Hot Dog Hill is Open for the Season!

Ketchup, mustard, and relish, may be the more common hot dog toppings, but at Okemo we like to put a little butter on our dogs. Our Hot Dog Hill beginner-level terrain park opened for the season this past Saturday, ushering in another winter of freestyle ski and snowboard progression. From the greats like Ross Powers to your average Joe-y, they all have to start somewhere. The pint-sized park features small jumps and plenty of butters for up-and-coming X-Games medalists to get their start on. After busting your buns in this park for a little while, you'll be ready to move on to one of Okemo's other parks, including our SoBe Super Park on Nor'Easter.

(Interestingly enough, the gateway to Hot Dog Hill was built by a family of beavers, not Dachshunds. I only kid.)

Just because our Pipes and Parks crew is a top-rated team of feature-building experts doesn't mean they forgot about those of us who don't throw down backside 900s on our way to lunch. The history of terrain park building is one which can be characterized by many bucks and trends, but two things have remained constant: safety and progression. Hot Dog Hill is the type of park you can feel comfortable dropping the kids off at, or dropping into. So whether you're young or old, it's never too late to put a little air and butter beneath your feet.

Show Us Whatcha Learned

I just walked up with Jeff from events to scope out the setup for tomorrow's "What I Learned This Summer Rail Jam." Skiers and riders will be faced with a box so long they could eat a ham sandwich while sliding it. According to the Okemo Parks facebook page, the box is 115 feet long! There could even be a surprise feature at the end. The Parks and Pipes crew is still stirring their cauldron coming up with new concoctions, and we don't bother them when they're doing their mad scientist thing. Doesn't it look like that snowmobile is sliding the box? That would be pretty gnarly.

A live DJ will keep the energy level up all day with fresh tracks to get your shred on to. There's up to $500 in cash prizes to be awarded to the winners and a t-shirt toss at the end of the day. This is serious business. Not too serious though, because we like to keep it fun. If you're competing, good luck. If you're not, bring a camera! It's gonna be fun!

Opening-Day Jitters

I don't know about you, but every year when I'm heading up the lift for my first run of the season I'm a little bit nervous. Maybe it's a combination of being anxious to take my first run and worrying that over the summer my body somehow forgot how to snowboard. But sure enough, every year when I strap in and get going it all comes back to me and I can breathe a sigh of relief. Muscle memory is an amazing thing. It's funny because I'm usually pretty confident in my abilities, but for that brief few minutes when I'm riding the first chair of the season to the top of the run, I have doubts whether I'll be able to pickup where I left off the previous season.

(No opening-weekend worries here. For this ripper, the rails on Sapphire were a welcome sight after a long off season.)

So all this got me thinking yesterday while I was riding the Sachem chair up to the top for my inaugural run. Do the first-day jitters ever go away? At a certain age and after decades of skiing or snowboarding does the year's first run become no big deal? Maybe after experiencing opening-day anxiety enough times and subsequently overcoming it, you realize that it's not worth harping on. I'm not sure though, because I still get it. Maybe after another decade or two I'll see the other side. It's kind of nice though when you take that first run and after just a few yards down the trail, all your worries wash away -- both the first-day jitters and all the rest too.