Skivt2

Not going to help. The well pump is electric. There’s no water.

Anyone know how long we can go without power or water before our pipes freeze and burst? Power out since 11 PM Friday night. House was 47 when we left at 5pm. Outside temp 24. Forecast for 22 but we tend colder at our house. No estimate from power company. Forecast of 30 daytime tomorrow though we face south with big windows.

The crazy thing about the housing situation in Vermont us that it’s not just about resort employee housing. When you think about housing being too expensive for a restaurant employee making $70k, think about how much a teacher or a nurse makes. They don’t make much more than that. As a few of you know, my husband and I have been working on a VT move. But he has been in nursing school in CT for the past several years. We rent in VT full time and plan to sell our CT house and buy a VT house soon. I work 75% remote for a CT company and let’s just say I have a very good corporate job. As we begin to think about buying a house in VT it is painfully clear that it will be difficult to find anything suitable. And the house we buy will be about half as nice as the house we will be selling for the same amount of money. We are seeing house prices that in some cases tripled in 3 years. We are not just talking about lift operators and food services people having difficulty finding a place to live. What about nurses and teachers etc? The question really is where will any people with normal jobs live? I can’t imagine how this housing situation here in Vermont is sustainable.

Most intense thunderstorm I’ve experienced in years in East Granby CT just west of BDL. Husband took a video starting at 3:47. He ran in the house for safety from the trees starting to fall outside. By 3:50 there were several large trees down in about a 1 acre area including a few feet from where he was filming. The video is too big but I will post it if I can figure out how. I have a feeling if that rotation dropped to ground level we were in the bulls eye. These are two frames from the video he took.the video is worth sharing just for the sound alone as the wind started to take the trees down.

Looks like the company that owns Ragged in NH may be buying Jay Peak. Hopefully Ragged will end up on The Indie pass rather than Jay leaving.

It’s August 1st and that means it’s time to start thinking about the new ski season ahead.

Snowed hard on the mountain. Got weird when it covered up the bare patches on the trails and we were trying to remember where they were just a few hours earlier.

You may not care and that’s your choice but FYI….if you go to Killington you may not want to refer to it as K-mart if you want to get along with locals. It’s not well received here. Again, maybe you don’t care. And I doubt anyone would correct you or say anything to you if you say it. But it definitely defines you as an outsider here because none of us would ever call it that since it’s derogatory. If you really want to shorten it then K-town is OK or just K is fine. We jokingly call it Killingtime occasionally. Lol

Skiing in Vermont is great right now if you like boilerplate ice and frozen cat tracks

Grinch

It is totally annoying that Killington reports the same snow for Pico as for Killington. It’s true they vary a lot. But then from Bear to Rams head or the top of the peak are all different as well. Coastal storms don’t always work out as well for Pico as for Killington and I have seen the lower spots at Pico on the western side mix when the upper trails on the eastern side stay powder. In fact the summit quad at Pico is a cut off where it sometimes rains from the summit quad down and snows from summit quad up. But, as you said, in early season when the west/northwest wind brings moisture to the mountains it’s not uncommon to see Pico get a bigger dusting then Killington. Overall generally I’d say Killington gets more snow than Pico. When I lived there my friends down in Rutland would check in with me to see whether we were snowing when it was raining in town etc. Microclimates are fun to pay attention to when you live in the mountains.

Following the Killington vs Okemo discussion here. I was a weekly commuter to VT for 30 years driving through Ludlow to Killington. I have skied at both of those mountains plus Pico probably 1000 days combined. I would most certainly find no issue thinking Killington gets substantially more snow then Okemo. There are huge topography differences. Killington is farther north enough to be much more part of the snow cloud that hits the larger core green mountains after passing the Champlain basin. It’s not shadowed by Mt. Holly. It’s base is at high elevation of vs Okemo and it’s over 4000 feet. Try driving there from Okemo and you will notice you are headed uphill the whole way. The area is full of microclimates. Plymouth, where I live is a perfect example as it’s a huge snow belt. It’s not uncommon at all, for example, to drive north on 100 leaving Ludlow and have it flurrying lightly, only to have it be dumping in Plymouth, and then flurrying lightly at the rt 4 intersection then Pounding snow again at the bottom of the K access road and over Sherburne pass at Pico where I used to live. That’s a very very common occurrence midwinter where heavy dustings occur night after night without a storm.

Snowing in Plymouth, VT up on 100A. Tiny flakes starting to pile up.

Killington was ripping this afternoon. People getting stuck in the lot left and right. Very slippery driving up there. We have serious snow tires and all wheel drive, lots of winter driving experience and had the truck in low gear creeping down the access road. Up too just coming out of the lot we were sliding a bit trying follow slower cars and the anti locks were kicking in. Can’t image how the World Cup is going to go with killington having so many flatlander tourists who are unprepared and having to clear their lots/run a million shuttles etc. lots of winter appeal on TV though.

Firepower! A snow gun roughly every 9-10 feet.

We have always tried to ski as many days as possible. We started buying season passes the year I graduated college. Our first passes were at Mt. Tom. We would get 50 days in a year, mostly nights after work. After 3 years we went back to where we learned to ski and got Sundown season passes for 3 more years but still skied at night. We always had to have clear goggle lens. Lol. By 6 years out of college we could finally start skiing VT 50+ days a year and rarely skied nights after that. It definitely has a different feel. I find the frenzy of getting to the mountain for first chair sort of annoying and too high strung. Ironically weekdays seem the worst with the same daily crowd punching the clock. I like the last hours of the day. Much Mellower. I have found the clear goggles again though. In mid to late December last chair is almost after dark only without lights.

Everyone at the big K is betting they pull it off. Can’t underestimate Killington’s ability to make snow on Superstar. And of course that glacier is the same snow we will be skiing on for Memorial Day. As a 100 Club member the mountain gifted me with grandstand seats. I have not missed a World Cup race at K yet. I feel pretty confident I will get to see the fastest women in the world ski on my local hill again this year. Looking forward to the G love concert on Sunday too.

Yeah. It is very very difficult in Vermont. It’s not just that ski bums looking for seasonal winter housing that are scared. People with large incomes from professional jobs who can pay a pretty decent amount for rent can’t find anything available. The people pleading for help daily are heartbreaking. There was one woman who had gotten a job teaching at the public school and had not realized that there would be no where to live. Sad.

Housing is a HUGE problem. Make sure he has a solid place to sleep before he goes. In Vermont housing is in an EXTREME crisis. People with decent paying full time year round jobs like teachers and nurses can’t find housing. Every day people are begging for help finding something on the local FB pages. Families having to move out of the area because they can’t find anything for any amount of money.

Exactly. Wam wet summer. Cold dry winter

It’s only our street. We had a tree come down three weeks ago and took out our little dead end street. The power company had to restring the wire on the street. Left the old cable in a pile in our neighbors yard and never came back. Now the same neighbors are out again and we keep hearing power arcing. So I wonder if it was a bad repair.

No power in East Granby. Must have been that 20mph gust.

Yes it did! I was there and saw it too. I was on the superstar chair and it was raining at the bottom and snowing at the top even though it was about 50 degrees. More like sleet though.

Killington was a lot of fun this weekend. We start the week with no lift swerved skiing until Friday now that K is three days a week only. But I’m sure there are 2-3 weeks left at least.