Belleayre 12-27-12

[legalskier]

A belated Christmas gift

Conditions: powder, crud, mashed potatoes
Temp on arrival: 24
Sorry for the delay but I've been busy with visiting family.
The predicted snow storm brought me up on Wed night; however, when the plow dude failed to arrive on time Thurs a.m. to clear the huge berm at the end of the driveway I lost time digging out. Arrived at the lodge at 9:45 & got on the fresh 14" of snow just after 10 (which added to the 8" received a few days earlier). There already were lots of tracks but I found plenty of untracked. Skied the entire opened upper mountain from Cathedral Brook to Esopus, including some glades. The snow continued into the p.m. Hardly any lift lines all day- Merry Christmas to me.
They say a picture's worth a thousand words so here goes-


Random skiers on Esopus


Boarders catching air off Winisook whales


Tracks on lowest Winisook


Upper Algonquin...I think

Since these pics, the website says they picked up another 8" & are almost 100% open now. What a shot in the arm this storm provided!

 

[ScottySkis]

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Great X-mas gift, nice getting some powder, sorry about the delay in you getting the goods.

 

[Bene288]

Nice, been thinking about getting down to Belle..

 

[powhunter]

Might be heading over to the Bell soon...Cant beat the midweek Tix....Any decent moguls yet??

 

[powhunter]

Website says moguls on 9 trails..Is this true??

Steveo

 

[gereddunne]

forgive me but where is this?

 

[ScottySkis]

forgive me but where is this?

In NY Catskills about 30 minutes from Kingston Exit off the NY state Truway I87.

 

[goldsbar]

Got there around the same time and had the same experience. Plenty tracked but plenty untracked. That's the great thing about Belleayre and Plattekill. You can actually ski fresh snow. I found the upper steeper woods to be a little sketchy for my tastes but everything else was prime for full on charge mode - at least in the morning.

Regarding the mogul question, they were really good at letting a fair amount of trails bump up for the last few years. It's one of the reasons I go instead of the other more well known Catskills places that have a grooming obsession. Don't know how the new ORDA management will be. Without fresh snow or bumps, the place can get a bit boring after a few hours.

 

[ScottySkis]

Got there around the same time and had the same experience. Plenty tracked but plenty untracked. That's the great thing about Belleayre and Plattekill. You can actually ski fresh snow. I found the upper steeper woods to be a little sketchy for my tastes but everything else was prime for full on charge mode - at least in the morning.

Regarding the mogul question, they were really good at letting a fair amount of trails bump up for the last few years. It's one of the reasons I go instead of the other more well known Catskills places that have a grooming obsession. Don't know how the new ORDA management will be. Without fresh snow or bumps, the place can get a bit boring after a few hours.

I don't know if this true my cousins GF who snowboarding all the time at Bell said that Orda told Bell to make as much as snow as possible even in March, not like other hills can afford this.


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[legalskier]

Website says moguls on 9 trails..Is this true??

Steveo

On that day it was more like smaller mashed potato bumps growing on the heavier trafficked ungroomed trails along with whales produced by snow guns, like that pic of the boarders on Winisook. Belle usually lets certain trails bump up on their own so I'm sure that the weekend crowds helped do that.