Belleayre 2-16-15: trees, bumps and cold pow

[legalskier]

Conditions: pow, chopped up pow, pp
Temp on arrival: -5F
Initially I wasn't going to venture forth due to the frigid temps, but I heard that conditions were awesome, the winds were dying, and crowds were sparse (having been scared away by the weather hype). I'm glad I went. Dressing warmly helped nullify the cold- mittens with warmers, boot gloves on the feet, vaseline on the face. The only time I felt the cold was when I took these pics. My only real concern was the moment of transition going from pp to deep pow- that jolt you get abruptly slowing down. Started out by skiing the Superchief area-

Winisook glade was sweet

Belleayre glade, the most popular one

Mohawk, steeper than this flat pic reveals

Off Lift 7, Onteora was terrific- bumped up with plenty of soft pow

Esopus- that's a "spine" in the foreground, further down are whales & banks

 

[ss20]

How is Bell? Always heard great things but have never made it up there? Any terrain worthy enough to drive 2 hours?

 

[legalskier]

I made my way over to Tomahawk to check out the new Dreamcatcher glade, which starts up top off Deer Run. You have to hike up a few steps to get through a passageway going to the uppermost part, which turned out to be steep and tight. Just below that is this more open part-

But that doesn't last long, as things get tighter again-

Then you encounter a narrow crossing trail called Cayuga. There was a severe angle while dropping in due to a treacherous drainage ditch running alongside Cayuga. You had to be careful approaching it. Plunging off Cayuga brings you to the middle section of Dreamcatcher-

Which brings you further down to where Cayuga crosses back towards Dot Nebel, and another ditch. Continuing further down the lower part brings you out onto lower Deer Run. There already were a lot of tracks in Dreamcatcher, so it seems to be popular already.
The only downside to the day was that the Superchief went down some time after lunch and Tomahawk started acting up as well. By that time my legs were done and I was ready for the ride home with a hot mug of caffeine.

 

[legalskier]

Any terrain worthy enough to drive 2 hours?

Do you like skiing bumps, glades & trees? There's plenty of groomed too.
Here's a pic of a section that used to be prohibited but now is officially called Upper Liftline glade (I used to call it "the cliff")-

Despite the tracks, the rope was up.

 

[Mapnut]

There are no less than a dozen expert trails at Belleayre, but they all have only about 300 vertical feet of steep. You'll find a whole range of conditions on them; usually four or five are groomed (Belleayre, Mohawk, Peekamoose and Dot Nebel). Some of the others have snowmaking and some don't, and moguls are usual on those. The lifts are not great - Tomahawk makes the best use of the 900-foot vertical but is slow; the Superchief wastes your time on 300 v.ft. of flats below the lodge. The No. 7 triple is pretty good for getting to the ungroomed steeps in the middle (800 v. ft.). I can't address the glades.

 

[TropicTundR]

Are the glades packed powder? Debating driving for glades but wondering if there will be freshies for this Sat or Sunday? Or is it going to be Dust on Crud?

 

[legalskier]

Are the glades packed powder? Debating driving for glades but wondering if there will be freshies for this Sat or Sunday? Or is it going to be Dust on Crud?

The glades were all pow, pp, and chopped pow- no dust on crud anywhere. That's why I posted these pics, so AZers can see it for themselves. The good news is that high temp for tomorrow will be 7F, so conditions will remain this way into the weekend. Saturday high is forecasted to be 22F with 3-5" snowfall, and Sunday 34F. So wax those boards up good!
I didn't go into the non-glade tree areas because my boards just aren't wide enough for the deep pow there.

 

[woodsman]

I have been skiing/riding Bell for 15 years now and have NEVER seen as much snow as there was this week. Seriously, you can pretty much dip off into the woods anywhere and get great, deep lines.
Get out there and get your powder howl on!

 

[Wavewheeler]

Nice to hear..Just picked up a ticket on Liftopia for this Friday and heading to Bell. Never have been there and have been wanting to check it out. They got some fresh powder yesterday and the rest of the week looks cold with some snow flurries/showers on and off so hopefully it'll still be waiting for me when I get there.

 

[legalskier]

Nice NYSB piece about Dreamcatcher: http://nyskiblog.com/belleayre-dreamcatcher-winds-of-change/