Ridiculous Conditions in New England
The S.G. hit Okemo this past weekend. It was the perfect destination for some early season warm up runs on slopes of groomed, packed powder, and powder. Mission easily accomplished on the 70+ trails they had open.
The quality of the snow surfaces and the amount of open terrain was so So SO….impressive. Everything I perused was very good to excellent. Was there an occasional spot of ice, of course? That is the nature of the game.
looks a lot like winter atop Okemo!
Honestly, you could rip an edge into anything out there on the mountain. It really was (and still is) as good as New England skiing gets. It is only early December. Seriously folks, make plans to get north ASAP.
Snow Surfaces: based on my own runs (20+)
78% packed powder
8% thin cover natural
14% pow pow Pow
Packed Powder: It was brilliant. Most everything open was groomed and it felt great to let the planks run fast on some wide-open runs. I will reiterate that the mountain operations did an exceptional good job buffing it up with the snow cats.
pic of a cat acompanied with 2 sleds heading to the under construction terrain park
Check this pop up, notice the tracks. This is at the base of Jackson Gore, so you know there is even deeper pow up on the mountain.
View image
Thin Cover: Any natural snow trail, w/o snowmaking and mowed all summer = soft small bumps on top of USGA Open rough. There were some spots showing, as expected on the non-snowmaking trails, but they were easy to avoid.
Q: Where is the Powder at?
A: in the trees
News Flash: A man in black seen ducking rope to find incredulous amounts of early December powder.
I realize that I should neither do these things, nor showcase them. But, quite honestly I could not give the conditions found this past weekend at Okemo any justice otherwise. The knee deep barely tracked lines I snagged on some of the terrain that still had a rope up in front of was unexpected and rewarding.
Okemo has got the snow! Lots of it!
Everyone is doing very well right now in New England, yet I can personally attest that what I ran into was way, Way, WAY above what I anticipated.
I got everything I was looking for out of my first two days on the snow, and then some. I made it back to the Hub after skiing all Sunday morning in time for the entiire Patriots game. Still playing catch up…
More to follow later this week.
Pictures all taken at Okemo 12/8 & 12/9 ~ S.G.
