Before the snow starts flying at Killington, the Vermont resort wants to make sure there is nothing underneath it that should not be there.
Killington Resort will host its annual Pepsi Mountain Clean-Up on Saturday, Oct. 3, inviting volunteers to spend the morning collecting trash from locations across the mountain before winter returns. Registration is free and currently open through the resort’s official Mountain Clean-Up page.
This year’s effort will place an emphasis on upper-mountain areas, with volunteers assigned specific walking routes or sections of the resort after checking in at Snowshed.
Trash collection runs from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., followed by lunch, a raffle and an afternoon party with live music.
Cleaning Up What Winter Leaves Behind
Ski resorts can look very different after the snow disappears.
Items dropped or lost during the winter, along with trash carried across the mountain, become much more visible once ski trails turn green. Killington’s fall cleanup gives volunteers an opportunity to walk those slopes before another winter buries everything again.
Killington says Casella will provide sorting stations for everything recovered during the cleanup so waste can be directed to the appropriate facilities.
The partnership fits into Killington’s larger waste-reduction efforts. The resort says its zero-sort recycling program with Casella handles approximately 98 tons of waste annually. Killington also reports diverting more than 200,000 pounds of food scraps from landfills through its composting efforts.
The cleanup itself has become an annual event. Killington held a similar Pepsi-sponsored mountain cleanup in 2025, while the first version of the event was introduced in 2024 as part of the resort’s sustainability efforts.
Volunteers Get Lunch, Music and a Raffle
The workday begins with check-in from 9 to 10 a.m. near the Umbrella Bar at Snowshed.
Volunteers will then head to their assigned sections of the mountain from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Complimentary lunch for registered participants runs from 12:30 to 2 p.m., followed by a raffle from 2 to 2:30 p.m. The afterparty continues until 4 p.m. with live music from Vermont trio Jenny & The Bets.
Participants need to register in advance and complete Killington’s event waiver.
The resort is positioning the day as both a volunteer effort and an excuse to spend an autumn day on the mountain before ski season arrives.
Killington Is Getting Ready for a Big Winter
The cleanup comes during a particularly active offseason at Killington.
Killington and neighboring Pico Mountain are investing $25 million in improvements for 2026, including lift projects, snowmaking upgrades and other mountain infrastructure work.
Killington is also preparing to host the Stifel Killington Cup from Nov. 27-29, when women’s World Cup alpine racing returns to Superstar. The resort’s current mountain report notes that the event is already less than three months away.
Before racers arrive, snowmaking begins and skiers return, Killington is asking the community to help with a much simpler job. Pick up what was left behind and start the next winter with a cleaner mountain.
