orifice in the nozzle, internal pressure increases, turning the stream of water into a spray of fine droplets propelled into the cold ambient air, where they crystallize into man-made versions of Mother Nature’s snowflakes.
With few moving parts and almost nothing to wear out, the K-3000’s design is elegant and durable, both necessary attributes given the challenging conditions in which snowguns operate. Among Killington’s current inventory of roughly 200 K-3000s are guns of many vintages, some of them approaching 30 years in service, their longevity a testament to their rugged construction.
Dave Lacombe, Killington’s Snow Surfaces Manager, has worked with the K-3000 since its introduction. He pointed out that once temperatures fall into the teens, the differences between various brands and models of snowgun become less pronounced, so it’s at the upper end of the snowmaking temperature range, above 25 degrees Fahrenheit, where the K-3000 really outshines the competition. According to Lacombe, the K-3000’s warm temperature capabilities are a function of its adjustability. “At the high end of its temperature range, a K-3000 might be converting water at ten gallons per minute, but under ideal temperature and humidity conditions, it’s running at 80 gpm,” he said. “At higher temperatures, you can increase the ratio of air to water and keep making snow.” I wanted Lacombe to give me an upper temperature limit for the K-3000, but he explained that it’s not quite that simple. “There are so many factors that affect it, from the temperature of the water in the pond to the relative humidity, and even the moisture content of the air coming from the compressors. But anything above the mid-20s is K-3000 territory.”
The ability to keep producing snow as the mercury climbs comes at a cost though. The pressurized air that feeds a K-3000 is produced by diesel or electric compressors, and compressed air is the most expensive component of machine-made snow. Designed in the 1980s, when energy costs were lower, the K-3000 gobbles air at a rate as high as 600 cfm (cubic feet per minute). Contrast that with newer, high efficiency models—like the Snow Logic guns Killington recently invested in that use a consistent 8 cfm regardless of the temperature—and you’ll see why the K-3000s in the Killington’s arsenal are now reserved for situations where other guns simply cannot make the necessary snow; like a World Cup race at the end of a warm November.
Slavko Stanchak continued to refine the 1983 prototype, eventually filing a patent application on November 20, 1986. By the time the patent was granted, on April 10, 1988, the K-3000 was in production, assembled from a stainless steel casting made in New Hampshire as well as other locally manufactured parts. In fact, some of the tripod stands fitted to K-3000s were fabricated on-site, over the summer, by the snowmakers who would go on to use them the following winter.
The K3000’s success eventually allowed Killington spin off a snowmaking technology unit known as Resort Technologies, which sold the snowgun to ski areas around the country. Many of Killington’s New England competitors purchased them, as did popular Western areas like Jackson Hole, Vail, Steamboat, Keystone and Bear Mountain in California. Stanchak estimates that as many as fifteen resorts around North America have used the gun at one time or another.
Today, Slavko Stanchak considers himself retired, despite continuing to work as a consultant on snowmaking projects that interest him. Although he owns the K-3000 patent, which he purchased from the resort in the mid-90s, Stanchak told me that he has no intention of manufacturing any more of the snowguns, noting that the tooling for producing them has been retired for years. Fortunately for Killington skiers and snowboarders, most of the world’s remaining K-3000s reside right here at Killington Resort, where they continue to be the right tool for a certain job, more than 30 years after their debut.
Blast from the Past
[This article appeared in the 2017 edition of 4241 Magazine, an annual publication of Killington Resort with a circulation of 130,000.]
Killington’s rich skiing history spans nearly six decades
by Dave Young
In today’s world of high-speed gondolas, winch-assisted grooming machines and skis that practically turn themselves, it’s easy to forget that skiing was a riskier endeavor practiced by only the most adventurous souls in the not-too-distant past.
In the nearly 60 years that make up the history of iconic Killington Resort, the sport has undergone a dramatic transformation from a rudimentary, mid-’50s pastime to today’s thriving tourist industry. Over that time, Killington Resort has mirrored the sport’s trajectory, expanding from the unexceptional beginnings of two surface lifts serving Snowdon Mountain to the largest four-season resort in Eastern North America.
Reminders of Killington’s history lie close to the surface. Whether your at Killington for the weekend, the season, or like so many of us, a lifetime, you’ll see signs of the resort’s rich history all around. As you dine, drink and dance in the many establishments along Killington Road, you’re sure to come across old trail maps, posters and photos that offer a glimpse of a Killington ski area quite different from the one that exists today.
