Belleayre: 11/26/16 (16-17 Season Opener)

I was home this weekend, so my dad and I decided to hit Belleayre today and kick off the season.  They had two trails open off two different lifts.  On the upper mountain, Onteora was open and served by Lift 7, and on the lower mountain, Iroquois was open and served by Lift 1.  We skied them both, however the runs were not connected as the Superchief HSQ was not spinning.  You had to do a short walk around the lodge to get between them.  It was nice to see that Belleayre was able to open terrain for all abilities right away, and the top section of Onteora has a nice pitch.

I haven't skied Belleayre in a while, so I'll need to develop a new routine for the days I'm there.  My dad and I were thinking that we would typically park at the mid lodge, then drop down to the HSQ to start the day.  We'd likely bang out some early laps there, and then move over to Lift 7 and Tomahawk.

Conditions were better than I expected.  All open terrain was covered wall to wall, and there were no bare spots or rocks.  There were two "chocolate corners" near the Lift 7 midstation, but should be easy to cover up if they are able to make snow tonight.  The mountain was just above the r*in snow line, so there was a constant resurfacing of the trails all day.  I don't think there was any snow that wasn't edgeable.  

Looking forward, they appear to have a lot of snowmaking equipment mobilized and ready to cover more terrain.  However, with I'm guessing they'll focus only on resurfacing until after the thaw this week, and then expand terrain when the cold temps return.  It appears that the next priority will be opening terrain off the HSQ and connecting the lower and upper mountain.  If all goes well, I would expect to see that by the 10th/11th.

Looking down Onteora


Looking up Onteora


LIft 1 on lower mountain


Looking up from base area


Closed terrain near Superchief HSQ, soon to be opened.


Snowy ride up Lift 7


This year is already off to a much better start than last year, hopefully there are many great days to come.

Attaboy!

Just realized that 5 of my 6 pics didn't upload.  I don't know what the hell happened.  I'll just wait till I get back to school tomorrow and my computer geek roommate can fix it for me.  I'm really bad with technology.

Nice pics, sno. We were there Jan. 1 last year and it already looks better then it did then

Good report.  The Belle does a lot with what it has.

Petronio