Belleayre 3-14-20

[legalskier]

I arrived at 11 thinking the morning sun would be softening the surface from last nights freeze by then but my car thermometer read 30 degrees. Under partly sunny skies Belle never got out of the 30s all day (it's supposed to go down to 15 tonight). It felt like a midwinter day. The gondi is closed due to Covid-19 operational changes. I started out on Superchief lift thinking I'd do the east side first.

Belleayre Run
Unfortunately the two bumps runs there (Winisook & Tongora) were roped off due to ice. The surface on the groomers was hard in most places, with patches of ice here & there, so I stuck to the sunny side. Lower Wanatuska had more ice than bumps-

Superchief began to start/stop (probably from all the little kids skiing that side) so I headed over to Lift 7 trails where Yahoo had a nice row of hard bumps on skier's left.

Onteora was roped off due to ice- from below I could see it was bumped up. Mohawk was groomed with good coverage- so was Area 51 which still has rails, boxes, etc for the hotdogs. Then headed over to Tomahawk lift- all the trails were open save for Esopus, Cayuga & Big T which rely on natural snow. Dot Nebel was the ROTD with excellent coverage & loose granular-

Seneca has good cover but was pretty hard-

Headed back to Overlook Lodge to warm up & grab some lunch (continued)...

 

[legalskier]

In the lodge are adjustments to our new reality-

Tables spaced far apart-


People were keeping their distance. Today was the ski patrol's annual dinner/fundraiser- they canceled the dinner but turned it into a drive-through for supporters to pick up the food & take it home.
Went back outside & finished the day skiing off Superchief. There's barely any snow left in the woods- the only place was skier's right on Winisook where two boys were poaching. Night time temps are forecast to go below freezing until Friday so I'm guessing Belle may make it to next weekend....unless an emergency order gets issued in the meantime. I'm thankful for anything I can get before that happens.