What is your favorite chairlift?

[machski]

The Devil's Fiddle lift made sense if you think about the context of the times. When it was installed, it was needed as a way to get skiers from Northeast Passage and the future Parker's Gore to the main mountain efficiently so they didn't overcrowd the then-Bear Mountain Triple. Once Parker's Gore was canceled and Northeast Passage was abandoned, it left a weirdly placed backup lift that only directly serviced two or so trails. The Skye Peak Express was the nail in the coffin for Devil's Fiddle, once the slow, cold fixed-grip was replaced with a detachable, traffic on the Bear Mountain lifts in general decreased and management figured it wasn't worth the money to get it inspected and keep maintaining it just for it to run a couple of days a season.

Skye Peak Express was badly needed for a long time. I think the current generation only spends a bit of time at Bear and the HSQ link back is a welcome upgrade. Devil's Fiddle Quad was also doomed as soon as they abandoned making snow on the Fiddle. Wasn't much point left to that lift and as you said, no connection to the planned Parker's Gore or even early day traffic out of Northeast Passage base. Fiddle Quad was handy for that, first lift you hit coming off Northeast Passage if you started over there.

 

[Harvey]

Read Lazlo Vajtay's post on NY Ski Blog about the Belleayre situation, its 8 years old yet everything stands true today. ORDA today as far as Belleayre goes has found a way to dump money into it while simultaneously not giving a shit. Within 5 years we got a shiny new gondola, a new beginner lift and a new Discovery lodge, yet there are still multiple trails on the mountain that are essentially abandoned, lifts no longer open on time, employee morale is at a serious low, staff shortages, zero consistency or haste in foodservice, the list goes on. But hey, there's no such thing as a serious problem when you're paying for them with someone else's money. They could lose every one of their skiers to Hunter or Platty and wouldn't lose a cent of state funding.

Thanks for reading.

The gondola... if you think about the timing, it was announced and built very quickly. Something like that would usually get significant build up. There's a back story there, I've heard some credible rumors, but they are rumors so I won't repeat them.

Regarding Gore/WF/Belle "profitability"... to get anywhere close to that for any of the three, you've got to remove capex, which is kind of cheating. Government programs aren't usually graded in that way. The horse is out of the barn at least in the Adk. All the private areas are gone. Without Gore and WF you'd have no (little) skiing. It comes down to do you want skiing and the associated economic activity there.

Yea yea you could change the constitution. For my own selfish, I love not having slopeside condos at those areas.

 

[ne_skier]

The gondola... if you think about the timing, it was announced and built very quickly. Something like that would usually gets significant build up. There's a back story there, I've heard some credible rumors, but they are rumors so I won't repeat them.

What I had heard on the Storm Skiing Podcast was that the private developer brought in to do the Highmount expansion wasn't thrilled that the state hadn't choked up the money needed to expand, so instead they decided to appease him by spending less money on a gondola that they would put as close to Highmount as possible. The threats are likely just a rumor, but otherwise, it makes sense, the proposals I've seen would have the gondola dead center in the expanded resort

 

[x10003q]

Read Lazlo Vajtay's post on NY Ski Blog about the Belleayre situation, its 8 years old yet everything stands true today.

You need to re-read the June 25, 2013, NYS Blog post. All the fears of a supersized Belleayre have never materialized. Just as I predicted 8 years ago.
1. Since 2013, NYS has not spent anywhere near the mentioned $74million at Belleayre.
2. Highmount Ski Area remains closed and unconnected to Belleayre. Most of us will be long gone before Highmount is part of Belleayre.
3. The developers still have not broken ground on any of the approved housing proposals around Belleayre and Highmount.
Also, Plattekill seems to be thriving. Maybe ORDA taking over Belleayre has helped Plattekill? Maybe we need an 8 years later update from Lazlo. Plattekill seems much busier in recent seasons vs 8 years ago.

ORDA today as far as Belleayre goes has found a way to dump money into it while simultaneously not giving a shit. Within 5 years we got a shiny new gondola, a new beginner lift and a new Discovery lodge, yet there are still multiple trails on the mountain that are essentially abandoned, lifts no longer open on time, employee morale is at a serious low, staff shortages, zero consistency or haste in foodservice, the list goes on. But hey, there's no such thing as a serious problem when you're paying for them with someone else's money. They could lose every one of their skiers to Hunter or Platty and wouldn't lose a cent of state funding.

There was a full vertical HSQ in the Aug, 2015 Belleayre UMP, not a gondola. The gondola was an unplanned Gov Cuomo special. It was a waste of money that somebody got built in 2018 thru Cuomo. ORDA set the stage for the Belleayre Gondola by adding a Gondola on WF. Now all 3 NYS ski areas have a gondola, whether they need one or not. There was a 2 stage gondola on the 2007 Belleayre UMP wish list Master Plan Map. The second stage was to replace the Tomahawk lift.

Replacing the two 40 year old beginner doubles with more a more reliable and cheaper to operate quad is cost of doing business as is rebuilding the 50 year old Discovery Lodge. Are we to assume that Belleayre should never be updated?

