Today In Stoke: Opening day at Echo Mountain

Photo by Marc Moline, courtesy Echo Mountain

Steve Cummings tests out the new down bar at Echo Mountain before opening day

​Echo Mountain opens up today, and this time you don't even have to call in sick to get a piece of the action: They're keeping the lights on until 9 p.m. Terrain park manager Marc Moline and his crew have been building new obstacles out of recycled materials -- propane tanks, abandoned playground equipment, chunks of old chairlift towers -- since last season, so be sure to poke around in all five terrain park areas on the hill.

"We've been scrapping and scraping and having some fun building new features up here," Moline says. "It's the best early-season conditions we've ever had, so we've been pushing some snow around in the jump lines, too."

Speaking of early season: Echo's season passes are still priced at $189, down from $275. For those of you keeping score, that's about what two lift tickets would cost you just about anywhere else. Here's last year's Echodemic edit in case you've been missing out:

Echodemic Volume 3 from Echo Mountain on Vimeo.