A postcard piqued my own interest in Killington history way back in 1990. Working that season in the Killington Gondola Rental Shop, which, sadly, is now a denizen of the history books, I sold souvenirs and Killington postcards. One postcard depicted happy skiers beneath snow-covered trees on a trail identified in the caption as East Glade.
By 1990, East Glade was a treeless trail, but that postcard made me wonder what it had been like in 1958, when it was still dotted with birches. Today, even the name East Glade is gone, but you can still ski the trail, now called Reason, and imagine yourself dipping between those birches.
Artifacts that speak to the way things used to be are everywhere. A ride on the Snowdon Poma, one of Killington’s original two lifts, which has operated every season since it opened in 1958, is a reminder of what Killington was like before chairlifts. An excursion to the Motor Room Bar, located inside the top terminal of Killington’s first quad chairlift, will take you back to the early years of Bear Mountain. Perhaps these sites will pique your own curiosity, just like that postcard did for mine so many years ago.
The Beginning
Today, Killington Resort is a sprawling complex of five base areas, 21 lifts and 155 trails spread across six mountain areas. Aptly nicknamed The Beast of the East, Killington Resort is big, but this was not always the case. In the early 1950s, the area now known as Killington was Green Mountain wilderness. It would take years of hard work and dogged determination for Preston Leete Smith, aided by his wife Sue and his business associates Joseph Van Vleck and Joe and Mary Sargent, to realize his dream of building a ski resort on Killington Peak.
The very first Killington Basin Ski Area skiers purchased their lift tickets from a repurposed chicken coop on the frosty Saturday morning of December 13, 1958. The Killington Base Lodge wouldn’t be complete until the fall of 1959, so a cast-off Civilian Conservation Corps shack served as the first warming hut while an eight-seat outhouse handled sanitary duties. Two Poma surface lifts—Poma 1 and Poma 2—ran that day, allowing the first Killington skiers to gain the summit of Snowdon Mountain and its two routes back down, Bunny Buster and Mouse Run.
By January of 1959, Pres Smith and his crew had added two more Pomas, one on the North Ridge, call the Glades Poma, and the Novice Poma near the present-day Killington Ski Club.
Killington finally got a chairlift, the Killington Double, during the winter of 1959-60. The lift was delivered late, around Thanksgiving 1959, and with the budding business strapped for cash, Smith and his small crew installed it themselves, assembling the towers in the parking lot and moving them into place on the steep terrain with a bulldozer and an army-surplus trailer.
As with the earlier Poma installations, they used a gin-pole, a sort of site-built crane, to place the towers onto concrete foundations they had dug and mixed by hand. They did all this while perched on the side of Killington Peak in subzero temperatures and under as much as 13 feet of snow, finally wrapping construction in March 1960. The Killington Double followed the same route traveled by the K-1 Express Gondola today, so tip your hat to those resolute Killington pioneers the next time you travel overhead in the comfort of an enclosed gondola cabin.
Building a ski area from the ground up with limited resources and equipment was a difficult undertaking, but skiing in the 1950s was no coddled affair, either. The most well heeled skiers in 1958 might have splurged on a pair of fashionable Head Standard skis, Cubco “safety” bindings and Lange plastic boots, but many skiers of the day were still on wooden skis, leather boots and leg-breaking “bear trap” bindings. As for skiwear, wool was the pinnacle of technology.
The Sixties
The ’60s were a booming time for the sport of skiing and the increasingly successful Killington Basin Ski Area. When Snowshed opened in 1961, it was the first base area in the country to cater to novice skiers. The investment proved a sound one, as Snowshed formed the foundation that would allow Killington to build one of the country’s leading ski schools.
Other highlights of the decade included the development of the Ramshead base area, installation of the first snowmaking system and the purchase of Tucker Sno-Cats, the first specialized grooming machines at Killington.
Local business owner Judy Storch was one of Killington Basin Ski Area’s early employees and has resided in Killington for more than 50 years. She spoke to why she decided to move to Killington.
“I was blowing my ski budget driving to Vermont every weekend,” she says. “So I thought, why not stay there? It was Presidents’ Day weekend, 1964. I was hired as a secretary for $1.50 an hour and I moved into the Staff Lodge, in the building that eventually became studios for Killington TV. Back then there were separate men’s and women’s bunk rooms in the basement and the Killington Lodging Bureau was upstairs.”
In 1964, Killington’s administrative offices were located below the Killington Base Lodge Cafeteria.
