Dave McComb, a snowboarder who administers a Facebook group called Killington Locals+, was worried in early 2023 when he heard that POWDR, owner of Killington Resort, was selling to Alterra Mountain Company, a Denver corporation that owns 11 ski areas. He was relieved when Killington officials announced last summer they were headed in a different direction — Utah-based POWDR, a big corporation, was selling control to more than a dozen private investors, many of them locals and people who have long skied the mountain east of Rutland. "It's going into the hands of a few guys who really care about the mountain and want to invest in it," said McComb, who owns vacation rentals in the Town of Killington. He's particularly relieved the resort wasn't purchased by Alterra, which owns Stratton and Sugarbush in Vermont, or by Vail Resorts, which owns 42 ski areas, including Vermont's Stowe, Okemo and Mount Snow. Both Vail and Alterra have drawn complaints about overcrowding on the slopes and at parking lots, McComb noted — a situation that skiers largely blame on Alterra's Ikon and Vail's Epic passes, which allow skiers access to the companies' networks of ski resorts around the world. While Killington will continue to accept the Ikon pass, the new owners have pledged to avoid crowding problems in part by limiting use of the pass to just seven days per season, as POWDR did. Killington skiers had worried that a new corporate owner wouldn't impose that limit. "Great win for Vermont. Now do Stowe," one Reddit commenter wrote of the resort's buyers, the Killington Independence Group. Killington opened in 1958, and S-K-I Ltd., the company formed by its founder, Preston Smith, grew to include Sunday River in Maine and Mount Snow in Vermont. In 1996, S-K-I sold Killington to the now-closed American Skiing Company. POWDR bought the area in 2007 and invested millions in a new lodge, new high-speed lifts, new gondola cabins and snowmaking improvements. The ski industry has experienced years of consolidation, and it's rare for a resort to return to private ownership. While there are still several privately owned and nonprofit ski areas in Vermont, including Bolton Valley Resort, Smugglers' Notch, and Mad River Glen in Fayston, the trend has been for companies such as Alterra and Colorado-based Vail to snap up the larger resorts. Jay Peak was sold two years ago to Pacific Group Resorts in…