The Okemo mountain thread

[MidnightJester]

Lets talk about the current Good and the Bad for Okemo as its own mountain with minimal Vail mentions lol.

So just finished doing a Okemo outing this past Sunday and wanted to give a little update on the Mountain and it running after they received 14"+ over 48hrs and were just about 100% open. Best of season conditions this year and they had a good product on display. I parked in the lower FREE lots and was happy to see a Bus/Shuttle come by very regularly(every 10 minutes or less). While a few mountains were very busy or had longer lift lines Okemo's lines were very reasonable surprisingly for Sunday 3/5/23 . The Sunburst six lift was only slightly long at 20 minutes or so at 10am and all other lifts were around 5 minutes or less. Not sure if Okemo's Saturday lift and heavy snow issues scared people away or they dispersed to other mountains with the fresh snow around all mountains.

Annoyingly Okemo shut a listed 3:45 lift (Glades peak lift) at 3:15 for no reason it seems but to do it earlier.

The Mountain was riding great on Sunday on all trails and Glades with very silky heavy powder snow which was mostly packed powder except along sides of trails or in spots or trees. Was able to do every listed Okemo(main mountain) glade except Outrage but that was due to lift closing earlier then I expected. All the Listed Okemo glades (main mountain) were fun this day. Can say their Rum run Blue glades were a blast to lap/run multiple times.. I Would look forward to getting fresh tracks in there in the future or if you are new to skiing and riding in the glades and trees

Talking to a Mountain operations guy who got on a late lift I was on said that vail had kept a decent amount of the Rented Compressors and didn't return them at the end of February like usual to possibly make snow later into the season I would guess.

 

[jimmywilson69]

Okemo is fine. My wife likes to ski there because its easy (at least for me and most people on this forum). There is nothing wrong with that. Hit it on a powder day on Presidents week and it was good. Everytime I got in line someone was complaining about all of the moguls . To be fair there were moguls everywhere. Okemo doesn't regularly cater to that type of skier and there isn't anything wrong with that either. Their grooming is pretty top notch and I like to rip groomers as much as I like to ski steep trees. Their stock of on mountain or adjacent to mountain lodging is impressive. Something their big brother to the north (Killington) wishes they have.

Ludlow as a town is pretty decent, too. Its not nearly as "quaint" as Stowe, but at least there is a walkable town. That's also something that Killington wishes they had I bet.

Pairing a Killington and Okemo Trip works well for me for a lot of reasons. I think if I ever were to move to VT I'd probably locate somewhere within easy access of both.

 

[NYDB]

can they put in a lift that goes from a base area to someplace worth skiing and not another lift? that shit sucks.

 

[jimmywilson69]

Yeah strange that they recreated that scenario at Jackson Gore

 

[KustyTheKlown]

i assume its because lower mountain lift immediately adjacent to a base lodge is their bread and butter for making that ski school $

 

[urungus]

i assume its because lower mountain lift immediately adjacent to a base lodge is their bread and butter for making that ski school $

That is fine, but don’t start your summit lift at the top of the beginner lift, the summit lift should also go down to the base area.

 

[drjeff]

That is fine, but don’t start your summit lift at the top of the beginner lift, the summit lift should also go down to the base area.

Not sure they have the real estate to do that at their Main Base area without a major overhaul of their lift alignments in that area, and Jackson Gore, I think it's more about the length of what that lift would be as well as suspectibility of wind holds for such a lift, and I am guessing that they want to have some fairly reliable way to get folks out of the hotel/condo/base area there the vast majority of the season.

Okemo, like many resorts that have been around for decades and gone through many expansions over the years, would probably "re do" numerous lift alignments and base area buildings to make it more functional for what the resort looks like today verses when it was much more of a "blank canvas" 50+ years ago

 

[shadyjay]

I have no problem with Okemo... their grooming is really good but they do groom like 95% of their open terrain every night. There's not much of a challenge for me, personally, but I have gone from a nearly hundred-day/year season to half a dozen days a season. I do love their intermediate terrain and they have some nice long runs too... Tuckered Out over at Jackson Gore is one of my favorites.

Regarding their lift setup, it is kind of nice not having to go to the base area every time to go back up the mountain. The base area itself is pretty compact, so if there was a base-to-summit lift there, it would be a clusterf***. There's quite a bit of room for those taking lessons... I had my first snowboard lesson there and it was off one of the trails to looker's right of the base quads. They also have tons of on mountain housing and good lodges at the summit and elsewhere.

 

[Keelhauled]

That is fine, but don’t start your summit lift at the top of the beginner lift, the summit lift should also go down to the base area.

No one's making you go all the way down to the base every run. Personally I think that kind of setup is great, you only deal with base area chaos twice a day by necessity and otherwise you can ski the main mountain without the chokepoint and beginner traffic.

 

[Yo VT Raps]

You picked a very good weekend to go as far as fresh snow goes

 

[deadheadskier]

I'm not sure why people complain about the lower mountain beginner lifts at Okemo. They reduce the run out from the summit lifts and segregate the beginners to their own area.

