Big powder day attracts out-of-state visitors

KILLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) - People in the southern part of our region were still digging out Friday from several feet of snow, but skiers and snowboarders aren’t complaining, including the ones who don’t live in Vermont. Ike Bendavid hit the slopes in Killington.

After nearly 25 inches of snow on Thursday, over 50 trails are open at Killington and the skiers and riders are hitting the lifts. “Beautiful man, nothing like 25 inches of fresh powder,” said Jonathan Hartman from Maryland.

“It’s phenomenal, it’s absolutely great,” added TJ Constantine from New Jersey.

Skiers and riders were taking advantage of the bluebird day at Killington. Some had mixed reactions about a day on the slopes during a pandemic. “It’s a little weird but I feel like there is a good amount of people here,” said Jennifer Lyanhkob from New York City.

“Liftlines ain’t long, nobody cutting you off. Sucks we are in a pandemic, but it’s a quiet mountain at times,” Hartman said.

Killington officials say like everyone else, they have made adjustments to help keep customers safe. “All guests that do come to the mountain are attesting to the fact that they are aware that there are travel restrictions,” said the resort’s Courtney DiFiore. That includes quarantining. She says ski passes are also used for contact tracing. Capacity limits change daily based on open trails and past numbers and reservations required. “For a third time you don’t show up for your reservation, all of your current bookings will disappear. But again, you can go reserve those again based on availability.”

On Friday, the only people who would talk to us on camera were from out of state. “We quarantined for seven days. We also got tested as well before coming up here so we knew we were safe. We are doing full precautions on this,” Lyanhkob said.

“We had to quarantine for two weeks before we came up,” Hartman said.

Vermonters willing to talk with us were few and far between.

Killington says they plan to have the online registration through the rest of the ski season.

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