As we all know, NYS owns/pays and ORDA operates Belleayre/Gore/WF. This will never change.
FYI - ORDA just spent $2.9 million on a gondola with a 200 foot vertical at the Lake Placid Olympic Jumping Complex.

 

[ne_skier]

I'm not disagreeing with what you have to say, and aside from the full-vertical lift being an 8 passenger gondola I think these projects made sense and were worthwhile. I just think there's a lot of stuff that needs to be done on the mountain that doesn't require a million-dollar paycheck from Albany. The Cathedral Brook, Tomahawk Liftline, Cayuga, and from what I've heard Dreamcatcher runs are all in some state of abandonment due to nothing other than pure laziness from management. How hard is it to get someone up there to clear brush and saw up fallen trees? The run under the upper Tomahawk liftline, albeit clear of 8-foot tall bushes, has the potential to be among the toughest and most interesting runs in the Catskills. Any privately owned resort would have taken care of these things because unlike Belleayre they have a profit incentive. When you get government funding to pay for what sales can't pay for, it isn't a problem when these things aren't addressed.

 

[ss20]

Skye Peak Express was badly needed for a long time. I think the current generation only spends a bit of time at Bear and the HSQ link back is a welcome upgrade. Devil's Fiddle Quad was also doomed as soon as they abandoned making snow on the Fiddle. Wasn't much point left to that lift and as you said, no connection to the planned Parker's Gore or even early day traffic out of Northeast Passage base. Fiddle Quad was handy for that, first lift you hit coming off Northeast Passage if you started over there.

IIRC they made snow on the Fiddle even after the lift was removed. I want to say they last made snow on the trail in 2009 or 2010? @Newpylong or @mister moose could probably answer better.


And yes, the Skye Peak Express was looooooong overdue.

 

[machski]

IIRC they made snow on the Fiddle even after the lift was removed. I want to say they last made snow on the trail in 2009 or 2010? @Newpylong or @mister moose could probably answer better.


And yes, the Skye Peak Express was looooooong overdue.

Yes, and there have been rumors they would make snow the last few years but have not. I believe the line has fallen into disrepair now so unsure they could make snow along the entire length at least without some summer maintenance. Regardless, the traffic on that side had wained. Had Northeast Passage survived, that may have been reason enough to keep Fiddle chair. Without that base feed, zero reason.

 

[Newpylong]

Yes, from my notes the last year they made snow on the Fiddle was 2010-2011 and then they blew the line up when charging several times. My contacts say the line is inoperable currently. It's also pretty far back in the wood line by now with no access to the hydrants. As you can guess, that is a tough line to work on and should be replaced when the Bear Redevelopment moves forward (eventually).

 

[ss20]

Yes, from my notes the last year they made snow on the Fiddle was 2010-2011 and then they blew the line up when charging several times. My contacts say the line is inoperable currently. It's also pretty far back in the wood line by now with no access to the hydrants. As you can guess, that is a tough line to work on and should be replaced when the Bear Redevelopment moves forward (eventually).

@Newpylong that's vert interesting they plan on replacing the line when the new Bear lodge goes in.

Out of curiosity...any idea what year the pipes on the Fiddle are compared to those on the rest of Bear? I see those old in-house K2000/3000 "tower" guns all over that side of the hill so I'm imagining there's never been much pipe replacement over there. Did Devil's Fiddle's pipes just age poorly compared to other early 80s K pipes or is another factor? They make snow on OL 4+ times a year (many more this year) and never seem to have any issues. Same with Skyeburst, GE, Dreamaker, etc.

 

[skiur]

Bear definitely seems to have a lot more of snowmaking pipe blow outs than compared to the rest of K.

 

[ss20]

Bear definitely seems to have a lot more of snowmaking pipe blow outs than compared to the rest of K.

Very true I've seen more there than any other part of K. Rumor is that's some of the lowest quality pipe on the hill.

 

[urungus]

Regarding Gore/WF/Belle "profitability"... to get anywhere close to that for any of the three, you've got to remove capex, which is kind of cheating. Government programs aren't usually graded in that way. The horse is out of the barn at least in the Adk. All the private areas are gone. Without Gore and WF you'd have no (little) skiing. It comes down to do you want skiing and the associated economic activity there.

Those private areas might not be gone if they didn’t have to compete with the state‘s bottomless pockets of taxpayer money.

 

[Harvey]

Those private areas might not be gone if they didn’t have to compete with the state‘s bottomless pockets of taxpayer money.

Fact.

Some of the tactics were quite ruthless too.

And some were not that long ago. Before ORDA took over Belleayre they would dump a huge volume of free tickets into the marketplace.

Imagine how this would be received by other ski areas in the Catskills who were funding those loses with their tax payments.

 

[ScottySkis]

Fact.

Some of the tactics were quite ruthless too.

And some were not that long ago. Before ORDA took over Belleayre they would dump a huge volume of free tickets into the marketplace.

Imagine how this would be received by other ski areas in the Catskills who were funding those loses with their tax payments.

I remember about dossen years ago they bell did it several times a season

 

[Riverveteran]

White Heat