Friday, March 16, 2018

Five feet of snow in March!




Greetings,

We are at the midway point of the month of March and have received, on average, around 140” of snow to date and about 60” for the month of March …  it doesn’t get any better than this! After the third nor’easter, some might say “uncle,” but I would say call your “uncle, and get him up here for some skiing and riding! 

We anticipate maintaining our full trail count for a while, looking at the long range weather. The lift count will fluctuate in the 9-12 range midweek, and 20 for the weekends, with potential adjustments being done later in the month. Snowmaking by machine has ended for the season. The snowmakers and groomers did a great job getting us up and going and taking care of the many weather events we have had. Mother Nature took over for March and they didn’t need to fire up the guns.

As many of you heard, Okemo announced a partnership with Vail Resorts to begin a long-term alliance beginning next winter, to be part of the Epic Pass. Pass holders who purchase Epic, Epic Local and Epic Australia will receive seven days of skiing and snowboarding with no blackout dates at each of our three resorts: Okemo, Mount Sunapee and Crested Butte. Epic 7-Day pass holders can use any, or all seven, of their total days, and Epic 4-Day pass holders can use any, or all four, of their total days of skiing and snowboarding with no blackout dates at the three resorts. Guest can then purchase tickets at a 50% off rate for the duration of the season.  Okemo Gold, Ultimate & Classic pass holders will be able to purchase 50% off single day tickets at the Vail Resort Ski Areas. We are excited about this alliance and look forward to having Epic Pass skiers and riders experiencing Okemo.

Okemo is hosting its annual Sugar Daze concert on St Patrick’s Day this coming Saturday, March 17. The featured band is Blues Traveler. This event should be fun with nice weather forecasted, although a coat may be needed. Music begins at 3:30 with Braiden Sunshine & Jake Kulak; at 5pm Pete Kilpatrick Band; and at 7pm Blues Traveler to finish out the evening.

Okemo is committed to staying as close to full operations as we can as we head towards the end of March and Easter weekend. There will, no doubt, be some adjustments of services, but our goal is to make the least of an impact to our guests as is possible. There will be operations changes because of weather and we will do our best to let you know of these before you begin your ski day. Once Easter rolls around, we will be looking at more significant adjustments to operations and services – at least midweek. I get asked daily what our closing day will be, and at this point our plan is to close on Sunday April 15* As always the * (asterisk) means weather-dependent.  


Bruce Schmidt
Vice-President & General Manager
Okemo Mountain Resort