I've been skiing since I was 17 years old, which dates back to 1974. I loved it from the first time I ever stepped into a pair of skis.
I've skied about 75% of the major ski areas in North America through the years, but have never skied Europe nor do I really have any great desire. Nothing against the Alps, it's just that there is so much good skiing right here that I find it difficult to force myself to go that far when everything I want is here.
My personal tastes in ski areas has changed quite a lot through the years. Probably due to getting older and my body taking a pounding and fighting back. When I was younger I loved skiing bump runs all day, and could do it, nowadays, 1 or 2 bump runs a day is enough and some days even less than that.
I still like my terrain steep, but my back and legs prefer the groomed terrain now.
Most years we have just travelled to whatever part of the country had snow, this year me and my wife Cathy decided to get a place in Vermont.
As much as I love skiing, I'm hating the travelling part of it more each year. So we decided to do the majority of our skiing at one mountain. We chose Okemo Vermont.
Okemo is far from the most challenging mountain in the Northeast, but has a great lift network, and a lot of terrain. Factor in my wife only being in her 4th year of skiing, this is a mountain that she can ski, and I mean all of the mountain.
The other really nice part of having your own place is we can come and go when we want to. We only ski weekdays as we hate crowds, and both have season passes at Okemo.
Today, December 3rd was our first day out for the winter, and it could not have been better.
I've always loved cold and snow. I've skied in temps with windchills as low as -75F, and had the frostbite to prove it. I've skied in winds as high as 75MPH, I've skied in Blizzards, Rain, and everything in between. I love what you 'normal' people would call awful winter weather!! To me it is paradise.
We've received about a foot of snow and it has been snowing for about 20 hours now, and shows no signs of letting up.
The quality of skiing today was about as good as it gets for early December, it was absolutely amazing.
Cathy is still recovering from August knee surgery so she will be taking it easy especially at the begining of the season, so she will probably wait for a sunny day to make her first turns of the season.
I made it on mountain around 9:30 this morning and think I had a smile on my face for about the first 2 hours. The first runs of the year are always interesting as it takes a few runs to really get your legs underneath you again, but this year it seemed to take about 2 minutes and I felt fine, the turns were still there though my leg strength was a bit less than what I would prefer.
I hit some of my favorite terrain early, starting on Sapphire, a nice blue cruiser, Then headed down Upper and Lower World Cup, an easy Black, I was the only one on the trail, stopping to listen to the snow fall was amazing. Silence and snow...
I then headed over to the Glades and South Face areas where some of the more challenging terrain is located, though none of it will cause fear to a decent skier. The conditions were as good as it gets. I didn't even make it over to Solitude, maybe tomorrow. There is some talk that with all the new snow, Jackson Gore will open tomorrow. I hope so, more terrain!!
We went out for a little Apres Ski this evening to the Coleman Brooke Tavern at the Jackson Gore Inn, about 2 miles form our condo. The snow was coming down in buckets and the wind was gusting, so visibility was not good. I dropped Cathy off at the lobby door and parked the car and had a bit of a walk. I know a lot of snow lovers stuck in parts of the country where it doesn't snow much that would kill for a winter night like this.
And for those who hate snow and winter, you probably think I'm insane, and that's OK, more room here for me!
More Tomorrow!!
Dave
