Killington: 2025-6 Season

joshua_segal

November 12, 2025 - Wednesday

It was a good opening day at Killington. The free lunch was good, but I would never have paid $30 for it (which was the listed price) for main course, fountain drink and a cookie! The opening day party favor was a sticker - a serious downer when compared with the T-shirts, hats and gators of previous years.

But as far as the skiing goes, we (i.e. the non-race skiers) clearly benefited from the absence of the World Cup which sucked up the majority of the early-season snowmaking fire power. In past openings, it was Rime and Reason. Today, there was even skiable natural snow on Lower Catwalk. While we had to walk up the Peak Stairway at the end of the day, both Great Northern and Downdraft Headwall were open from the top. There is a reasonable chance they will be T2B by this weekend.

The early morning crowd was huge. The lift broke down about 10:00. They emptied the lift and the coral using the deisel backup. It was down for about 1.5 hours which provided a window for the free lunch. When the lift restarted, a lot of the locals chose to quit for the day which made a huge reduction in the line lengths.

I saw Marcski there, but if there were other SJers present, I missed them.

joshua_segal

November 13, 2025 - Thursday
Surprising that there was a smaller crowd for "public Opening Day" vs. Wednesday's "Pass-holders-only" Day.

The snow was better than Wednesday, and the lines were very short. The entire North Ridge pod [except Ridge Run (West Glade) and Powerline] was open. FIS and Cascade Headwall on natural snow were opened, but few were willing to take them on first run of the day and many weren't willing to do the Peak Stairway more than once.

rickbolger

noon friday every chair is full, and just saw a guy go past the webcam with a shovel or something, headed down Reason, do they have some kind of park features already?

joshua_segal

rickbolger;c-70726 wrotenoon friday every chair is full, and just saw a guy go past the webcam with a shovel or something, headed down Reason, do they have some kind of park features already?

Yes. They always set up a small park on Reason with a half-dozen features. My observation: The early and late season crowds are skiers in much greater proportion to Boarders when compared with mid-season ratios

joshua_segal

November 17, 2025 - Monday
With last night's snow, all the natural snow terrain that was closed on Sunday reopened. Everything was open off the North Ridge Pod. Snowden was open but there was no way to avoid active snowmaking on any open path to the base area.

In general, the most fun snow for me were the natural snow trails: Powerline, West Glade, Lower Catwalk, the eastside of Mouse Trap and upper Royal Flush. There was a nasty chokepoint near the top of Mouse Trap.

In toto, it was a spectacular day.

lotsoskiing

Superstar lit up, at least the top half.

snowphoenix

Saturday 1/24/26

https://www.newenglandskiconditions.com/viewreport.php?reportid=4140

Beautiful day at Killington yesterday despite the cold and limited terrain. Started my day at the Snowshed Lodge since the snow report indicated that lift ops would mainly be based out of there and K-1 yesterday due to the cold. While I knew about the planned delayed lift opening at 9:00, unfortunately only Superstar Six and Snowdon Six were running at first (due to electrical issues, or so I heard), so I took the shuttle to K-1 and headed up Snowdon. Went down Killink and saw that the North Ridge Quad was running with no line, so I hopped on.

Those first few runs I did on North Ridge were beautiful! Perfect bluebird skies, incredible scenery and views, buttery areas of windblown powder, and fresh corduroy (although it was very grabby on flatter areas due to the temperatures, which was a bit annoying since Killington is a mountain that necessitates quite a bit of traversing). Superstar went on mechanical hold midmorning, while Snowshed Express and Ramshead Express opened. I stuck to North Ridge most of the morning since it only had a few chairs’ wait while the lower lifts were 15+ minutes. I attempted a run down Downdraft; the first few pitches were great windblown powder but the lower pitch going into the Canyon was basically survival skiing – hardpack machine-made snow with nothing on top to get an edge into.

After lunch, the Snowdon Triple opened and Superstar reopened, so I took a few laps on the latter. It’s a nice fast lift and should serve the mountain well. Conditions on those trails were mostly frozen granular though they still skied well and didn’t get too scraped off. The K-1 Gondola opened at 2:00 or so and instantly got a 20 minute line, so I never rode it, instead using the Snowdon/North Ridge combo to access most of the same terrain.

I definitely think I made the most of the day given the limited terrain and weather. Despite all the sensationalism about this cold stretch, it’s far from the worst weather I’ve ever skied in - I’ll take it over rain any day!

Photos:

Killink
Reason
Ridge Run
Powerline
Downdraft, before it got ugly
Rime
Old Superstar
Superstar
Skyelark
North Star
Julio
Possibly some old Superstar Quad lift components I saw in a field off the Idler trail