Has anyone been to Okemo lately?

[noonan]

The Okemo website has an interactive trail map showing moguls on Ledges, Sels Choice and Upper Limelight. Black Out shows moguls, but also shows groomed, so I don't know what that means.

I was at Okemo Tuesday (1/29) and skied all 4 of those trails. Here's how I would rank the quality of bumps relative to each other. Keep in mind, this was Tuesday. After Friday's sleet/freezing rain/rain storm, I wouldn't even think of going anywhere near any bumps.

Black Out: FAVORITE. Perfectly spaced. Multiple lines to chose from. Consistent the whole way down.

Sel's Choice: Pretty good, but the troughs seemed kind of deep which led to some minor control issues.

Ledges: They were a little better than OK. There were two horizontal breaks in the bump lines as if there should be jumps before the breaks.

Upper Limelight: Eh, they were just OK. Not very consistent as far as lines go, and oddly spaced.

 

[Greg]

Next Okemo Marketing Campaign!

OKEMOGULS

:lol:

 

[danny p]

^^^ anything is better than their current marketing. always get a chuckle out of the "always blowing" billboard on the way to k.

 

[jaywbigred]

They have a somewhat funny radio ad going here in the NYC metro area. A conversation btwn a wife, who has asked her husband to "take care of the snowy driveway," and that husband, whose job is as an Okemo snowmaker. Instead of shoveling the driveway like the wife hoped, he has groomed it. I have to admit I chuckled, and thankfully, I did not hear any of the Okemorbidly Overused pun.

 

[Rushski]

I was at OK last Friday. They actually had Big Bang open over on the Jackson Gore side. Ungroomed and some very inconsistent bumps. Unfortunately had many ice spots. But it was pretty good practice skiing the various terrain and conditiosn all in one trail...

 

[jack97]

Sel's Choice: Pretty good, but the troughs seemed kind of deep which led to some minor control issues.

Sel's has mogul and the terrain park, thus the freestyle team uses this trail for practice. One time while doing laps, I followed the team going down the fall line, each time they rutted the troughs deeper. By mid morning, I had to bail on the line b/c the troughs were so deep and you had to direct/aim your skis in a tight space. By early afternoon I saw dirt in some of those troughs.

 

[tequiladoug]

I'll be at Okemo tomrow w/my crew of 100 or so. I planned to sacrifice a virgin today to Ullr, so themtn would get all snow and no rain/ice but I couldnt find any.

 

[WJenness]

They have a somewhat funny radio ad going here in the NYC metro area. A conversation btwn a wife, who has asked her husband to "take care of the snowy driveway," and that husband, whose job is as an Okemo snowmaker. Instead of shoveling the driveway like the wife hoped, he has groomed it. I have to admit I chuckled, and thankfully, I did not hear any of the Okemorbidly Overused pun.

I heard the same commercial on my way to ski at Wachusett last night... my thought was (somewhat disproved by the change in philosophy discussed in other threads as of late) at least she doesn't have to worry about him turning it into a mogul field.

-w

 

[shadyjay]

Okemo is one of my favorite mountains as I find a lot of great groomed terrain. Yes, they aren't as steep as other mountains, and groom about 90% of their open terrain, but for me being a snowboarder who is anti-mogul, I love it. Its where I learned to snowboard and used to do day trips there from CT when I lived down there. Now that I live up near Montpelier, I don't get down to Okemo too much, but still get 2-4 days in there. It'll always hold a special place in my heart, second only to Sugarbush where I learned how to ski (along with a molehill in CT that closed a couple years ago).

I was there at Okemo last Friday and had a great time. Snow conditions didn't disappoint, and in all of my countless visits there over the years, there has only been 1 day when conditions weren't up to par. Wish I could say that 'bout other resorts.

 

[madskier6]

I too am one of those people who always has fun whenever I go to Okemo. It is not one of my favorite mountains because I think it lacks character & significant challenge but I can never say that the skiing sucked or that it wasn't fun. They seem to consistently deliver a quality snow product to ski on. The mountain's character is a lot less important when you're having a fun day on the hill.

