Snowmaking this season v. 5-year averages

Greetings,

I don’t have to tell you that spring skiing is upon us and the end is near. The Mountain Operations staff is working hard to keep the slopes and trails open. Grooming is continuing and the Winch cat has been getting used almost every night. This warmer weather has been affecting our ability to push the snow up from the bottom of the steep sections. Using the winch cat has helped no doubt and we will continue to do what we can. The winch cat is being used on trails were we wouldn’t normally use it like Wardance and Sapphire.

I was looking at some snowmaking numbers in comparison to last year. Here are some highlights:

--The snowmaking guns ran about 5.5% less this year than the average.

--Total gallons of water pumped was about 10.5% less this year than average

--The total gallons of diesel fuel used for the season was about a 12.1% increase over the 5-year average.

--Okemo saw a cost per gallon of fuel increase of 26.8% over the 5-year average in per gallon price.

The other side of the coin was that we were able to open up our terrain quickly compared to the weather and we led the pack on many days as we headed into late January and February. No doubt snowmakers were on the run more this year than ever before and we were fortunate in that we made snow on all our snowmaking trails except 5 of them.

Reminder that Okemo will be holding our FESTEVOL concert weekend with the Barenaked Ladies performing this coming Saturday 3/24 and Big Head Todd and the Monsters with Guster on Sunday 3/25. Tickets are available for purchase at okemo.com

Okemo plans to stay open as the snow holds. Now there are many things that can happen no doubt, but you need to be confident that all of us here at Okemo will do all we can to keep skiing and riding. Okemo will be there to provide the skiing product so our very important guests can have a place to take to the slopes.

Think snow and thanks for skiing and riding with us. If you want to follow what is going on from my desk, follow me on twitter @okemogm

See you on the slopes,

Bruce Schmidt
Vice-President & General Manager
Okemo Mountain Resort

twitter.com/okemogm