Belleayre Resort will fail unless scaled back, Catskill Heritage Alliance(NY Catskil

[x10003q]

There's something extraordinarily important that you're completely discounting. The average NYC Pocono skier generally doesn't give a ratz behind about the above things you mention. Camelback and Belleayre don't cater to hard-core skiers longing for challenging black diamond runs. Lets face it, if they were serious skiers they probably wouldn't be skiing in the Poconos to begin with. And if you're a serious skier heading to the Cats, you'd likely hit any of the other 3 options rather than skiing Belleayre.

I used Camelback because I think that people who ski Camelback would like Belleayre.

Maybe if the government got out of the way and didnt run ski areas they'd be doing better? Maybe if the NY State run ski areas didnt have some of the highest operating expenses in the industry, completely fueled by the fact it's government run, they'd be doing better? I guarantee you Gore would do better. Belleayre loses money year-after-year, and invokes unfair anti-competitive practices against the other privately run ski areas in the Cats, but sure, lets parachute big bags of money in on top of it. That's the cure-all. Did you read the independent audit that recently came out? It's 1-part financial horror story, 1-part trainwreck, and 1-part you just have to laugh.

I don't disagree with you about state ownership, but the reality is NYS is running ski areas and that is not going to change in the near future. You still avoid saying what they should do in light of the existing situation.

I would love to see where your info comes from about NYS's ski areas have the "highest operating expenses in the industry". Gore and WF run very lean operations. Belleayre had crazy expenses when it was run by the DEC. Now that ORDA is running it I know that expenses are way down.

The Catskills thrived in the 50s and 60s; I don't know what happened to make it's dominance so dramatically die off, but I'm sure some of the local posters could explain. My guess is the Eisenhower Highway System was a big factor, making it easier to get farther from NYC, but that's just a guess. That said, the Cats are still hugely popular for folks from the city, but I know what you mean.

Some of the problems in the Catskills have to do with the Forever Wild designation inside the Catskill Park and the huge land ownership that belongs to NYS (40%) and the NYC watershed (5%). The Belleayre project has been under review of some sort for 14 years. One rumor I have heard - Hunter was willing to trade 10,000 acres inside the park to gain access to the top of Hunter Mtn (and add maybe 100 acres) and this was rejected by the DEC. The DEC is not allowed to sell or trade forever wild land. I have also heard that Hunter had a history of not playing nice with the DEC.

Maybe if Princeton Ski Bowl/Bearpen Mountain had ever developed into a major resort, maybe the Catskills would have a much bigger ski industry.
http://mag.nyskiblog.com/Bearpen-Mountain-NY-The-Original-Beast-of-the-East-td2551736.html