Greetings,
Some rain this week will bring out the fall colors, no doubt. Columbus Day is 3 short weeks away!
Have you seen the latest Farmer’s Almanac forecast map? Now this is showing us the way winter should be!
I use this with props given to the 2012 Farmers Almanac to emphasize that this coming winter will be one to remember. We have all heard the old timers' signs of a tough impending winter coming; lots of acorns, bees sectioning off the hive early, squirrels gathering nuts early and wooly caterpillars being brown, black or all brown or all black!
Here are a few you probably haven’t heard of: woodpeckers sharing a tree, thick hair on back of a cow’s neck, early arrival of crickets on the hearth, spiders entering the house in great numbers, and my all time favorite... "See how high the hornet’s nest, ‘twill tell how high the snow will rest".
So what does it mean? Probably very little, but we do like to talk about it. I can tell you that all of us here at Okemo are confident in a great winter, and we are even willing to bet this winter will be one of the best in recent memory.
So when will the snowguns start blowing? As soon as the temperatures drop! This summer there has been a considerable amount of work done on our snowmaking infrastructure, with pumps rebuilt at the mid-mountain pump station and motors upgraded in the base pump station. We also added $150,000 of new snow guns to our arsenal of heavy duty snow guns. Throw in a couple new snow cats (one specific to maintaining our terrain parks) and things are looking really good!
If you are in town, take a drive up the Mountain road, check out the foliage and great views and envision all the snow that will be on the trails soon enough! Calvin the Catamount is predicting 176 inches for the season...
Bruce Schmidt
Okemo GM