“It was terribly loud,” Storch recalls. “Imagine trying to talk on the phone with ski boots clomping over your head all day.”
According to Storch, the best part about her new job was skiing every day during her lunch hour. “It took 65 minutes to make three runs riding the two Snowdon Pomas,” she days, “so I was only five minutes late getting back to work.”
Storch reminisces about her equipment from those days.
“I wore Feller Hosen stretch pants from Austria,” she says. “They were the only pants to have and they lasted forever. We all wore Obermeyer parkas and we used to buy turtlenecks by the dozen, either black or white—of course, black ones were easier to keep clean.” And for skis and boots, Storch had a pair of Hart Super Pro skis with Marker bindings and Humanic boots.
“In those days, you could send the skis back for refinishing,” she says. “I think I paid $140 for the whole package, which was a lot of money at the time. I got my money’s worth, though—I skied on them for five or six seasons, sent them back to Hart for refinishing, and sold them for $90.”
Killington is known today for a thriving après ski scene, but Storch recalls that the après options were much less diverse in the early years: “There was only one place to go for happy hour—the Red Rob Inn.”
Although the Red Rob is no longer a happy-hour hotspot, the building now houses the Killington Mountain School. After happy hour, Storch said the place to be in the ’60s was the Wobbly Barn Nightclub. The same could be said today.
By late 1964, Judy Storch had moved her office into the new Killington administration building. It was much quieter than her old office, but her desk was a folding card table that could barely support the weight of an IBM typewriter. Today, the majority of Killington’s administrative offices exist in that same building, though many of the desks are sturdier.
As the ’60s drew to a close, Killington’s footprint grew through the development of Killington East, the area traversed today by East Mountain Road. Part of that expansion included construction of the 3.5-mile Killington Gondola, which, at the time of its completion in 1970, was the longest and highest-capacity gondola in the world. The Gondola opened Killington East to residential development. Storch, sensing an opportunity, obtained her realtor license and began working in Killington’s real estate office.
Today, Judy Storch is still in the real estate business and her Killington Valley Real Estate offices now occupy the old farmhouse next to the Wobbly Barn where Pres Smith and his family lived when they were first establishing the Killington Basin Ski Area.
The Seventies
Inflation, bad snow years, fuel shortages and increased environmental regulation slowed progress in the ’70s, but Killington Basin Ski Area found ways to innovate and improve. Killington’s first triple chairlift, the Glades Triple, arrived in 1972, and the chair is still a favorite with early season skiers today, operating as the North Ridge Triple.
In 1977, Killington opened the South Ridge Triple, a unique lift with a triangular footprint remembered by many as the “lift with a left turn.” The turn originally accommodated a mid-station, allowing for high-elevation novice skiing on upper South Ridge. The lift closed in 2011, but some of its towers still stand today.
Killington’s snowmaking improvements in the 1960s had lengthened the season significantly and, under Pres Smith’s lead, the strategy began to improve day-to-day conditions, as well, mitigating the impact of increased skier traffic. In order to ensure that snowmaking research and development would keep pace with his vision, Smith established an R&D Engineering Department that would eventually develop several snow-gun designs, including K-3000 guns that are still in use today.
“I came to Killington hoping to improve my skiing and get out of New York for a while,” says Greg Hiltz, who started working as a Killington snowmaker in 1977. “But I ended up falling in love with this mountain and I’m still here.”
Today, Greg is the snowmaking supervisor, having worked in the department for 39 years. Of the many changes he’s seen in that time, few are more drastic than the change in public perception of snowmaking. “People hated us,” Greg says of his early days making snow. “They’d yell at us: ‘Get out of here! You’re ruining the snow!’”
That reaction contrasts sharply to the hero’s welcome that snowmakers receive today.
The Eighties
Killington celebrated its third decade of operations with the opening of Bear Mountain in 1979. The debut of Bear Mountain’s Outer Limits, the longest, steepest mogul run in the East, made Killington a top destination for freestyle skiers and helped launch the career of World Cup and Olympic champion Donna Weinbrecht.
Weinbrecht is most famous for winning the first Olympic gold medal ever awarded in mogul skiing, in the 1992 Albertville games. In Killington, she’s just as famous for having her name on the coveted Bear Mountain Mogul Challenge trophy five times.
Donna learned to ski in New Jersey but her family built a vacation home in Killington in 1980.
