Okemo Full Steam Ahead

Greetings,

 

By now you know that Okemo has opened for the season!  It was a yeoman’s effort from everyone. While the snowmakers and groomers were doing their job, the rest of the staff were hard at work getting everything ready to open 10 days early.  There are so many departments which must work together to get the resort up and going.  They were all given 48 hours’ notice and pulled it off great.  It is like trying to get the train going, it takes some time, but once it gets moving, it keeps on chugging along.

We have had some good weather for snowmaking and this has allowed our snowmakers to move quickly.  This weekend we are at 7 trails and 2 lifts. While we are continuing to shuttle up to the Northstar lift, I am glad to say that we are no longer downloading as World Cup is open from top to bottom. 

 

 

So where are we headed?  For the next few days it looks like the snowmakers will have a couple days off.  Snowmaking temps look to be returning by Tuesday night.  Once the temperatures return, the plan will be to patch up needed areas on existing terrain and then head for new terrain. We are very close, probably just one night of snowmaking away, from completing the Sapphire, Upper Arrow, Double Dipper connection down into the base of the Green Ridge Triple.  Once this is the plan will be to begin to expand towards Solitude as well as the Rimrock area.  This time of the year we have to follow the temperatures and normally that means up on the summit areas.  If there are any temperatures in the base area, we will head there as our number #1 goal will be to have top to bottom skiing from the base area.  We are very optimistic about having much more terrain for the Thanksgiving holiday. The Terrain park staff has some rails and features out on the slopes and will expand this as we add more terrain. 

Our November 8^th opening was the fourth earliest in the history of Okemo.  The earliest was the 97/98 season when we opened on Halloween, although we had to close as the temps went up.  The earliest opening day and staying open was 02/03 on November 2^nd.  Okemo was the 2^nd resort in Vermont to open and the 3^rd in New England this season.  The work that was done on our snowmaking system this past summer and the capital purchase of new snowguns has paid off with early season snow.

 

Thanks for your support and enjoy the snow.

Bruce Schmidt

Okemo GM