There also is some underrated terrain over at South Face & Jackson Gore IMHO.

 

[Newpylong]

I've found their skiing "product" to be highly overated and despite having a ton of runs, every trail always seemed jammed if not dangerous at times. I find there are very few trails there worthwhile, punchline and stump jumper, defiance, and the plunge.

 

[tequiladoug]

I was there Saturday, the Okemo greeter said 106 trails open, 6" of new snow inthe last 24BUT all the summit lifts were closed due to wind.

There was pretty long lines until they finished opening all the lifts around 11

Not sure what to call the new snow - more like sugar then powder. And they DID NOT groom it, pretty fun to ski on it and I was really suprised it held up all day, well except for one trail that the wind ruined.

After our late lunch there was pretty much no wait at the lifts & we skied until 4pm, then headed down to Killarney’s Irish bar..and some how (I am normally the total opposite of someone with "game") picked up a couple cute snowbunnies! good times. :beer:

 

[gmcunni]

I was there Saturday, the Okemo greeter said 106 trails open, 6" of new snow inthe last 24BUT all the summit lifts were closed due to wind.

There was pretty long lines until they finished opening all the lifts around 11

Not sure what to call the new snow - more like sugar then powder. And they DID NOT groom it, pretty fun to ski on it and I was really suprised it held up all day, well except for one trail that the wind ruined.

i was there this weekend too. i was skiing with my 13 YO son so perhaps we were on a different set of trails but i thought it was a WELL GROOMED mountain both days.

I searched out the bump trailed mentioned earlier in this thread and took a few pictures. I'll upload later tonight for a quick Trip Report. Short story, yes, they have bumps, but Killington Outer Limits it was not.

 

[roark]

i was there this weekend too. i was skiing with my 13 YO son so perhaps we were on a different set of trails but i thought it was a WELL GROOMED mountain both days.

I was there for the free hour or so.

They definitely groomed almost everything (one trail @ JG def wasn't... some funky semi breakable crust there). Perhaps some more sugary snow-like stuff fell later but def. groomed.

Some of the rollers were fun, I was caught 'rolling up the windows' after catching a bit more air than I expected.

 

[tequiladoug]

huh, I looked and looked (especially on the sides) and found no sign of any groomers tracks

 

[campgottagopee]

Has anyone been to Okemo lately?

Nah, place reminds me too much of Whitefce:razz:

 

[MRGisevil]

I've never been to Okemo, but I do wanna check it out at some point for the sake of checking it out....only problem is I don't wanna pay. If my ski club has a discount day this winter I might give it a shot...

 

[highpeaksdrifter]

Has anyone been to Okemo lately?

Nah, place reminds me too much of Whitefce:razz:

:lol: Good one Camp

 

[KevinF]

I was there on Sunday. I spent a lot of time over at Jackson Gore or the South Peak area in the morning (avoided the main central part of the mountain like the plague until the afternoon). The only insanely-crowded section was the top part of the South Peak area, since all the traffic gets funneled down one trail for a while. After noon pretty much everybody went home to watch the Super Bowl, so I had the place to myself for the afternoon session.

As previously mentioned, there's a sugar type coating on everything. Holds an edge pretty well, so I could fairly easily make whatever turn shape I desired. The high-traffic areas had developed little sugar-pile "bumps" that could make for a bouncy ride.

I stuck a pole into the natural snow off to the side of the trail a couple times. Really crunchy stuff -- breakable crust at it's worst. Needless to say, none of their tree runs were open. I detest machine-made ice bumps, so I avoided them.

All-in-all, it was a fun low-key type of day.

 

[kingslug]

OK so my question is this: Whats better, Hunter or Okemo? The reason I ask this is that Snowbird tours has bus trips every week up to Okemo. Or I could drive to Hunter. Problem is that Hunter has not been getting much snow and Okemo has. But I need a bit of a challenge to keep my interest. If Okemo has good bump runs that are not composed of solid ice I would be interested. Plus I don't have to drive and it costs $80.00 for the whole thing which is cheaper than driving to hunter.