“We were weekend warriors,” says Weinbrecht, who learned to ski in New Jersey. “My dad would drive us up every weekend. He worked a very physical job in construction, and he looked forward to sitting in the car for four-and-a-half hours, skiing on Saturday and Sunday and then turning around and getting us back to school on Monday morning.” Then, her family built a vacation home in Killington in 1980.
“I competed in the second annual Bear Mountain Mogul Challenge,” Weinbrecht says. “I was in high school then, maybe 15 years old. It was my first contest and I didn’t win that year; I fell during my second heat in the finals, but I came back and won the next year, which would have been 1983.”
She would go on to place second in ’84, and win the each of the following three years. After high school, Weinbrecht pursued her goal of making the U.S. Ski Team, and while there was no organized freestyle program in Killington at the time, she trained by skiing lap after lap on Outer Limits. All those runs eventually paid off.
“I made the (U.S. Ski) Team in ’87, at Squaw Valley,” she says. “The course was nice and steep, just like Outer Limits. I never competed on any course that I wasn’t prepared for—there were definitely some challenging World Cup courses—but skiing Outer Limits in every kind of condition, day after day, prepared me for them.”
Donna Weinbrecht still skis every winter in Killington, where she leads mogul camps on the legendary Outer Limits. If she’s not teaching, she might be ripping the bump line on skier’s left of Skyehawk, one of her favorite stashes.
Around the time Weinbrecht began her storied career as a professional skier, Chris Slade, host of the popular, local television show Explore Killington, was visiting from his hometown of Camillus, New York. A chance encounter at Charity’s Tavern in the fall of 1981 landed him a winter job in the Snowshed Rental Shop. That one season has now stretched into 35, and Slade, the longtime host of the popular, local television show Explore Killington, has notched 100 or more days on snow most of those seasons.
Slade describes a typical day of skiing in the early ’80s.
“I had a locker at Snowshed Rental,” he says, “so I’d usually start there and warm up with a few runs on Ramshead or Snowdon before heading over to the Northeast Passage Triple. There was a lot of excitement about Northeast Passage then, because it was brand new and there were some great expert trails below the mid-station.”
When it opened in 1982, the Northeast Passage Triple was the country’s longest triple, clocking a 17-minute ride. Today, the chair’s lower half is gone, returning those old expert trails that Slade favored to the forest, but the upper half still operates as the Sunrise Village Triple.
“I don’t remember skiing groomed terrain very often back then,” he says. “We were more into skiing natural terrain; bumps or in the trees. The glades that are named on the map now, like Julio and Lowrider, were not on the map then, so they didn’t see the traffic they do today. I can remember finding fresh powder days after a storm.”
Killington’s first four-person chairlift, The Devil’s Fiddle Quad, opened in 1983, and by 1988, the resort would have five quad chairs, including two detachables, Snowshed Express and Superstar Express.
Snowmaking technology was still advancing at a rapid rate, and Greg Hiltz recalls that there were 115 snowmakers employed in the winter, 30 of whom worked all summer long, installing pipe, welding and building Killington-designed snow guns like the 1988 model K-3000.
The Nineties
The decade kicked off with a watershed moment when, for the 1990-91 season, Killington opened the Northeast Passage Triple to snowboarders for the first time. By the following season, snowboarders were welcome anywhere on the mountain.
1992 marked the opening of the Canyon Quad and, in 1994, the Skyeship Express Gondola, the last lift installed under Pres Smith’s direction, replaced the aging Killington Gondola.
After nearly 40 years of dedication to Killington’s day-to-day operations, Pres Smith finally stepped away in 1996 when American Skiing Company (ASC) took over operation after a merger/buyout with Smith’s company, S-K-I Ltd. The first years of ASC’s ownership brought a flurry of investment in lifts and other amenities. Three new quad chairs, the Needle’s Eye Express, Ramshead Express and Northbrook Quad, were installed in 1996, and the investment continued in 1998 when the K-1 Express Gondola replaced the long, cold Killington Double.
Ski technology influenced resort policy during the ’90s. First, the near-universal adoption of shaped skis elevated the importance of grooming, and then again late in the decade when the introduction of twin-tip skis spurred acceptance of skiers in snowboard parks and halfpipes. The terrain park was born.
The New Millennium
Killington Resort’s current owners, Powdr Corp, took over the reins in 2007. The new team quickly went to work, replacing the aging Skye Peak Quad with the faster, detachable Skye Peak Express Quad, and building the Stash terrain park in 2008.
