Killington 2008/9 - Day 7

Day 7 - More words about Skiing and food
by Mick Hegarty

The weather was better today, so my Great Plan was to use our advantage of “being on English time” to get out early and catch the first lifts at 8am (ie: 1pm UK time). The reality of course was that we had flopped onto US time about 5 minutes after arriving here, so we got up slowly, had a slow breakfast, and drifted out to the slopes at about 10:30.

We headed down to the base via Carpenters Run, which is a really nice family run through the trees - you rarely see other skiers and it is generally very quiet and peaceful:
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You know, when I die, I will be like the Czechoslovakian politician Vladamir Clementis mentioned in Milan Kundera’s novel “The Book of Laughter and Forgetting”, who only exists in photos in the form of his hat. In Clementis’ case it is because he fell out of favour, was hung, and then was airbrushed out of all photos (they forgot the hat, which he had leant to a colleague). In my case I am never in favour long enough to fall out of it, and don’t get into the photos in the first place. No one in our family will take photos, so I have to take them all and then don’t really exist when we look back at them later. It’s thus an added joy that they criticise me* while I’m taking them (Michael roared at me when I took this video clip for example) only to Ooh and Ahh about them once we are home.

Anyway, enough whinging. After a bit of skiing we headed up to the top of Killington Peak for lunch. We split in two, with the “Green Team” (Clare, Liam and Ciaran) taking the gentle Highlander slope, while the “Blue Team” (Mike and I) took Bittersweet. I am an imposter really, as I’m nervy on the steeper Blue runs, whereas Mike is confident, graceful and fast as hell.


The steeper runs are exhilarating and its one of those oddities of life that you feel most alive when the only thing in your mind is sudden painful death!

We had a nice lunch at the peak – the food was the usual but the view is spectacular (you can see five states plus Canada) and while we were there the snow came in and visibility dropped to almost nothing for a while. This was somewhat poignant for Clare and I as one of our most memorable evenings was a dinner in Windows on the World with The Goblins about 20 years ago where the same thing happened and we came out on a snow-covered world.

After lunch we did a couple more runs then Liam and Ciaran headed back to the hotel leaving Clare, Mike and I to finish the afternoon on Easy Street – a basic run as the name suggests but the find of the trip for us this year. One of the many things we love about Killington (and staying at the Grand Resort) is the freedom it gives the boys. Its massive - there are something like 200 trails - but it’s a very safe environment, and the benefit of a “ski-in ski-out” hotel is that there is lots of flexibility for people with different interests to do their own thing.

We finished up at Yoshi Sushi and the famous Hibachi dinner. The food is great, cooked right in front of you, but it’s the showmanship of the chef that makes it special, including the famous volcano made out of onion rings. Clare’s mum Nuala commented after reading the first couple of days that all we seemed to do was eat and it is true! We all love our grub and the great thing about a skiing holiday is that you can eat like a horse and actually lose weight. Or at least that is the Great Plan….

* Liam saw a good T-shirt: “If a man is standing in the middle of the forest speaking and there is no woman around to hear him . . . is he still wrong?”

Killington 2008/9 - Day 6

Day 6 – New Year's Day
by guest writer Michael Hegarty

My new year started with a bang…or rather a splatter, as Liam threw up over the side of his bed at 12:10am, January 1st 2009. As I’m typing now in the warm hotel room the smell of vomit still hangs in the air, the product of not one, not two, but three separate puking sessions in the wee hours of the morning. Each time Liam managed to wake me up, but I’m not complaining. However much it sucked for me, it sucked way more for him. This explosive but short-lived bug regrettably confined him to the sofa until just now, so he missed out on a whole day of skiing.

It was probably a good day for him to miss, though. Temperatures have been steadily declining since the gooey slushfest that was Sunday, and are bottoming out about this very evening: 0° Fahrenheit (-18°C). Take the enormous wind chill factor into account, and you’re looking at conditions that feel around -25°C for any lift technicians or snow groomers still up in the mountains. Brr.

Although I’m told it was warmer than this at 9:30 this morning when Dad and I set out, my still frozen fingertips are yet to be convinced. Liam was out for the count and Ciaran was pleading exhaustion, so Mum stayed in with them, leaving just the two Michaels to brave the storm. Walking out of the hotel into the wind was like walking face-first into a cactus. The already freezing torrent of air carried with it tiny particles of ice and grit that ripped at any unfortunate inch of exposed flesh and carried its warmth off downwind. Dad, utterly barefaced, paused for a moment a few steps away from the hotel door, as if it was taking every drop of resolve he possessed to not simply bottle it, drop the skis and scuttle back inside to the warm, heavy air of the lobby.

We bravely pressed on through the unusually empty car park. At the bottom of a lift we spoke to a Killington “mountain ambassador”, who told us that because of the wind a handful of our most frequently used lifts were out of action, namely the lifts for Snowshed and Killington peak. This limited our movements to really only two of the six peaks.

