Okemo 1/1

[Jisch]

We left this morning expecting to go to Killington (neither my son or I have ever been to K-town) we expect that even if there are lift closures its big enough that it wouldn't be too crowded. I checked the website as we left the house at 6:30 and it was hard to figure out how the wind was affecting the lifts up there. As time goes by, the lift report sure looks like half or more of the lifts are either shut down or under wind hold. I look around at a couple other sites and decide that Okemo looks a LOT better, so we re-direct.

We get to the ticket counter at Okemo at 9:00 or so (parked in the first lot!) and the attendant tells us all the upper lifts are under wind hold so we can go ski for free until 10:00 to determine if we felt it was worth a lift ticket. We do an hour tour and find out that it's only the Northstar lift that was down. The South Face was great and completely empty! We happily pay for a ticket and head back up.

We spent all day up at the top of the mountain on nearly empty trails. The few times we came down to warm up the number of skiers down low was insane! So glad we could avoid that (thanks to Okemo's planning I guess).

Conditions were not perfect, the base was a serious hardpack, with some patches of ice, but really 90% of the surface was really skiable and didn't get brushed off even at the end of the day. Certainly not hero snow, but good enough to carve turns no problem. One trail that stood out in a bad way was Rimrock. 75% solid ice on the upper portion of it. I saw a few trails that were closed, but there was plenty open to keep us both happy - we never even went over to Gore (last year when we went over there it was a mob scene).

It was FREAKING COLD. I had three layers on under my jacket, balaclava, hat, hand warmers etc, etc and just about every lift ride up was misery, plain and simple. Both my son and I suffered through brain freeze multiple times from the wind blasting us on the lifts. It was a good time to find out that the anti-fog on my goggles was ineffective. Hello ski shop...

We had a great day of skiing despite the cold. They opened Northstar around 1:30 or so, though it was half speed. Amazing how they can groom ice like that and still make it work. Sorry - forgot my camera (and there was an unbelievable light situation that set up around 3:30 on the south face - I was so mad I forgot it).

John

 

[KevinF]

I was over at Okemo as well on New Year's Day. I got there first thing; the Northstar chair was running at first, but the wind up top was unreal. I was amazed they were even running it. Skied down World Cup, got back on the Northstar, and headed over to Solitude and Jackson Gore. Still frost-bite danger cold over there, but the wind wasn't so bad. As Josh said, absolutely nobody around.

Made it over to the south Face after lunch. It was so empty that I was wondering if I had ventured onto a closed trail... i.e., was the south face lift even running? Thankfully it was. I lapped every trail over there a couple times until I was too tired to continue, so went back to the base and back home.

Conditions were ummmmmm, interesting. Most turns usually seemed to involve two or three different conditions underfoot. But the stuff held an edge beautifully so you could turn 'em easily. Rimrock, as Josh said, was a hockey rink; I wound up sideslipping most of it.

I was there solo; only once did I ride up with somebody else. The longest "lift line" I saw was one person long, and that happened once. I've never seen any ski area that empty.

 

[Jisch]

Terrain park

Oh, one last thing - admittedly I've been out of the sport for a while. I've seen all the hoopla about terrain parks. I skied down the big terrain park trail a few times yesterday, there was hardly anyone on those trails and never saw anyone hitting any of the big stuff - is this stuff as popular as the websites make it seem or are they marketing to people who talk bigger than they go?

John (tried to hit the sides of one of the smaller jumps and landed at the top of a drop off, not cool!).

 

[KevinF]

Oh, one last thing - admittedly I've been out of the sport for a while. I've seen all the hoopla about terrain parks. I skied down the big terrain park trail a few times yesterday, there was hardly anyone on those trails and never saw anyone hitting any of the big stuff - is this stuff as popular as the websites make it seem or are they marketing to people who talk bigger than they go?

John (tried to hit the sides of one of the smaller jumps and landed at the top of a drop off, not cool!).

I don't go to Okemo enough to judge how popular their various terrain parks are, but I usually see a pretty good crowd at the terrain parks at the various resorts I go to. Yesterday's conditions -- variable snow conditions and high winds -- aren't exactly conducive to "going big". I sure wouldn't want to crash hard on the snow conditions Okemo had, and I'd be terrified about getting blown off-course mid-jump by the wind.

 

[crank]

Thanks for the reports guys. My son and I are heading up to Okemo tomorrow morning. We plan to start from Jackson Gore. We make it a point to not hit the base area if at all possible.

 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

Oh, one last thing - admittedly I've been out of the sport for a while. I've seen all the hoopla about terrain parks. I skied down the big terrain park trail a few times yesterday, there was hardly anyone on those trails and never saw anyone hitting any of the big stuff - is this stuff as popular as the websites make it seem or are they marketing to people who talk bigger than they go?

John (tried to hit the sides of one of the smaller jumps and landed at the top of a drop off, not cool!).

Windy days suck for park-rats/Jibhonks..

 

[crank]

Okemo very good today. got to JG base area about 9:15. Booted up inside and were skiing by 9:40ish. A hard and fast base with some good grooming and a few inches of fresh nat. Bumps on Sel's Choice were very nice - bulle tproof troughs but about 5-6" of fluff on the tops so your mogul technique was dictated by the conditions: absorb and turn on the tops. Nice bump run over at JG too, I don't recall it's name.

Crowds not too bad at all. Beautiful winter weather. Longest line was for Northstar about 5 minutes. Everything else was 1 minute or less. Best spot on the hill today was actually the little Moonshadow neighborhood lift that tops out just above the Solitude base. Lots of fun spots for fresh snow in multimillion dollar ski house yards. The amount of powder on top of solid crust was at a point where you could find some fun turns and some dust on hard, slick crust. Fun but you had to be careful. Glades looked skiable, and, judging from the tree shots we took would have been ok, but you would have to ski very carefully and we ducked no ropes.

Fun day. Long drive. Just letting Tivo get a few minutes ahead before I go up to watch overtime in the Chargers v. Colts - great game!