In January 2014, Killington celebrated the grand opening of its new Peak Lodge. The sustainably designed and operated lodge, located near the summit of Killington Peak, replaced a structure built in 1967, which had also served as the summit terminal of the old 3.5-mile-long Killington Gondola.
Observing the resort from inside the glass-walled Peak Lodge provides a sweeping view of the changes Killington has seen in the last 58 years. Toward the left is the summit of Snowdon, where Killington Basin Ski Area began and where Judy Storch once hurried through her three-run lunch hour. Straight ahead, is the overgrown route that the Killington Gondola once followed, and just its right, Pipe Dream, the trail once home to the uphill line of South Ridge Triple. Bear Mountain pops into view a little farther right, where the upper terminal of the old Devil’s Fiddle chair, Killington’s first quad chairlift now houses the Motor Room Bar.
So much has changed at Killington—and in the sport of skiing—since the resort’s first skiers purchased their lift tickets from Pres Smith’s chicken coop. Most of the changes are welcome ones—skiing is more comfortable, safer and more accessible than ever before. One thing hasn’t changed, though: for all the advances in style and technology, the act of skiing is still driven by the same passion that existed before Killington was a blip on the radar. That passion will keep skiers coming to Killington for years to come.
Epicenter of Adventure
[This article appeared in the 2016 edition of 4241 Magazine, an annual publication of Killington Resort.]
Snowshed is Killington’s new hub for summer fun
by Dave Young
Travelers along Killington Road during the winter season—typically from November through May in these parts—pass through a bustling resort town packed with thriving businesses and thousands of energetic, adventure-seeking skiers and riders.
Until recently, traversing that same route during the summer season presented a scene with, well, a lot less energy. The Beast of the East seemed to hibernate in summer. Three years ago Killington Resort managers put their heads together and got serious about bringing that high-energy winter vibe to summertime in Killington. The result was a $3.5 million investment in summer operations that spawned the Snowshed Adventure Center.
The Adventure Center’s flagship attraction, the Beast Mountain Coaster, is a 4,800-foot thrill ride that dips and twists through the woods, crossing over and under active mountain bike trails and even looping 360-degrees—all at speeds of up to 30 miles-per-hour.
Adventurers can also soar from more than 100 feet above Snowshed Pond on the Skyeride, climb around the four-story Skye Ropes Course, navigate a 5,000-square-foot Terra Maze, sift for gems in the Roaring Brook Mining Sluice, and practice their aerial tricks on the SkyeJump bungee rig.
Taking in the vibrant scene on a sunny summer day, it’s hard to believe this hub of activity was built in just two months. Killington’s construction season is a short one—the flip side of hosting the longest ski and snowboard season in the East. In May of 2015, while skiers and snowboarders were still bashing bumps on the Superstar trail, ground was broken on the new attractions. As many as 80 workers per day contributed to the project, sometimes working seven days a week to complete the job within the ambitious schedule. Many of the winter lift operators, groomers, and snow makers who built the attractions would go on to fill more than 35 new summer positions created by the expansion.
Locals and visitors alike are reaping the benefits of having summer operations centralized at Snowshed.
“Now I can ride my bike while my kids hang at Snowshed, and we can eat lunch and make a day of it,” says Nate Freund, owner of local restaurant Sushi Yoshi. “I’m not way up on the gondola, I’m right there with everyone else. Snowshed is a perfect setup for families: easy access, not intimidating and a great food court.”
Shelby Martan, visiting with her family from Durham New Hampshire, originally came with a Groupon for the K-1 Gondola Scenic Lift Ride. “We saw the Adventure Center and decided to get tickets. Everyone at the sales desk was very helpful. Everyone here is knowledgeable and friendly. It’s a very cool place, we will definitely be back.”
In addition to the new Adventure Center features, Snowshed is home to Killington’s newly revitalized Mountain Bike Park. Leading bike park consultants, Gravity Logic, were brought in to help modernize the mountain bike program. It turns out that Snowshed’s moderate terrain is perfect not only for gently flowing beginner trails, but also for cutting-edge freeride trails studded with sweeping berms and jumps. The new Killington Sports Bike Shop, inside Snowshed Lodge, is stocked with the latest technology in mountain bike rentals and protective gear as well as hiking and bike accessories for purchase. The layout and trail system are meant to be approachable for first time mountain bikers and, to make that first day even less intimidating, Killington has certified mountain bike coaches on hand to introduce beginners to the exciting new terrain.
