Thursday, November 7, 2013

Won't be long........


Greetings,
 
Okemo has had a couple days of snowmaking and now we will sit tight as some warm weather comes through.  After making snow for 50 hours or so, I can say we are happy with the new snow guns.  We have been hitting our marks with pumping water and the air being used is less, just as they were advertised.  This time of the year getting some rain like we are today, Thursday, is not a bad thing.  Replenishing the streams is always good when it is as dry as it has been.
With snowmaking going full steam ahead, there has been a renewed buzz around the resort.  The lift maintenance staff worked hard this past week with some other employees and completed the load test on the Green Ridge Triple chair.  This test is required every 7 years and involves loading the chairs with 110% of expected weight.  Okemo uses water in boxes lined with trash bags. The Green Ridge passed with flying colors.  The facilities department has been helping the culinary staff moving food into the summit lodge and sugar house before the snow flies to make it easier on everyone. The paper products and non-perishables are transported in early and stored in the buildings.  The maintenance staff is also finishing up capital projects, doing some carpentry, shampooing carpet and getting things looking good.

So what does next week look like?  Cold weather is forecasted to return soon. We are going to try and make snow on Friday night and thru the weekend as we can and the beginning of the week looks promising.  We are very close to having top to bottom skiing and riding.  My best guess is that we will begin with the F-10 carpet, Sachem Quad with skiing down to the Northstar Quad and then skiing on Upper and Lower World cup.  Work is going strong on Sapphire, down Upper Arrow to Lower Arrow and the Green Ridge to.  Okemo is going to be aggressive and it looks like we won’t have any problem opening on November 16th or perhaps before?

I will work on keeping you up to speed here as well as on our FB page and Okemo.com

Thanks for reading and we can’t wait to begin skiing and riding with you all!

Bruce Schmidt

Okemo GM