Okemo, Mt. Snow , Killington Stratton and others...

Loon owns

what makes their park so great. I might get a chance to make it over there, but I just want to know what makes them rise so high above the rest of us.Have you been to Okemo to comepare ?

when stratton first had the power park set up, it was pretty primo. the key points were a) the flow, and b) the landings/lips to the booters. everything in it flowed, from the 2 jumps up top, to the option rail, to the option 4 booter line or rail line. when i skied it i felt an awesome sense of rythm, so that i could get into a groove kinda as i was skiing to get the confidence up. all of the jumps were good size: not too big, and not too small. regardless of the size, however, each had an appropriately sized lip and looong, steep landings. so when you were rolling through hitting the smaller jumps, it didn't feel like they had just been piled up a bit by the cats before they moved on to the bigger cooler jumps, each was important and had to be right.

i'd say now, though, they've let both the jumps and rails slide a bit since they first opened. the rails are the same as from the beginning, and need to be changed with something fresh, and the jumps have been eaten away a bit by the grooming. this could also be because of the open parks being built, im sure.

as for okemo, i really haven't ridden there much this year. i did ride the mountain heavily the last two seasons, and have been impressed. the jumps are usually nice, and rails (on nor'easter) are huge and challenging. given that i haven't skied nor'easter since the rebuild, i wasn't too impressed this year. i understand that the snow wasn't great, and that everyone had a late start, so i might have been expecting too much. but, the top three jumps were pretty poor - all different sizes, going from biggest to smallest, so it was hard to judge your speed, and the lips were pretty small for all of them. the rails i loved though - nice selection of new rails this year, and new and creative lips, like street style and multiple options (from all sides as well as right down the middle).

sorry i can't comment on the park after the rebuild, i haven't been back yet but plan to soon this week. one thing i noticed too is that nor'easter is a fairly rolly trail, which has to be tough to plan around in terms of flow and speed considerations. stratton has the advantage with a trail with a constant (although pretty flat) pitch. nor'easter's length makes up for it, though.

hope this has helped a bit, i'll let you know what i think after riding this week.

I've never been really impressed with Okemo. I was just up and I don't know why but your parks never make me feel real happy. I've been more impressed at other mountains. Mt Snow's old Diablo and Inferno own all. Plus Okemo is ALWAYS hard as a rock ice, so I avoid Okemo as much as possible.

I wouldnt say it ALWAYS rock hard , often maybe , but not always. What makes the other parks make you feel so warm and fuzzy that ours doesnt?

waterville and loon basically kill it... okemo isnt there yet just because it doesnt kill it as hard... so proboblly try and make it kill it harder to get it better... because it doesnt kill it like loon and waterville....

once the warm weather hit it was a great thing that you guys pack the parks down so hard. i was at killy the first day of warmth and it was terrible i couldnt even make it up the takeoffs it was so slow but at okemo it kept moving even as it got slushy.
the only thing is that okemo doesnt have much for medium jumps killy had a whole line of 5-10 foot jumps that gave enough air to try things on without having to worry about falling hard, while okemo still does not build these smaller jumps, but instead keeps them around the 15-20 foot range.

I hope your kidding.....

5-10 foot to try new things on?

how about 30's with steep landings and lofty takeoffs to try new things on....

im bad at depth perception, but i was pretty sure they were all about 10 feet and not step downs.
they were the ones in the dreammaker park.

i went to okemo a couple times
there jumps on nor'easter were odly sized
(they didnt gradualy get bigger)
rails were pretty good
but i have never skied a worse half pipe exept maybe powder ridge
i just hate icy pipes
o and that wall was very hard to get enough speed for even if you skipped the stair case and the long high rail.
speeking of the long high rail
i loved that it was perfect and great for 450's off beacuse you didnt even need to spinn that hard

Killington has a really nice Halfpipe

i normally go to mt snow or okemo, last year mt snow owned all with inferno and diablo, but this year they blew. i was impressed wit okemo this year it was sick and i thuogt it had a good vibe. you could also hit featrue after feature in a nice big line

okemo kills everywhere rail wise i think but im not a huge fan of the jumps and the park doesnt have a decent flow

thanks for the coments , we are definitly gonna make sure we get some good jumps out there. Its been a while of hearing we are poor at jumps and are determined to sqwash that .

to make good jumps,
1- find trail that you can hold speed
2- make deep tranny, for the take off start below the table deck(not just little wedges on top )
3- long steep landings
just make them lofty and have landings that matching

make the landings llonger for sure....you can make some BIG booters on nor easter for how steep the trail is. Easily 60-70footers maybe even bigger cause i remember over shooting the 40s completely by like 20-30ft and i felt as if i wasnt goin that fast at all. I liked the lips cept the landings just need to be longer so thing longer landings -like the first hit - and you guys should be primo.

^^ yup. I remember standing on the table of the huge one they built in the middle of the season right where the normal entrance to the park was last year talking to 2 old dudes on their snowmobiles, and they were saying how good the jump was. I hit it though, it was pretty terrible based solely on its landing - it was so flat compared to the monstrous lip they had built. It seemed like the 2 old dudes were taking alot of pride in its size, but clearly had no concept of a decent, hittable jump. End of the year money booters were fun though.