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Midwest Mount Bohemia + Freedom Pass

Dwight

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crgildart

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Wish I had skied Bohemia when I lived closer. It's the Tuckermans of the Midwest..
 

Slim

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I just skied Bohemia for the first time.
They have around 200” of snow for the season, so coverage is great.
We had about 8” of fresh snow Saturday morning and a huge lift line during the middle of the day. It wasn’t crowded on the hill, just at the main lift (which serves 90% of all terrain). Underneath the fresh snow you were scraping on nasty grey ice in many spots.
Super Bowl Sunday saw a deserted mountain, skied right up to the lift almost every run. 2” of fresh and less ice made for great skiing in different sections of the hill during the day.

Skied my first ever “triple black diamond”.ogsmile
In case you are not that extreme, and are wondering, it looks a lot like a gladed tree run on the same slope as a black diamond groomer.

Seriously though,their trail ratings are not only inflated, they don’t even offer any indication of the relative difficulty of runs.
The trail map is also deceptive, in that it looks like there are quite a few more cleared, open runs then there are. In reality, there are about 4 on the skiers right and 3 on skiers left, and a catwalk curving around the backside. I’m not complaining, because the glade skiing is great, it’s just strange how the map looks so different.

Surprisingly, the open runs, despite getting good snow and no grooming, did not have moguls, other than some localized bumps around a steeper outcropping

Putting that aside, it is a super fun Mountain. Opportunities for air are all around, and almost the entire hill is gladed out and skiable.

If it is clear, the view is fantastic too. And of course the huge (for the Midwest) snowfall.

I will definitely be back, but will check to make sure I avoid a refreeze after a melt period.
 
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Dwight

Dwight

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Originally the area was suppose to snow every day this week, now it doesn't look like it. @quinn trumbower Was Saturday and live in Houghton. He can probably give a better weather report locally.
 

Slim

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It was snowing a bit when we drove out on Monday morning.
 

dsmallwood

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very cool Slim

can you do a trip report; how you got there, where you stayed, ate, etc? i'll probably never (ever) get there, but I find it very intriguing.
 

Gentry

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Yeah I've been watching the Bohemia TV show that they produce on Youtube and have been really intrigued with the place. Looks like it attracts an interesting...maybe slightly immature...crowd....but the tree skiing looks superb. I am curious about if the run ratings are inflated or not, I find it hard to believe that they have some legit triple blacks on a hill in the UP...but maybe I'm wrong. Any beta on the place would be much appreciated.
 

Nathanvg

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...a huge lift line during the middle of the day.
How long was the wait in the huge line? I often wondered if a niche ski area so far from major cities could survive but apparently they are doing well.

I am curious about if the run ratings are inflated or not, I find it hard to believe that they have some legit triple blacks on a hill in the UP.
It depends how you define legit. Bohemia's runs are not harder than Jackson Hole's but they are harder than everything else in the Midwest so I think that's legit. Most of the hard runs are glades that are on par with many of the harder glades out east.
 

Slim

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How long was the wait in the huge line? I often wondered if a niche ski area so far from major cities could survive but apparently they are doing well.


It depends how you define legit. Bohemia's runs are not harder than Jackson Hole's but they are harder than everything else in the Midwest so I think that's legit. Most of the hard runs are glades that are on par with many of the harder glades out east.

I think we maybe had a 20 minute wait during the middle part of the day. Not a big deal out west, but when you are only skiing 800’ of vertical...

I do not ski chutes or cliffs, and those were mostly closed anyway. The rest was more blue-black and certainly not double black diamond, let alone this creative rating of tripple black.

If you want a challenge, there are plenty of outcroppings to drop over, that would give you some serious air or a short very steep turn or two. However, in any other resort I have been, a run is always rated but the easiest way down. Done that way, the vast majority of the lines are easy blacks.

The good news thoug is that there is a lot of that terrain. Almost the entire hill is tree skiing and rock outcroppings, so I don’t think you would be bored as an advanced skier. Just don’t expect a lot of really steep skiing.

I have not skied out east, but I have seen some videos from @Josh Matta in the steep skiing thread and that stuff is way harder than Mt. Bohemia.
 
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Slim

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Yeah I've been watching the Bohemia TV show that they produce on Youtube and have been really intrigued with the place. Looks like it attracts an interesting...maybe slightly immature...crowd....but the tree skiing looks superb. I am curious about if the run ratings are inflated or not, I find it hard to believe that they have some legit triple blacks on a hill in the UP...but maybe I'm wrong. Any beta on the place would be much appreciated.

The ownership is more in that camp. The skiers there were pretty normal. Certainly plenty of college kids from Houghton, but a good number of older people too. Only a handful of children, and way more men than women.

Just avoid the Man-soup aka the hot-tub
 
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Slim

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very cool Slim
how you got there,where you ate.
LOL. There are no options. Only one way to get there, drive to nearly the end of Highway 41.
Eating, eat at the hill or cook in your place of residence.

This is the truly out at the end of world.


Edit, the Mariner resort in Copper Harbor is open in the winter too, so you could drive there to eat (15 miles)
 
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Nathanvg

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Generally, blacks out west start at 24 degrees and double blacks start at 32. (a rough generalization) Below map shows 24-31 in red and 32+ in yellow. Hopefully that gives an accurate picture of the steeps. Slim, I hope you skied off the double and in the trees if you were looking for steeps.

There are a handful of eastern ski areas with significantly more steeps (Killington, Stowe, MRG, Jay, Sugarloaf, a few more...) Most eastern ski areas get less snow and more crowds. Bohemia is fun and a triple black compared to most Midwest skiing


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Slim

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Generally, blacks out west start at 24 degrees and double blacks start at 32. (a rough generalization) Below map shows 24-31 in red and 32+ in yellow. Hopefully that gives an accurate picture of the steeps. Slim, I hope you skied off the double and in the trees if you were looking for steeps.

There are a handful of eastern ski areas with significantly more steeps (Killington, Stowe, MRG, Jay, Sugarloaf, a few more...) Most eastern ski areas get less snow and more crowds. Bohemia is fun and a triple black compared to most Midwest skiing


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Thanks Nathan, that’s awesome. I had thought about pulling up Caltopo to check slope steepness, but hadn’t yet. Looks like their black claims are correct. Of course, steepness isn’t everything, how narrow is it? Do you need to avoid anything? All that stuff affects difficulty as well.
Another factor that might affect my perception of it being more moderate is that it’s very “lumpy” terrain. If you imagine a sort of giant stairststeps down, I probably skied around the “bumpouts” turning on the flatter stuff. Just a hypothesis, no conscious decision on my part.

I hope I didn’t sound like I was saying it wasn’t fun, because it was AWESOME, I only felt that it wasn’t as extreme as the trail map makes it out to be.
I also changed my wording above from blue-black to black, because I remembered Wren-hollow at Brighton was black diamond too, and that was similar to a lot of the stuff we did at Mt. Bohemia. I guess in my experience, blue and black feel about the same, it’s only when it gets to double black that I start to notice (and usually back off).

Lutsen has several runs that are as steep or steeper.

I was not looking for steeps. I mostly look for soft snow and fun in the trees. Out west I tend to ski black diamond with only very occasionally a double black and when I have, it was definitely a commitment. I didn’t encounter anything that made me pause at Mt. Bohemia(again, the cliffs would have, had they been open I still wouldn’t have skied them).

I only skied off the double chair twice (BTW they load the Triple with only 2 as well). Very few runs are laps on the double chair. If you go further east (Extreme Back country or Middle earth) you end up on the road, and take the bus back to the main base(tripple). If you angle west or go off the back you end up at the main base too.
 
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