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?”