Killington is the resort that won't let itself be out-anythinged by anybody. No ski resort in the East has more trails, more lifts, more snowmaking, more mountains (though Killington is overly imaginative in using the definition of mountain), or a longer season.

So if you like more of everything, Killington's your place. Frankly, I can take only so much, and for my tastes Killington has more than I need of just about everything. A day especially a weekend day at Killington can be more of a carnival than I think skiing ought to be, a kind of Texas State Fair with a cast of a thousand snow guns. Killington indeed has it all: great skiing for all abilities, good and plentiful lodging, lots of non-skiing activities. It's just that it has so much of it all that the total experience here can easily become more confusing than I think skiing should be.

No matter how good the signage and Killington's is very good the opportunities for getting lost improve every season. In 1990, after Killington began overseeing the management of neighboring Pico, the cumulative stats for the two areas staggered the mind: 147 trails, 27 lifts, 10"mountains," and six base areas. (I'll review Pico separately later in this chapter.) Throw in thousands of condo units, slopeside and otherwise, and Killington/Pico can at times seem at times as much mountainside suburbia as resort.

The huge sprawl makes for a trail-guide designer's dilemma. The solution has been to create a trail guide based on topographical relief map, but even if you are used to reading this kind of map, figuring out even the most basic stuff such as which way's up, which way's down can be hard. The main map is supplemented by an artist's rendition of the area and a series of tables that looks like a page from the World Almanac.

I will say this: the Killington trail guide is the most comprehensive of any I've ever seen, with everything from a box explaining how to ski from one sector of the area to the next to a note about whom to call if you lock yourself out of your car. It's just that the basic info that must be imparted for an area so large is encyclopedic.

	Killington at a Glance Pluses and Minuses: Pluses: Size and variety of terrain, snowmaking and grooming, length of season, plentiful dining and nightlife. Minuses: Crowds and congestion, sprawling layout, absence of New England charm. Book Your Next Ski Trip to Killington on GORP! Key Phone Numbers: Ski Area Information: 802-422-3333 Lodging Information: 082-773-1330 Snow Conditions: 802-422-3261 Location: 5-mile access road begins 10 miles east of Rutland and 20 miles west of Woodstock on Route 4. Mailing address: 406 Killington Rd., Killington, VT 05751. Mountain Statistics: Vertical drop: 3,175 feet Summit elevation: 4,241 feet Base elevation: 1,160 feet (at the gondola base) Number of trails: 107 Lifts: 1 gondola, 15 chairs, 2 surface lifts Average annual snowfall: 225 inches Snowmaking coverage: 60% (395 acres)

The Killington sprawl can also make for a family dilemma if you're not careful. If your kids end up at the Northeast Passage base area when the lifts close, and they should have been with you at Rams Head, you're looking at a 10-mile drive (and a trail of young tears) in order to re-unite. All I can say is, be very precise with your fellow skiers at Killington about meeting places and times, and then hope your plans work.

All that said, Killington also has obvious advantages over other areas, along with some exceptional skiing. It is certainly the world's snowmaking and grooming king, with an array of astonishing stats to prove it. The Killington groom crew reportedly logs in the neighborhood of 30,000 hours per season, and the snowmakers create more artificial fluff than any other resort in Vermont.

Killington has put a lot of marketing energy into the annual contest among New England ski areas for the claim of having the longest season. Given its snowmaking capacity, Killington has basically made the contest a no-contest. Killington can typically boast of more than 210 days of skiing a year and logged an astonishing 246 days of skiing yes, eight months during the '83-'84 season.

Personally, I could care less if the area has two or three trails open in October or May, but that's not where the real pay-off comes for skiers. Getting a headstart on the season usually means extensive trail coverage by Thanksgiving and plenty of skiing in late April. At these times of year, Killington generally has more terrain to ski and a greater variety of terrain than anywhere else in New England.

The Killington snow guns also get plenty of help from Mother Nature. Killington lies not just in a snow belt but in a snow belt buckle: the average annual snowfall at Killington is about three times what it is ten miles away in any direction. You may have heard about Killington's notoriety for inflating its snowfall reports nothing new to ski areas. But even if the ski area might stretch the truth, I can attest to the anomalously heavy snowfall at Killington; I've driven Route 4 over Sherburne Pass near Killington enough times to confirm that natural snow depths are invariably much deeper here than in outlying neighborhoods.

Another thing about Killington is that, for all of its size and hype, its ambition has not o'erlept itself, to paraphrase Macbeth. It has not left master plans to yellow on the drafting table, as most resorts have a habit of doing. When Killington says it is going to do something, it does it. Thus, Killington can't disappoint you. If you read the brochures and the advertisements, Killington tells you what to expect lots of everything and that's just what you get.

Now I don't know anybody interested in skiing all 147 trails other than for the sake of some personal, pathological obsession. My way of skiing, which I think is typical of most skiers, involves sticking to the half dozen or so trails that best match my interest and ability and which have the best snow. So on any give day, the typical skier will find more than 90 percent of the ballyhooed trail count to be excess baggage. One benefit of all those trails and lifts, though, is that it spreads skiers out. That's important, given one more stat that Killington can pocket more skier days than any other New England ski area.

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For my Killington dollar, I still find most of the best terrain to be that which has been around longest, the trails that can be skied from the original Killington double chair. I'm also partial to the cruising trails at Rams Head, partly because they tend to get less skier traffic than the blue runs from the Snowdon and Superstar lifts and mostly because they get more sun. This incidentally points up a big asset to the Killington sprawl: Its multiple exposures greatly enhance the chances of finding a satisfactory combination of good snow and good weather conditions (i.e., sun, wind protection).