Logic dictates that those lifts still running despite the wind are located in areas not really affected by the wind, sheltered and unexposed.
No dice.
We got onto the express lift at Ramshead and were ravaged and robbed of our warmth for a full ten minutes. We could do nothing but sit and wait, and lose sensation in our extremities. The air managed to find a direct route to my wrists, my neck, my arse and my forehead, creating a biting localised coldness that was actually quite painful. My goggles began to frost over at the top, then over one eye, then completely. By the time we stiffly slid off the chair I was flying blind, and had to take the goggles off. It would take an absolutely magical run to make up for the ride up, and while the run back down the mountain didn’t quite make the grade, it was still pretty fantastic. The snow was fresh and responsive, though I had trouble seeing it through watering eyes. The slope was practically empty but for the occasional foolhardy boarder.

After another freezing but thoroughly enjoyable run from the top of Snowdon peak we retreated, our tails between our legs, to our hotel room. The boys were sitting watching an all-day Looney Toons marathon, which I’d wager they’d been watching nearly since we left. We slouched around the room for an hour or two, but the sun was shining outside, the slopes gleaming and empty and I was soon itching to be out again. I’ve really fallen in love with skiing on another level this holiday. I did my first full-length black diamond run yesterday, which was not only intensely exhilarating, but also gave me the most profound sense of satisfaction once I’d reached the bottom and craned my neck up to look back at the mess of ice and moguls I’d just navigated. Doubtless, I was ungraceful and hesitant, but still…

I managed to drag Ciaran and Mum out for half-past one. The wind had died down but it was still colder than any other day this week. To get to the beloved old Great Eastern we took two trails: Northbrook Trail and Carpenter’s Run. They were quiet and extremely pretty, but as flat as a freestyle boarder’s nose. No, wait, that’s not quite true. At one point you have to ski uphill.

From here we found our old friend the Great Eastern. Dad has often talked about the “millionaire moment” you get on some points in Great Eastern, when you stop for a moment by the side of the trail and can’t hear anything but the flakes of snow fluttering down. Today when we paused on GE it was true that we still couldn’t hear anything but snow. Artificial snow, that is, screaming out of the snowmakers irritatingly posted every 10m along the trail. There was a faulty one near the bottom that was spraying out a sort of gooey wet ice that only froze after it stuck to my goggles. Fortunately, we’re so very fond of this run, the only single run that connects the top of the highest peak to the very lowest lodge in Killington, that no amount of vicious snowblowers could make it unenjoyable.

Mum and Ciaran sat and enjoyed a long coffee and a cookie at the bottom of Great Eastern while I raced to the top in order to repeat it again, this time at my own pace. I love skiing with my family, but they really are a pretty slow bunch. A lot of my time on family runs is spent standing still a few hundred yards down the trail from them, drumming the ice with my poles. The run was disappointing. I had foolishly and impatiently overtightened my boots, and by the bottom had quite painful lower legs.

Upon meeting Mum and Ciaran again we made our way back to Snowshed via the (mercifully) heated Gondola and the deceptively exposed Northbrook Quad. We froze our butts off again. I ended up on a different chair to Mum and Ciaran, who I tried to entertain when the lift spluttered to a halt in the middle of a fierce gale. I jumped around in my chair and threw the bobble on my hat from side to side. I apparently helped a little, though not enough to prevent one of them from being reduced to tears by the cold. After what seemed like a polar expedition, the lift started up again. The plan was that they were going to head straight home via Snowshed and I was going to diverge and do some “monster skiing” as Mum calls it. I decided collapsing on the sofa in a few minutes rather than bouncing down icy cliffs sounded too good to resist, and so took Snowshed with them. Hey, if I felt like I’d made the wrong decision, I thought, I could always turn on to Channel 14 to catch “Fall of the day”. Watching snowboarders tumble down rocky gulches head over heels and smack face-first into trees always makes you feel glad to be inside.

Editors note: despite Mike's best efforts to distract him from the cold, Ciaran took some to recover back in the hotel room:

Killington 2008/9 - Day 5

Day 5 – 5th day alone
by guest writer Sydney the catish cato

"Miaow Mioaaw Miioooaw mioaaw mioooawww mioaw mioaw mioaww."
Tranlations
("I am cato. I like to eat. I miss the big ones. I am cato.")
"Miaow Miaoww Miaoooww miaow miaow mioaw mioaw mioaw oaw mioaw mioaw miiooaaww."
Translations
("The big ones have not been here for several darks now but a friendly female big one has fed me.")
By Sydney aka Cato.

