The options are dwindling but spring skiing warriors still have a pick of three New England resorts to get some corn-sloshing turns in this weekend before the lifts grind to a season-ending halt. Skiing into May is a rare treat.

Sugarloaf, which is boasting 53 open trails, plans to outlast Killington and vie with Jay Peak for the King of Spring crown, with both northern mountains pledging to stay open until May 2nd.

Meanwhile, the Beast of the East, citing forecasts of rain and its “thinning snow pack” as cause for its closing on Sunday, April 25, took a drubbing this week on its blog by angry patrons pining for the days of sliding down the Superstar glacier in June —or at least until early May, when it closed last year. “That’s bogus! You have plenty of snow on Superstar to go another week,” ranted one poster named Jason. “To think we used to ski here in June and now you won’t even give us May when you have the snow. LAME. LAME. LAME.”

Noting that the central Vermont resort shut down on April 20th in 2007, Killington spokesman Tom Horrocks said unseasonably warm temps in early spring — and not dwindling skier visits — was the reason for it shutting down on Sunday. “It’s not a premature closing. Snow melts,” he said. Mother Nature, while showering her love on golfers this spring, was cruel to skiers and riders, denying us big dumps in March and then creating rivers on the slopes with record-shattering temperatures in the 80s over Easter, even in the northernmost parts of Vermont and Maine.”

But those downhill diehards who ventured north to Wildcat last weekend while their neighbors planted geraniums or headed to the links got a parting gift from winter: a snow shower that coated trails and glazed treetops. “It was freaking incredible,” said Wildcat’s Thomas Prindle, whose resort picked up 10 inches of snow — and no rain —last weekend, allowing it to close Monday with 33 open trails. “It was a great weekend, with good turnout, lots  of good snow and mid-winter conditions. It was a solid high note for us to end on.

Up to three inches also fell on Sugarbush in Vermont, where I spent the resort’s final day on Sunday, April 18, doing laps on Stein’s Run, a top-to-bottom field of mushy, super-sized moguls, one of only two trails open.

Sugarloaf also received 8 to 10 inches, creating an odd site as dreadlocked reggae bands playing in its annual festival rocked outdoors while it snowed.

“It really helped out a lot,” said Sugarloaf’s Ethan Austin. “The surfaces needed to be freshened up. There was some brown mixed in and it perked things up.”

But it was a volcano on an island in the north Atlantic, and not cool temps, that helped keep the Metro and Jet Triple chair lifts spinning at Jay Peak this past week. “We had planned to close midweek and reopen for the weekend but re-adjusted plans when a group of British kids got ‘stranded’ at the resort because their flights home were canceled by the volcano in Iceland,” said Jay Peak’s Kim Hewitt, noting that the resort remained open during the week to accommodate the Brits.