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Okemo has the most skiable and ridable acres in the Northeast

giantfan

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May 13, 2013
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Does this surprise you?

There early season snowmaking has been pretty aggressive once they get going in past years.
 

xwhaler

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Nov 26, 2007
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Excellent I will be there on Sunday. Okemo does a very good job with early season ops

Sent from my VS980 4G using AlpineZone mobile app
 

ss20

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Jan 13, 2013
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A minute from the Alta exit off the I-15!
Yes, very. Southern Vermont, Killington, and Massachusetts all did a really great job this year and beat their northern neighbors by 2+ weeks. I'm very impressed and hope it's paying off for them.
 

ScottySkis

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Jan 16, 2011
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Yes, very. Southern Vermont, Killington, and Massachusetts all did a really great job this year and beat their northern neighbors by 2+ weeks. I'm very impressed and hope it's paying off for them.

I think that because south Vermont has more city people from Boston and NYC and Albany to draw from.
If the places in North Vermont wanted to I sure they could have started making snow early to but I guess it does pay off for them.
 

mbedle

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I've got to agree with Scotty on this one. Places like Stowe and Jay don't have business models to push for opening early. I would assume that places like Killington operate in the red during their early season and considered it just marketing costs. Based on the limited visits during their early season, I am guessing they don't generate enough money to pay for the electric to run the lifts. I just watched the north ridge chair for one minute and only 3 people got off. At least with Stowe, the way they have their chairlifts setup, they basically have to have top to bottom trail coverage to open early (the don't have any upper mountain only char lifts or mid stations, all pretty much run top to base). Killington has the north ridge area, which allows them to get full coverage for that chair with downloading to the base.
 

skiersleft

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I've got to agree with Scotty on this one. Places like Stowe and Jay don't have business models to push for opening early. I would assume that places like Killington operate in the red during their early season and considered it just marketing costs. Based on the limited visits during their early season, I am guessing they don't generate enough money to pay for the electric to run the lifts. I just watched the north ridge chair for one minute and only 3 people got off. At least with Stowe, the way they have their chairlifts setup, they basically have to have top to bottom trail coverage to open early (the don't have any upper mountain only char lifts or mid stations, all pretty much run top to base). Killington has the north ridge area, which allows them to get full coverage for that chair with downloading to the base.

Were you watching the north ridge chair today? Because people are now riding the gondola, supe chair and the other lifts. North ridge gets packed early season weekends when it's the only lift running. Long liftlines.

And you you should've seen Kton parking lot this past Saturday. Ridiculously packed. Overflow parking and cars parked down the access road. Had to park near maintenance building.

I have no ideal if they're in the red or not, but I just wanted to clarify that Kton is getting an awful lot of people early season weekends.
 

skiersleft

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Oh...and Kton has more of everything than Okemo today...

Trails - K 31 vs O 19
acres - K 132 vs O 125
miles - K 11 vs O 7

per today's trail report at both places. So I don't know how okemo's doing the math here.
 

mbedle

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Were you watching the north ridge chair today? Because people are now riding the gondola, supe chair and the other lifts. North ridge gets packed early season weekends when it's the only lift running. Long liftlines.

And you you should've seen Kton parking lot this past Saturday. Ridiculously packed. Overflow parking and cars parked down the access road. Had to park near maintenance building.

I have no ideal if they're in the red or not, but I just wanted to clarify that Kton is getting an awful lot of people early season weekends.

I was actually thinking back when they were only running the north ridge chair and downloading on K-1 (which I think they did for the first couple of weeks of operation). I wasn't their back in October, but even with the long lift lines on Ridge that still not a lot of people. During that time period is when I believe they are running in the red. I don't think I would necessarily call this time of the year to be early season.
 

deadheadskier

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The thread was from yesterday........

Even on their website, Okemo said yesterday........

I'm guessing that claim was based upon Killington's (and other mountains) own advertised skiable acreage at the start of the day
 

steamboat1

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Aug 15, 2011
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I just watched the north ridge chair for one minute and only 3 people got off.

That's the Canyon quad you see on the webcam. There's only one trail leading down to the chair at this time & you don't need to take the chair to get back up. The gondola is a faster ride to the top.
 
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mbedle

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My bad Steamboat1. Not a Killington skier, just assumed based on the cam's name it was the top of north ridge.
 
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