The adventure doesn’t stop there. Take a motorized mountain tour on a Segway or ATV, enjoy a scenic lift ride, play 18 holes of disc golf, hike miles of scenic trails or kayak and paddle-board around Snowshed Pond. Additional amenities include an on-site food court, an outdoor venue that features weekly free summer concerts and a brick patio perfect for enjoying a post-adventure beer. Plus, if burning the adventure candle at both ends has you looking for a place to lay your head, the Killington Grand Resort Hotel is just a short walk away over the Snowshed Pond Bridge.
Even as the dust begins to settle on its first successful season, the Adventure Center is looking toward the future. There are plans to add a multi-segment zip-line, improve access to kayak and paddle board rentals and build a fitness trail around Snowshed Pond. Gravity Logic has further plans for the Mountain Bike Park too, with more trails opening in the Ramshead area in 2016.
Winter visitors will be happy to know that the Beast Mountain Coaster and the Skyeride are scheduled to operate all winter.
Enough
July 28, 2011
I used to be excited about more. You could take that statement one of two ways and either one would be accurate. I’m speaking of the concept of more, although I also used to like more… things, but we’ll get to that later. For now, I’m speaking conceptually.
I grew up in front of the television, in the manner common for most of my generation, and learned from the keepers of the status quo that more is better. I went out into the world without much, but determined to have more. I didn’t do it the conventional way but, still, I knew one day I had to have plenty, because that’s what the TV told me to strive for. Somewhere along the way I started to realize that while I certainly had a lot more, I didn’t feel the way I thought I would. I wasn’t any happier; in fact, I was less happy. So I started to question more. I learned about others who were also were not sure about more anymore. I was glad that I wasn’t the only one. In fact there were some folks who worshiped less. That seemed kind of scary but exciting at the same time. Less. I started to wonder about enough. On the continuum between nothing and more, I thought, there could be a waypoint of balance: enough. Was there such a thing? It seemed like enough was a possibility. It would require a complete re-framing of everything the television had taught me. I would probably have to flirt with not-enough to find the edge of enough. That would really be scary, not having enough. Had I ever not had enough? Our very economy is founded on the fact that there is no such thing as enough. There’s always more, right? Well, until there isn’t, anyway.
Now I question everything. Do I need this? Is keeping this in my life positive or negative? How much of my life energy will I use up to keep this around? Some things take lots of energy but they feel good, so I keep them. Some things used to feel good but they don’t anymore so I have to let them go. Same with people; some people give you energy and some take it away. It’s the same with everything, really. I have to constantly evaluate where my energy is going, because I only have so much. Enough is easier to locate when everything is as simple as it can be. That means less stuff, less maintenance, less time commitment, less expense. Enough means fewer pursuits but more rewarding ones; fewer things but nicer, more beautiful ones; fewer connections, maybe, but more meaningful ones.
I’m not there yet, enough, I still have too much, but I’m working on it. It’s hard to let go sometimes of human nature and years of reinforcement. I am always tempted to wonder “what if?” What if I need this later? What if, indeed. In order to find enough, I have to let go of what if. Some of the things I like to do, or once liked to do, are pretty complicated. There was a time when I always tried to solve problems by purchasing a solution. It feels safer sometimes to build up a buffer of stuff. That’s human nature, I guess, you never know when the abundance will end. But mostly the abundance doesn’t end, not here, so the humans I know just keep accumulating more. And getting fatter. If I was braver I would rent a Dumpster and fill it up. Or better yet, put it all out by the road with a big sign that says free.
One summer, I rode a mountain bike that had only one gear combination, a single speed. Eventually I sold it, because I had more than enough bikes. But I learned something that applies to stuff in a broader sense. People would always say “I could never ride a single speed mountain bike, up the mountain, and down, all with only one gear.” I’d reply, “sure you could. You can only ride in one gear at a time, no matter how many you have. You just have to make sure, if you have only one, that it’s one you really like.” Some mountain bikes have 30 gear gear combinaions. But you can still only ride in one of them at a time. Do I need 30 gears, or 30 t-shirts, or 30 coffee mugs, or 30 pairs of socks, or 3000 square feet, even if I can’t use all of them at one time? Probably not.
