Tomorrow is the last day to buy your Pickle Barrel season pass before the price increases from $100 ($107 with tax) to $125. Plus, if you buy by tomorrow, you get a free ticket to the mini-skirt party in the spring.

You can get all the details from our earlier post.

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?

[View with PicLens]

Burton has just posted a new YouTube video of  The Stash at Killington. For those of you who are not familiar with The Stash, it’s Burton’s all-natural terrain park consisting of all wooden features.  There are only five Burton Stash parks in the world, and Killington is the only one on the East Coast.  You can find out more information on The Stash’s web site and also check out the video below:

Intrawest, a large resort operator that runs Stratton, Mountain Creek, Whistler, and several others, has issued new helmet rules for the 2009-2010 ski season.

Intrawest is recommending that all skiers and snowboarders visiting their resorts wear helmets and have made it mandatory for anyone under 17 to wear a helmet while participating in their Ski and Snowboard School Programs, as well as for all students participating in freestyle terrain park programs, regardless of their age.  Previously, there had been an “opt-out clause” allowing parents to waive the right for children to wear a helmet, but that now has been removed.

Starting in the 2010-2011 season, Intrawest will join Vail in requiring all on-mountain employees to wear helmets.  They will also be placing an increased focus on showing helmets on skiers and snowboarders in visuals for their web sites and advertising.

“Intrawest is working in conjunction with the ski industry to establish important best practices on behalf of our resort guests and employees,” said Bill Jensen, chief executive officer at Intrawest. “Together, we have established a new baseline for helmet use at our resorts that has received strong support from the NSAA and CWSAA. We will continue to work with all of the ski industry associations in the United States and Canada to raise awareness of this important initiative and the obligation of everyone to ski and ride in a controlled and responsible manner.”

We think it’s a positive step that will help to prevent a lot of injuries and one that will catch on at other resorts as well. Killington does not currently require helmets for any mountain activities.