Sunday, February 22, 2009

Snowy Day at Okemo

We went to Okemo today, and it snowed all day. We probably got a half foot of snow during the time we were there, and it made getting home a little stressful. But there were few people at the mountain, so we had great conditions with no crowds, which made it fun to ski some of the trails we have not been on much this season. J. skied most of the mid range trails today and given the conditions was handling them well. Some of the narrower ones like Jolly Green Giant are only worth doing on powdery days like today. We started around the Green Ridge triple, then went over to Solitude, back up to the top, and then had lunch at the peak, followed by a stop at the Loft afterwords.

Both driving back, and leaving the cabin, was tricky. There was a lot of snow on the road and we were lucky than we'd just put new tires on the car, and that the town plow truck did our road about 5 min before we had to leave.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Lots of fun stuff over Presidents Day weekend.

This is at Bromley, on a very sunny day.
These are the girls at the top of Okemo.

Here we are in Chester, after a horse drawn ride around the village.



This is at the top of the Yodeler run at Bromley.


Monday, February 09, 2009

Warm but Icy Conditions at Okemo over Weekend

On Sunday we went to Okemo to ski on an unseasonably warm February day. It was pleasant in temperature -- Colorado had been colder -- but because of a windy, rainy night beforehand the conditions were scratchy and icy on the top part of the main mountain. At the base area, things were slushy and unpleasant, and things were nothing at all like the advertised "packed powder" the website so cheerfully was claiming as of 6:44am. So after getting tired of having my skis fail to bite into the trail, I made my way down to the tuning shop where I had the edges sharpened up.

While that was happening I checked in on my sister and her friend who had decided to take lessons. It looked like they were having fun and making progress in gaining new skills. Afterwards we took them to Mountain Services to get them ID cards, although the new cards don't have as many of the special perks they used to give in previous years. Hopefully things will be colder for the big coming holiday week, they need to blow some snow to improve the trail conditions.