Okemo is like an old friend
As more folks are vaccinated and restrictions are lifted, we’re all going to get to spend some up-close and personal quality time with friends we’ve missed so much. With the best of friends, the time passed never matters. You meet up and within minutes are laughing at old stories, updating new ones and just plain locking in that bond that’s so long held it’s solid for life. Know that feeling?
It was all mine this weekend when I hung out with with a friend I’ve had for more than three decades. Her name? Okemo Mountain Resort.
My husband and I – able to do what was required to finally go north for a ski weekend – headed up for a much-anticipated mountain escape. What I remembered the moment I got there was something I’ve told folks forever: Mountains are like good friends. You share good times with them, build memories, forgive them their off days and most of all, savor the bond you’ve created.
Which brings me to this advice: Discovering new resorts is amazing. This year in particular, trying out the more local and perhaps smaller resorts has been a jackpot of fun for ski and ride folks. Embrace that. But as we move forward and hopefully back to a more traditional ski season next year, remember that old Girl Scout ditty: “Make new friends but keep the old.
One is silver and the other’s gold.”
Okemo is, I believe, the perfect resort to build a long-time friendship with. Why? Because Okemo, its foundation built solid on the heart and soul of the Mueller family and now stewarded by Vail Resorts who purchased it a few years back, is the kind of resort that knows how to host everyone.
Okemo reminds me of my hostess friend Lynn who can, after spending all day preparing a perfect meal for guests and then learning 10 minutes before dinner that one has an allergy, can reach into her fridge and adapt a meal for that person while barely breaking a sweat.
My family has made at least one annual visit to Okemo each of the past 30 years. My daughters, both full-blown adults now, were both tucked in the daycare there and out with the tiny kids’ ski school.
As my husband and I skied around during what I’d label as one of the most ideal spring weekends in my memory — sunshine; warm but not hot; no wind; cream cheese snow soft enough to make you ski like a hero but not too soft; Perfection — those stories came back to me just about every turn, reminding me not just of how special my friendship with Okemo is, but of what a versatile mountain resort it is as well.
As we meandered along Mountain Road, a well-designed beginner trail that brings you back and forth across the mountain, I remembered vividly when my girls were tiny things, no poles, confident in their turns, always looking for adventure.
That trail felt like a magical journey to them. They’d jump off the side into the trees and feel like back-country masters, when really, they were just a few feet off the trail.
As that memory played out between me and Okemo, a tiny child with his mom just ahead of me suddenly leaned right, dashed into that same easy tree area and popped back onto the trail, double fistpumping in the air and hooting as if he’d peaked K2.
Ahhh, I thought: Look at Okemo making more life-long friends. How lovely.
At the Summit House, a family asked me to take a photo of them. Of course, I
said! And then I remembered the time I asked a nice man to take my family photo in that same spot. I handed him my phone and just like all those nice ski world folks, he fired off a bunch of photos.
Later, one of the kids asked to see the pictures. I handed her my phone and she burst out laughing. There, frame after frame, was the man’s face with a quizzical look. (Memo for next time: be sure your phone is not set to “selfie” when asking others to take photos). What a fun memory.
Then there’s the memory I have of Upper Mountain Road, a trail I seldom take but did quite a few times this visit. A few years back on a fresh powder morning I somehow ended up on that trail with a crew of my fellow hard-core skiers.
It’s a beginner level trail, not one we’d choose to take. But that day, it was magical. The snow had fallen deep, and was just heavy enough to grip every branch of every tree, creating a white canopy for us to ski through.
It was so lovely we were giddy, and stopped to quietly breathe it in. While it wasn’t a challenge, I mark that moment as one of the most memorable of my many, many ski days.
That’s the thing about good friends: there’s always another beautiful thing to discover about them.
There are a million other memories we found with our visit. Lapping the great cruisers until our thighs burn (even on this busy spring weekend it was easy to find shorter lift lines and crank out great vertical).
Sitting in the sun at the Jackson Gore base sipping a cold beverage and scarfing down some mountain food. Giant gooey waffles at the Waffle Cabin. Heading to Ludlow for some great take-out (next year, back inside we hope!).
I share my Okemo friendship memories to point out just how personal a mountain and skier relationship is.
So if you’ve missed your “mountain” friends, have no fear. It’s always as if no time has passed when you meet back up again. Just ask Okemo and me.