The base areas would be even bigger clusterfucks if the summit lifts extended down there.

 

[ss20]

can they put in a lift that goes from a base area to someplace worth skiing and not another lift? that shit sucks.

I'm not sure if the technology exists yet for a lift from Okemo base to Magic or Killington.

 

[ss20]

I'm not sure why people complain about the lower mountain beginner lifts at Okemo. They reduce the run out from the summit lifts and segregate the beginners to their own area.

The base areas would be even bigger clusterfucks if the summit lifts extended down there.

Agreed, but I remember reading 15+ years ago they wanted to make one of the base A/B quads a detachable lift. Ridiculous that hasn't happened yet.... not only for access for upper mountain skiers but for beginners lapping that terrain too. That's a huge trend nowadays, putting a detachable lift in for pure beginners simply due to the ease of load/unload and to reduce the number of stops that occur with lower level skiers and fixed grip lifts. There's probably a dozen lifts around the country that have lift lengths shorter than the A/B quads and are detachable just for this scenario... let alone the critical access that those lifts provide.

 

[jimmywilson69]

I believe there are plans to rebuild the base lodge and reconfigure the entire base area. Would be nice to see that come to fruition. I also agree that a HS quad would be beneficial out of the base. It would move more people for sure. Hell they could replace it with a bubble 8! J/K as I know those aren't the easiest to load so I am told.

 

[drjeff]

Agreed, but I remember reading 15+ years ago they wanted to make one of the base A/B quads a detachable lift. Ridiculous that hasn't happened yet.... not only for access for upper mountain skiers but for beginners lapping that terrain too. That's a huge trend nowadays, putting a detachable lift in for pure beginners simply due to the ease of load/unload and to reduce the number of stops that occur with lower level skiers and fixed grip lifts. There's probably a dozen lifts around the country that have lift lengths shorter than the A/B quads and are detachable just for this scenario... let alone the critical access that those lifts provide.

Guessing that it's been one of those plans that is consistently on their "10 to 15yr master plan" that often keeps getting pushed to the bottom of their 10 to 15yr master plan given all that they have been doing with expansion (both with and without real estate attached to it), other lift upgrades, continuous snowmaking upgrades over the last 15 years or so.

Plus with both of those quads being Poma Alpha's which are major reliable workhorse lifts in the industry, and have been for decades, guessing that the reliability of those lifts is, and has been good, plus with the redundancy in them, that allows them to alternate during slower volume times, which lift is running which helps keep the hours down on them as well.

No doubt a HSQ or a HSS would make it easier for beginners in particular to get out the the main base area, but even them with the added size of the base area terminal on a high speed lift, and the already limited real estate that Okemo has there, that becomes a project where some signficant earth moving, let alone significent earth moving around a large number of residential units, some of which I am guessing are priamry residences, makes it a bit more logistically challenging.

As I mentioned before, I am guessing that if Okemo could go back a number of years, they'd make some changes in how the main base area in general is laid out in terms of base lodge location, lift location and configuration, and arguably even how many condos they built in that general proximity and redo a number of things that would allow for better flow around the mountain out of that core access point for the resort

 

[gmcunni]

I'm not sure why people complain about the lower mountain beginner lifts at Okemo. They reduce the run out from the summit lifts and segregate the beginners to their own area.

The base areas would be even bigger clusterfucks if the summit lifts extended down there.

I used to ski there regularly. Just get away from the base at the beginning of the day and don't go back until the end. Pretty simple strategy.

 

[deadheadskier]

I used to ski there regularly. Just get away from the base at the beginning of the day and don't go back until the end. Pretty simple strategy.

Exactly. It was my family's home mountain from 1987 through 2002. Pretty cool time to be a regular there with seemingly a new lift or trails going in almost every year.

We skied there probably at least 500 times during those years I probably hold the record for most runs ever on Sel's Choice. It was the only consistent bump run for many years and I'd spend most of my days skiing it. Wouldn't shock me if I have 10,000 runs down it. Some days I'd ski it 40 times.

We'd boot up at the base and just leave our shoes under a table there. Then bring a bag with lunch to the Sugar Shack and never go back to the base again until the end of the day. Worked really well

 

[jimmywilson69]

yeah no need to go to the base lodge ever at Okemo. Hell I try to avoid the Bubble 6 as much as possible. Just like any mountain, there are ways to avoid crowds. If you are skiing on a Saturday, there will be lift lines. That's just how it is and always has been.

 

[ColdRain&Snow]

I used to ski there regularly. Just get away from the base at the beginning of the day and don't go back until the end. Pretty simple strategy.

Yeah, I did that for along time there too. I’d go on the a/b once

It probably keeps a lot from the other lifts too

 

[NYDB]

How about 1 lift at each base area that brings you to a pod of trails you can ski and enjoy? not sideways?

okemo can't manage that?

summit lifts don't have to come down to the base area but their setup is odd.

I'm surprised you guys like it


also, Ludlow is terrible.

carry on.