• Welcome to AlpineZone, the largest online community of skiers and snowboarders in the Northeast!

    You may have to REGISTER before you can post. Registering is FREE, gets rid of the majority of advertisements, and lets you participate in giveaways and other AlpineZone events!

Belle Mountain, NJ - 3/14/2017

Rowsdower

Member
Joined
Dec 16, 2013
Messages
818
Points
18
Location
Upper Bucks/Lehigh Valley, PA
Needed to scratch the itch so I decided to earn some turns locally.

Belle Mountain was a tiny (~200 vert drop) ski area outside Lambertville, NJ which closed down in 1997. The runs are still mostly clear and the land is open to the public so you can hike or skin up. I decided to give it a go after digging out the cars.

Pulled up to the "base" to one other car parked. One guy was skinning up and we struck up a chat. Said usually the lower slope is packed with kids sledding but today there was absolutely nobody else out. Had the place all to ourselves. Hike took about ten minutes up the main slope. There were other trails cut but I didn't do much exploring. There's still bits of ski infrastructure around: light poles, foundations for chairlift or t-bar towers and shacks where I guess a rope tow was situated.

Snow was dense, heavy pow with a sleet crust layer lurking under the surface. The runs aren't really maintained so you had to dodge brush on the way down, but the snow was dense and thick enough to provide great coverage.


Really cool experience. Never been to a lost area before. Very unique experience.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Jan 18, 2010
Messages
662
Points
0
Location
spring mount, pa
Needed to scratch the itch so I decided to earn some turns locally.

Belle Mountain was a tiny (~200 vert drop) ski area outside Lambertville, NJ which closed down in 1997. The runs are still kept mostly clear and the land is open to the public so you can hike or skin up. I decided to give it a go after digging out the cars.

Pulled up to the "base" to one other car parked. One guy was skinning up and we struck up a chat. Said usually the lower slope is packed with kids sledding but today there was absolutely nobody else out. Had the place all to ourselves. Hike took about ten minutes up the main slope. There were other trails cut but I didn't do much exploring. There's still bits of ski infrastructure around: light poles, foundations for chairlift or t-bar towers and shacks where I guess a rope tow was situated.

Snow was dense, heavy pow with a sleet crust layer lurking under the surface. The runs aren't really maintained so you had to dodge brush on the way down, but the snow was dense and thick enough to provide great coverage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnlFsMQr36Y&feature=youtu.be

Really cool experience. Never been to a lost area before. Very unique experience.

excellent work...i used to go here frequently in high school, was about 20-30 minutes from where i grew up

i remember there were usually good crowds on the weekends in the mid 80's, mostly schoolkids
 

tnt1234

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 12, 2014
Messages
1,492
Points
48
Awesome!

So, that is the 'expert' slope. To skiers right on the other side of the grove of trees is the 'intermediate' slope.

Those two slopes were serviced by a chairlift (!!!!) and a rope tow. Chairlift line for a 200vert. foot ride used to take about 20 minutes on a crowded Saturday. So funny.

The rope tow used to pull your arm out of the socket and burn the palms of your gloves. About half way up, the tow path encounters a severe hump, which would slam the rope toward the ground. If you didn't hold on for dear life, the rope would snap out of your hands and vibrate everyone else off the tow and you'd have to slide down off the hump and back to the end of the line to tray again while everyone else would curse at you.

The 'Beginners slope' (Maybe slopes?) were further skiers right with their own less scary rope tow.

There used to be an octagon shaped yurt that served as the cafeteria, and a trailer that rented Elan skis with those bindings that locked into the sole plates, so they wouldn't have to adjust bindings. Down side was, those bindings failed all the time! So renters just littered the hills when their skis would just pop off!

93.3 WMMR blasting 'Dream Weaver' and 'Blinded by the Light', NASTAR races, and kids with cigarettes held in Gates gloved fingers, skiing in jeans, and mullets flying out from the bandanas on their heads, trying to impress their classmates, and hoping to get paired up with cute girls on the chairlift...

Ah, Belle Mountain...what a place.....

I hiked it a couple of times two years ago in all that snow, including one night time mission with friends. So fun. Wonder of those tress on skiers left would ever fill up enough to be skiable....
 

danimals

Active member
Joined
Jan 5, 2014
Messages
224
Points
28
I was going to go but some stuff came up. That place is my go to for snow when it hits the area.
 
Top