I read something once, in an interview with a gentleman named Tom Shadyac, who made a documentary film about the futility of material culture called I Am (great film, btw). He said that humans are the only species that take more from nature than they need. I can’t say for sure if that’s true or not, but I also can’t think of any examples to the contrary. Predators don’t kill more than they can eat. Plants don’t suck up all of the available water just in case. There is no other species that uses self-storage facilities. When it comes to humans though, I don’t know any who have taken only what they need. I know there are some, in fact there are many humans who have less than they need, less food, less clean water, less sanitation. But I’d be willing to bet that any of them would take more than they needed, given the opportunity. There’s that human nature again. But, maybe, if those of us who are lucky enough to have the choice to take only what we need, to choose enough, make that choice, there would be fewer of us who didn’t get a choice at all. That seems like the right thing to do doesn’t it?
You can look at it that way, if you like, and say “I’m choosing enough so that others can have some too,” which sounds like a sacrifice, and a noble one at that. But shooting for enough isn’t a sacrifice, it’s a relief. Enough is an unburdening. Enough feels like an enormous weight has been lifted. It frees up mind space for things you want to think about. It frees up time for things you like to do. Especially if what you like to do is watch the sun rise or set. It frees up physical space. It frees up heart space, which is what this world needs most right now. Enough is the end of competing with your neighbors and peers. You already are enough, already have enough. Doesn’t that sound like… enough?
Understanding Flood Recovery
[In 2013, I worked in New York, NY for the non-profit disaster response organization All Hands Volunteers. This is a piece that I wrote for a handbook delivered to homeowners helped by the organization, following Super Storm Sandy.]
All Hands Volunteers (AHV), working closely with leading environmental scientists and professional mold remediation contractors, has developed a mold treatment protocol to help those affected by Super Storm Sandy safely prepare their homes for rebuilding. One of the most pressing dangers facing homeowners after suffering flood damage is the ongoing presence of mold in their homes. AHV is ready and able to help alleviate that danger. However, in order to ensure the efficacy of the process, a specific demolition and gutting procedure must be followed. This document has been prepared to help you, the homeowner, make informed choices regarding the treatment of your home for mold.
The terms gutting and demolition quickly became commonplace in the local vernacular during the aftermath of hurricane Sandy, but what do they mean? As they pertain to our situation here, both terms refer to the removal of damaged or compromised building materials from flooded homes. Gutting is the more specific of the two, referring to the removal of interior portions of a building. During the period immediately following the storm, teams and individuals with widely ranging skill and knowledge bases hastily gutted many houses. While this initial gutting was a positive and necessary step in removing damaged, wet, and contaminated materials to allow for drying, oftentimes it was not done to the specifications necessary for thorough mold treatment. If you choose to have AHV treat your home for mold, it may be necessary for you to authorize further gutting. Rest assured that AHV strives to leave your home not only free of mold, but also in a rebuild-ready condition. During the AHV mold treatment assessment the following areas will be evaluated.
Possessions: In order to begin the mold treatment process all furniture and personal possessions must be removed from the flooded area of the home. While AHV is sympathetic to the fact that storm victims have lost many of their things and are understandably reluctant to let more of them go, the unfortunate fact is that items that cannot be adequately cleaned pose a future health risk and also compromise the effectiveness of the mold treatment if left in the home or returned to the home after treatment is complete. Volunteers are happy to help you remove large or awkward items and can offer ideas on how to clean or store them off site.
Walls: For mold treatment purposes AHV recommends removal of of interior wall material two feet above the high water mark. For practical reasons, this typically means at least four feet of wall material will need to be removed, the reason being that drywall, the most common material used in the building and rebuilding of interior walls, is sold in 4’x8′ sheets. By removing the material in increments divisible by four feet, material waste is minimized and so is labor time for your rebuild contractor, both of which save you money.
In some cases we may recommend additional removal, sometimes to eight feet or the height of the ceiling. This is necessary if the water rose to four feet or higher, and if visible mold is found extending above the four foot line. Sometimes this is a function of how long the flood waters were present in the home or how quickly the initial gutting was performed. Because drywall is a very porous material, made of gypsum sandwiched between two layers of paper, it can wick water readily. Wherever water is present in wall cavities, mold will not be far behind. While it can be disconcerting to see the walls of your home removed from floor to ceiling, please know that AHV will perform the removal as delicately as possible and, as always, with an eye toward saving you money on your rebuild.
With the wall cavities at least partially exposed, Volunteers will be able to assess the condition of the underlying framing and make suggestions for you to consult with your contractors on regarding such normally hidden problems as termite damage, plumbing leaks, rot, poor insulation, and poor weather sealing. In fact, if you anticipate having an electrician, plumber or HVAC technician work on your home, those tradesmen will find their jobs to be much easier (and less costly for you) with the walls opened up.