Day 5 – New Years Eve

Guest Writer for the second time Ciaran Hegarty

We get up at 7:30 which disgraces me seeing as I asked dad to wake us up at 6:45 so we can get out for 8:00 when the lifts open. Now normally I could eat my breakfast and get dressed to be out for 8:00 in just over half an hour but I live with Liam so the extra half an hour would be for Liam. So I have my breakfast and then I start to get dressed but then I cant find any of my clothes so by time we’re out it’s about 8:20. So we do snowshed again for 15,000,000 time but still you can’t get bored of good old snowshed. When we reach the bottom we do it again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. Then liam got bored and decided to turn in. So he went in leaving only me, mike, dad and mum and so we challenge the mountain RAMSHEAD!

Now to be taken over By CCCCCClare HHegarty! Clap clap clap.

Skiing lunches all have a number of similarities. Some of the surroundings are nicer than others i.e. they are less busy or have amazing views but the food and ambience are all pretty much the same. The prize for the least pleasant by a mile though has to go to Ramshead. Firstly, it is the centre for the children’s lessons, so is full of instructors with little teams of would-be skiers. These children are quite cute on skis but off skis, they just take up a lot a valuable space. Secondly, there are no windows so nothing to remind you that you are in the middle of the mountains in beautiful Vermont. But overwhelmingly, there is the smell which is beyond description and should never be present in an eating establishment. If I haven’t convinced you that you should never eat there, I have more. The best thing about skiing is that it is wonderful exercise, which takes place in beautiful surroundings, which the whole family can enjoy. The worst thing about it is the amount of faffing that you have to do to get to that point. Skiing down a hill is sublime, walking uphill in skis is tricky and storing skis & poles for a whole family and then walking about inside in boots and the 5 layers of clothing necessary to keep the cold out outside is exhausting and definitely brings out the worst in people. For our particular lunch, I sat with a super aggressive American woman behind who berated her husband to anyone who would listen for half an hour. His crime was that he had skied off with the car keys and a screaming baby needed to be taken home. For some reason, the phone calls that he received from his wife didn’t seem to be bring him back to the lodge any quicker! In front of me was a teenage autistic boy who rocked himself to oblivion throughout – his response to his environment never made more sense to me !

Escape from Ramshead lodge and the smell and back to the beautiful mountain. Ciaran and I completed one last run from the top of Ramshead and then joined Liam back in the hotel.

For New Year, we hadn’t been quick enough to get the Hibachi table that we wanted at Sushi Yoshi but we were able to get in there for regular Chinese Food. We were seated at our table in time for 7pm, which was midnight in the UK. So we ate our meal whilst talking to family in the UK to wish them a Happy New Year and texting friends.

Our fortune cookies took on the extra significance of New Year’s resolutions and are recorded here:

Mick – In great attempts it is glorious even to fail
Clare – Good sense is the master of human life.
Mike – Act well your part there the honour lies.
Liam – Aim at the stars, but keep your feet on the ground.
Ciars – A truly great person never puts away the simplicity of a child.

Happy New Year and best wishes for 2009 to all our readers!

Killington 2008/9 - Day 4

Recovering from Day 3
by Clare Hegarty

Ciaran’s chirpy description of our first day skiing really doesn’t do justice to the difficulty of the conditions. Liam’s description, that has yet to be posted, is much more on the mark. They had re-routed our beloved Great Eastern route leaving us on the far side of the mountain with no choice for getting back other than via a long hard ski down treacherous and steep banks of ice. With legs still accustoming themselves to the demands of skiing, it became quite gruelling and the next morning my muscles were still feeling the effects.

It had snowed in the night, so conditions were much improved but confidence needed to be restored. Lots of runs down the familiar Snowshed in the morning and then in the afternoon, we re-discovered a little of the old family-feel Killington at Ramshead. However, it seemed that conditions must still be bad further up the mountain as we saw about 5 stretcher cases in the course of a couple of hours!

We had done home cooking on Sunday night, experienced the joys of American pizza on Monday night, so it was time to brave the cold and eat out. Strangely (for us English weather-obsessed folks) the cars here rarely have temperature gauges, so I have no idea how cold it gets here at night. I just know that it is cold enough to maker me keen with coldness. I’m sure that the heating systems in monster American cars are very efficient but they just don’t warm me up and every second spent outside, slices into exposed flesh like a knife. We shared the lift down in the hotel with one of the bellboys who advised us to try out a place called The Garlic, which does “killer pasta (pronounced parsta)”, but the idea of murderous carbohydrates just didn’t do it for me, so we headed to another old favourite – Casey’s Caboose – and had the joy for the first time of actually sitting in the caboose. The subliminal messaging had obviously got to Mick, Mike & Liam who all ordered slayer linguine or assassin fettuccine. I ignored all previous experiences of American food portions and ordered a steak. This really will kill you as the steak always covers most of a large dinner plate and half of the table. After 15 minutes of eating, all you have eaten is enough to make room for a tomato slice, then you have to explain that it was lovely but no you don’t want it bagged – you could never look at that steak again!!!

Still at least you can plead jetlag, shiver your way home and be in bed with your book by 9pm.