Belleayre Conditions

Belleayre looks to be set to open most of the Superchief area in one shot by next weekend.  Once that's done, hopefully my favorite lift (Tomahawk) is next.

Though it was a bit frustrating that Upper and Lower mtn was not yet connected, with Superchief running in a test mode, skiing today was a lot of fun.

Closed trails were covered with nice 5-7 inches of much needed fresh powder and Ski Patrol was very kind with closing their eyes on people getting after it.





Flurries started around 2 and it was snowing hard all the way from Belle to NYC. Wish I could make it there tmrw, shaping up to be one hell of a day.

Snowmaking on Roaring Brook and Superchief running very fast (I'm guessing 1100ft/min) in test mode on the webcam.  It will be good to have that open this weekend.  I'm guessing snowmaking moves to the West Side following that, which is my favorite lift there.

Just arrived and realized there are 5+ busloads of high school racers that all decided to come today.  Guess I can kiss my hopes of low crowds bye bye.

enjoy man.. beats being in an office right meow

I was there yesterday. Things were in decent shape after the rain and hard freeze within a 24hr period. They need to resurface the trails, some are showing thin in a number of places, and many were boiler plate.

Given the long term forecast with not much natural snow visible and some warming on the weekend into early next week Im not sure the terrain expansion on the west side is a good idea. I can understand the reasons to do it but the east side, lower and central section of the mountain could use a lot of that snow making capacity.

Run of the day.... Lower Wanatuska from Overlook to the Supercief...

Mid day update:

Racers turned out to be a non issue.  None of the buses were even close to full, and they're only skiing one trail where they have a small course set up.

Minimal crowds and zero lines.  Only Superchief open at first, but Lift 7 just opened up.  Lift 1 in the beginner area is also open.

Coverage is very good on all open trails.  I think expanding snowmaking to the Tomahawk side is a good idea because it allows them to use all the parking lots and have all lifts for Christmas.  Temps are still good at night much of next week for snowmaking.

evantful wrote

I was there yesterday. Things were in decent shape after the rain and hard freeze within a 24hr period. They need to resurface the trails, some are showing thin in a number of places, and many were boiler plate.

Must've groomed the crap out of everything last night because there's no boilerplate today.

Here again today.

No racing groups, so even lower crowds than last time.  Ski right onto every lift.  Same terrain open as last time.

They got about an inch of snow in the morning, so conditions were good early on.  Getting a bit scraped now.

West Side and Tomahawk lift will open tomorrow with Seneca t2b, plus connector trails Tomahawk Crossing, Expressway, and Route 9.  Looks ready to open today, but they probably didn't have the staff to run the lift.

Good stuff.  Did they post they were opening Tomahawk when you posted here, or did you just ask them?  Thanks for posting on Belle.

I noticed that Seneca, Tomahawk Crossing, Route 9, and Expressway were all groomed last night.  During a ride on Lift 7, I saw ski patrol putting up lollipop markers on Expressway and Tomahawk Crossing.  Checked the report on my phone during lunch, and it said "West Side opens Friday".

Very impressed with Belleayre's recent snowmaking efforts.  Went from a couple trails off Lift 7 to all lifts open in a week.  All runs that are open have very good coverage.

Way to go Belle. For comparison purposes to Gore's open terrain, any idea what Belle's natural snowfall is so far ?

Edit: Just checked, Belle's claiming 45" so far.

My update from today:

My dad was able to come today.  Yesterday and Tuesday he had to work.  Was nice getting to ski with my favorite skiing partner again.

Now onto the conditions.  Nice weather today.  Got up to about 35 degrees at Overlook Lodge.  Lift 1, 6, 7, and 8 (which made it's season debut today) were open (lift 6 is Superchief and 8 is Tomahawk, other's don't have names).  Conditions on all open runs was a loose granular surface on a hard packed base.  I could still hold an edge on it, but I'm guessing lower level skiers would struggle on the steeper sections.  All in all, a good day of skiing and it was nice to see lift 8 spinning.

My predictions for the holiday week:

I think the conditions could be challenging for lower level skiers.  They haven't resurfaced since the last r*in event, and once the ice that was chopped up by the groomers is scraped off, some trails could be like tilted hockey rinks.  There is only a single runout open to the Superchief (by far the most skied lift on the mountain) and with basically 4 trails funneling into it (Roaring Brook, Onondaga-Horseshoe Pass, Belleayre Run, Wanatuska) it could be a problem.  They've covered Canyon, but that requires one to go around the lodge to get to.  If they opened the cutoff on Chinook, they'd have a full second route to that lift, but they haven't fully covered it yet.  

The good news is that they achieved sno-approved status and are going to open all the lifts for the holiday week.  Tomahawk opened today, and I think they'll run both sides of the double-double when it gets busy.  Maintenance was inspecting Lift 2 today, and I think it has spun since my visit on Tuesday.  Lift 1 (right side) has been open since Thanksgiving, but Lift 2 (left side) has yet to open this season.  Having Tomahawk open means that they can use the large parking lots over there without having to bus everyone to a lodge.  That should reduce load on the shuttle system and congestion in the lodges.  Also, Seneca is a better expert run than Onteora, and it looks like they plan to open Algonquin soon (they blew lots of snow on it).  Dot Nebel was also being blown today, but isn't all that close to being ready.

Really nice day on the mountain, everything softened up quickly with the temperatures rising.

My run of the day was Belleayre Run, held up great throughout the day, you could rip on it top to bottom all day long.

With some snow in the forecast for early morning tomorrow the mountain should be in great shape for the weekend... well atleast until the crowds mow it down

Belleayre Run was pretty good.  Didn't ski it all that much as my dad doesn't like the runout to the hsq.

12/29/16

The mountain is in good shape and received about 6inches of snow from the storm. The day itself ended up being a shit show by 11 or so as the denser snow that fell began to mound up and the sheer number of people made for an interesting afternoon. Business seemed good.

Hopefully they fair ok with the quick warm up on Tuesday and quickly begin more expansion with the cold that follows.

Belle was skiing really well yesterday (12/30), too.  Over the past two days they received about 10 inches.  Many of the ridge trails at the top were getting the snow blown off from the wind.  It was nice to play around in the cut up powder.  Not related to conditions but I was very impressed with the kids ski school.  Happy New Year everyone.

My only complaint is that I think they can open up some trails that are currently closed, like Dot Nebel.  

Bit of a shit show today.

Conditions pretty good in the morning, but many skied off to bare ice by 10am.  Superchief  broke down at about 10:30 and was closed down.

With that lift down, everyone has to ski Lift 7 and Tomahawk, which both stopped a lot.  Lift 7 has a good sized line, but Tomahawk wasn't too bad.  Low intermediate skiers can't get to Roaring Brook either, so people are skiing trails way above their ability level, further adding to the trails being scraped down to boilerplate.  Lots of people walking down.

Still had fun though.  Just called it a day.

Woah.  Sorry to hear that.  I just remembered now, but someone said to me on a lift ride yesterday (30th) that Superchief stopped for a few minutes.  

For whatever reason, I've found that lift to be very temperamental.  Seems to do plenty of random stops.

According to the Webcam, it never reopened, so it's likely broken to the point where they need the Doppelmayr crew to come check it out.  Issues that can be resolved by the in house maintenance crew are usually finished same-day.

I feel for any of the lower intermediate skiers that were there today.  That lift serves 2 of the 3 full length intermediate trails.  I heard people complaining about it all around the lodge.  I'm sure some people left very frustrated and likely won't return.  Having your main lift go down on a major holiday is always a very bad thing for business.