After some pretty extensive snowmaking over the last few days and some help from mother nature with colder temps, Killington opened for the 2009-2010 ski season today!  Way to go guys!

Check out the videos and  photos from Killington below:

[View with PicLens]

More photos are available on the Killington Facebook page.

Just a week ago, we were wondering when the new Killington web site would be launched, and now we know…today.  The site just launched a couple of hours ago.

Like the new logo, the new web site is a tremendous improvement over the old, dated site.  The new site design is clean, crisp and much more Web-2.0 like.  It’s also a lot easier to navigate and they have fairly successfully integrated all their social media components into the new design.  And yes, THE BEAST tagline is also well integrated into the site. (We’ve heard rumors that the new branding and marketing campaign cost in the area of $250,000. For that price, we hope it included everything!)

The home page features a number of “witty” lines for THE BEAST, which include:

• THE BEAST just updated your Facebook status.
• THE BEAST just spoke with your spouse. You can buy an express card.
• THE BEAST invites you to a wicked awesome sleepover.
• THE BEAST has been schooling people for over 40 years.

We’ll see if more get added over time.

Of course, while we like the new site, we also have a few suggestions because we like to see things perfect:

• Search works pretty poorly.  A search for “stash” returns “Demos” as the first result. A search for “k1″ tells me that the search must be three characters.  This is probably not that important as the navigation is pretty well laid-out and we doubt a lot of people are searching.
• While we’re on the subject of search, we’d replace that nearly unreadable search image with something more readable.
• What happened to the ski share listings? (Ok, we admit we’re a little biased about this one.)
• Got a few page not found errors mostly from this page. *Hint: Xenu’s Link Sleuth is a great, free link checker.
• We’re glad that the Insider Blog was moved to be a part of the site. I’d make sure the titles of the posts were clickable, since I tried to click them several times before realizing there was an unreadable “read more” button. Also, don’t forget to redirect http://insider.killington.com here. And finally, I’d still recommend going with WordPress as it has tremendous support and plugins.
• Where are the RSS feeds?  They should be included in the meta tags.
• Try to add some 301 redirects instead of 404 pages for pages that Google has indexed.
• Line up the bottom footer so that it is vertically aligned across the page. Get rid of the | in front of Privacy Policy.

Ok, yes,  a little anal and we’re not sure our suggestions will be taken, but we figured we’d put our two cents in.

Unfortunately, they did not replace their ecommerce solution which is almost impossible to actually use to place an order.  Maybe that can be next on the list?

Be sure to check out the site and let us know what you think.

We had previously posted about Killington’s new logo and return to the tagline, “The Beast of the East.”  Well, it turns out they were serious as everything is getting re-branded with “THE BEAST” including the trail maps as you can see below.

So, the question is, when will the web site be updated?

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Today is the last day to purchase one of the best deals Killington is offering for the season, the K50 ticket.

For just $50 each, you may purchase up to four lift tickets valid on all but 17 blackout days. This is a $27 savings off the Sunday – Friday rate and a $32 savings off the Saturday rate.  Ticket sales are online only and end at 11:59pm tonight.

Today is also your last chance to purchase your season pass before the next round of price increases go into effect. After today, the following prices take effect:

• Blackout Pass increases from $699 to $799
• Unlimited Pass increases by $100 for juniors, and by $150 for everyone else
• Midweek Pass increases from $449 to $549
• College Pass stays the same

So, with the snow guns at Killington already blowing, what are you waiting for? We also still have a few spaces left in our Killington Ski Share house for the upcoming season. It’s a great way to spend the season!

It’s official! Snowmaking is underway for the 2009-2001 ski season at Killington.

According to Killington’s press release, crews reported to the mountain at 1am this morning and began making snow with a number of guns going on the Reason trail in the Northridge area.  Later today, they expect to have a number of low energy guns going on both Rime and Upper Great Northern trails. They were helped out with 4 inches of new snow at Killington Peak and 1.5 inches at K-1 Lodge.  The snowmaking is expected to continue for the next four to six days based on the current weather forecasts.

You can view more pics of the start of snowmaking on Killington’s Flickr page and also check their video below: