<I>(Note from the Administrator: This report was originally posted on 11/12/99. Due to our move to new servers, the date and time attributed to this post is incorrect.)</I> <BR> <BR>Somehow, I was able to coax my girlfriend into giving me a ride up the closed, but easily passable, Okemo Mt Rd at 830 yesterday morn. This put me atop the mountain a full half hour ahead of the hordes of snowbarders jostling for a seat on the Northstar Quad. As near as I can figure, they must tell the lifties at the Glades chair to assume the first civilian skiers coming down the hill came from the Northstar and the mountain is indeed open. I got some confused looks when I cruised into the corral around 10 of 9 but they let me on and I was able to score two full runs ahead of the other dirtbags. All by my lonesome, it was nice.. I almost felt guitly. Best of all -- it was free. In all I accumulate 8 runs before <BR>10 am, when they start checking. Not bad, if I do say so myself. <BR> <BR>Conditions were a little firm but rapidly softening. Very typical opening day snow. Coverage was better than Killington's opening day. They only had Buckhorn-Upper WC open, with snowmaking going on lower WC, Sapphire-Upper arrow. Snow had also been made on upper Chief -- though I dont know why cause there isnt really any good way to run just the upper half of that and it'll take awhile to get the lower sections open. It was really cold last night so they should have soe more terrian open by the weekend. They were charging $25 a head, but if you skied there any time last spring you can knock that down to $15 with a coupon. <BR> <BR>I left at 10:20 or so, just as the crowds were starting to build. Snowboarder to skier ratio was in the 60/40 range and in a few places the number of them sitting in really dumb places was almost comical. Good way to hone my tree skiing reaction times. There was a jump set up at the bottom that created a real bottleneck. It was barely worth looking at, but since it was the only jump on the hill there was a big pissing contest going on there. Personally, I try to abstain from many aerial antics too early in the year. An early season knee injury is just about the worst thing I can imagine. Maybe that jump was Okemo's way of reducing the number of idiots careening down the hill midseason -- knock em out of the game early. <BR> <BR>Jerm