Belleayre: 1/20/2007

[adamti91]

Belleayre Mountain, January 20, 2007:

Introduction: This is my first trip report, so bear with me. Sorry about not taking any pictures, I even brought my camera with my but couldn't remember to snap any pictures. I decided to hit up Belleayre for my first full day in a long time, and since there had been some snow showers in the area the last few days, I expected mostly hard pack with maybe a little powder on some of the less popular trails. On the drive up, the snow started coming down harder and as I pulled in you couldn't see more than maybe 40 or 50 feet. This gaveway to overcast skies later on, with some blue around lunchtime.I met up with some friends after my first few runs, so I only got to take a few from the top (we were in the jib park for most of the day, but I was able to sneak away at the end to take some more full runs).

Weapon of Choice: Option Supercap 149

Conditions: Conditions were a lot better than I expected for my first few runs. My first run of the day, Winnisook (the top of it) was absolutely amazing. Tons of powder everywhere and killer moguls. My next run was from Wannatuska. Again, tons of powder and some small moguls on the right side. As the day went on, the powder began getting thinner and thinner until a point at about... maybe 2 or 2:30 when conditions bottomed out. Very few trails had any powder left, the blue squares from Lift 7 midstation had hard pack and ice, and the rest was a solid sheet of ice. To my surprise, Winnisook managed to keep it's wonderful moguls and powder for the entire day. Definatley check it out if you are heading up to Bell anytime soon.

Weather: Temperatures were FREEZING (under 10 degrees F. all day), and the wind chill didn't help matters at all (Bell's website listed wind chill at -11 degrees!). Coldest day of the year, by far. It was mostly overcast with clouds hanging over the top of the mountain. Snow showers happened throughout the day, and at some times I swore it was the most beautiful blue sky I have ever seen. Quite the grab bag in terms of cloud cover today.

Lifts: Early on, the lift lines were short (4-5 chair waits on Superchief, one or two on Lift 7), but as Belleayre became more and more crowded, I found myself standing around upwards of 5 minutes to get on Superchief.

Notes: I know a lot of people had said that Belleayre had no intentions of opening up the west side of the mountain this year (Tomahawk). However, I saw them blowing snow there as I drove up, and I asked someone who works at Bell about it and they said they were in fact planning on opening up Dot Nebel for races next week. It's a start! Bell was blowing snow on the Superchief access trail for most of the day (I think it's called The Canyon), but later on they started blowing with 5 or 6 guns where the halfpipe usually is. Belleayre's halfpipe is usually icey and trashy, but it seems like they are trying to prep the trail to start carving it out.

Rating: 8/10

Conclusion: Best day of the year as far as conditions go.

[goldsbar]

Yes, it was a very good day. I left at 1:00 and the trails were still in very good shape at that time but some slick spots were starting to form so I can imagine it turned to the usual NE hardpack/scraped conditions by 2:30. Still, I didn't remember how good it was to ski on some natural for a change. It was only a couple of inches but it feels so much better. The bump run was a lot of fun - especially at the top half where there was a semi-distinct zipperline (the steeper bottom was much more spaced).

One thing I didn't understand was upper Yahoo. Everyday I clicked on there report they claimed there was snowmaking - and there was on Saturday - but there was still tons of weeds sticking up. That's pretty sad snowmaking considering it's probably only a couple of football fields in length.

[adamti91]

They were blowing there on upper Yahoo again today and there was maybe two or three patches where weeds were sticking up. They should open it soon...