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: