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My last run of the year at KMart started with shrimp cocktail and reebs at the K Peak Lodge as the K1 disgorged the last people. Sometime after 4:20 on 4/20, we poached Cascade headwall (much easier with the gondola stopped), ducked the rope to cross over to lower Catwalk, cruised around Great Northern, and walked up Killink. From the top of the poma drinking one last reeb, we could hear a huge amount of noise from the hordes at Cooper's Cabin consuming controlled substances. The final run was down Chute to Great Bear in tremendous unskied buttery corn snow. Nobody is pleased about the early closing. The main parking lot was full as it always is in April and early May. They sold a lot of day tickets and a ton of reeb at the base lodge. Everybody gets *cough* mandatory unpaid vacation *cough* starting May 1 and that's going to cause some economic strain for people used to working until June 1. The tumbleweeds are already blowing down the Access Road and a 1% local property tax instituted so the town can promote tourism isn't going to attract people when the new resort is doing everything possible to chase away the regulars who normally spend money on the Access Road from foliage season through Memorial Day. There's talk of some open revolt by the staff against the Utard owner and Bend, Oregon carpet bagger president who killed spring. They're training their customers to go elsewhere and Killington isn't loaded with the groomed intermediate terrain that attracts the premium lift + lodging business they claim they want. It's really a shame because they really did manage to detoxify weekend and holiday skiing at Killington this year. They opened late and closed incredibly early but their high season product was as good as you're going to get south of the Mason-Doogie line. Rumors were floating around that Killington is going to install a 2nd high speed quad this summer replacing the Snowdon Triple. I have mixed feelings about this since it's going to place far too much traffic on a part of the mountain I use frequently. Ranger Renson would be appalled. There's also talk of moving the terrain park to under the top half of that new lift. I don't know where they're going to put all the people over there with racing on Highline and upper Bunny Buster and a bump course on Conclusion. I sure hope they don't all end up in Patsys Panties, Low Rider, and Toilet Bowl. Geoff - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - SkiVt-L is brought to you by the University of Vermont. To unsubscribe, visit http://list.uvm.edu/archives/skivt-l.html