Insulation is one thing to consider in debating how much drywall to remove. Remember that if perimeter walls are removed floor to ceiling, they can be properly insulated before being rebuilt. Many homes in the area have poor or no insulation. Comfort will increase while the energy cost savings can help to offset the additional expense.
Floors: Typically, floors consist of a finished floor, the surface that you actually walk on, and a subfloor, the wooden material that spans floor joists and supports the finished floor. Additionally, your home likely has one of the following types of foundation that can affect how your floor will be dealt with.
1. Slab-On-Grade: These houses will often have the finished floor directly on the concrete slab of the foundation and thus have no need of a subfloor. If the finished floor is bare concrete or tile on the concrete, it probably will not need to be removed. Other types of flooring will likely have to be removed prior to mold treatment.
2. Crawl Space: In this case, wooden floor joists spanning low concrete or cinder block foundation walls will support the first floor of living space. The flooring and subfloor will most likely both need to be removed. The one possible exception here is if the subfloor is made of solid wood planking (as opposed to plywood) and the crawl space is high enough and features a large enough access point for AHV to get the necessary equipment into the crawl space for mold spraying and drying. Nonetheless, the area beneath the floors in a crawl space is a haven for mold, so in order to maximize the mold treatment performance, AHV strongly recommends the removal of all flooring in these situations. If the crawl space has a dirt or sand floor, the mold treatment of the crawl space will include covering the dirt floor with six mil plastic sheeting. This will allow for better drying, better mold treatment performance and increased comfort in the rebuilt home.
3. Basement or Cellar: In this type of home, there is usually enough room for the equipment and volunteers to work. Any finished floor in the basement other than tile will probably need to be removed, but the flooring on the first floor will not typically need removal, unless the flood water extended to the first floor, in which case the same rules apply to the first floor as apply to crawl space floors.
An important thing to remember is that once the subfloor is removed from a crawl space or basement foundation home, it will be impossible to move safely around on the floor joists. Many contractors and trades people will not work on exposed floor joists so you may need to schedule necessary work prior to AHV removing those subfloors.
Kitchen: Most kitchen cabinets that were subject to flooding will need to be removed. Most cabinets are made at least partially of particle board or other compressed wood products and have absorbed contaminated water from the flooding. The exception would be cabinets made entirely from solid hard wood, but these would still have to be removed from the kitchen to allow for mold treatment and cleaning of the cabinets themselves. Stoves, dishwashers, refrigerators, washers, and dryers that were damaged by flooding will be removed and likely discarded. Counter tops, especially those of granite or other solid surface materials, can often be saved and cleaned for later reinstallation.
Bathrooms: Although bathrooms are built to have some level of water resistance, they are not designed to be submerged and, consequently, AHV strongly recommends removal of all bathrooms on affected floors. This means removal of sink, vanity, bathtub or shower, toilet, and usually flooring. Failure to completely remove bathrooms can compromise and even negate the mold treatment. Possible exceptions to these rules are tile floors that are on concrete or tiled walls that are installed with cement tile backer board. Cement tile backer has only recently come into favor as a building material so chances are this construction would only be found in very recent renovations. The AHV assessment team can evaluate this situation. In some cases tubs, sinks, toilets, and vanity tops can be saved for reinstallation. As with kitchen cabinets, most vanities will need to be discarded.
Additional notes:
• Most wood baseboard, window, crown, and door trim will need to be removed and discarded.
• Interior doors will be removed, and evaluated for reinstallation. Hollow core doors are usually discarded, while solid wood doors can often be cleaned and reused.
• All nails and fasteners will be removed from exposed framing. This has the dual purpose of making the mold treatment more effective and decreasing labor time for rebuilding.
• The presence of lead paint and asbestos in the home complicate the procedure but do not necessarily prevent AHV from completing the mold treatment process. These situations will be evaluated and handled on a case-by-case basis.
• At the completion of the AHV mold treatment process your home will clean, dry and ready for rebuild by the contractors of your choice.
The decision to have your home treated for mold is an important one. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact All Hands Volunteers directly. Our volunteers are well versed in gutting, mold treatment, and the construction trade. They will have the answers to your questions or, if need be, know where to find those answers. Each of us at All Hands Volunteers looks forward to helping you and your communities recover from this tragic storm.
732/21 Second Street, Manchester,
King Street,Kingston United Kingdom
(65)323-678-567
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