Belleayre Gondola Discussion Thread

That was a good one ^^^

GladeRunner ratted out platty!  What a coupon queen!

Back to Belleayre, according to the website the rollers on Deer Run are being filled in to make the trail easier. This is (or was) a beautiful scenic, environmentally sensitive, low intermediate trail. It's being dumbed down and spoiled all for the sake of justifying Gov. Cuomo's "Gondola to Nowhere". In a sense, Belleayre is transplanting the beginner slopes from the bottom of the mountain to the upper mountain. Should we now expect most of the steeper upper slopes with moguls to be groomed out and widened? All Belleayre needed was a little TLC and improved snowmaking, not a makeover into a facsimile of a ski mountain for the sake of the developer of the adjoining mega resort.  A recently posted sign at the base of the gondola station  exhorts Gov. Cuomo's generousity
 in diverting tax payer dollars to "improve" Belleayre. Of course no mention is made of putting Belleayre deeper in the red with little discernable improvement to the skier experience nor of the environmental damage in cutting thousands of trees in an age of carbon footprint sensitivity.

This is unfortunate.  I always liked Deer Run the way it was.  I assumed they were just widening the choke points at the bottom.  I will withhold further opinions on the new Deer Run until I've skied it.

They had to better connect the lower mountaim to the west side and that's still what I see the main purpose of the gondola to be.

snoloco wrote

They had to better connect the lower mountaim to the west side

Why?  That certainly didn't seem to be an issue for the last 40 years or whenever the lower mountain was developed.  It separated the beginners from the rest of the skiers.  Do you really think this Gondola will significantly increase skier visits?  No way in hell enough to justify the cost!  Just a stupid, stupid idea and such a waste of tax payer dollars.  

Have you ever skied Belleayre on a busy day?

Ideally, beginners would park at the Discovery Lodge and intermediate and advanced skiers would park at the Overlook Lodge and there would be little to no mixing of ability levels.  Here's where ideal and reality don't mix:

Parking at Overlook is very limited and fills up quickly on weekends.  They can't expand the parking lots there because there isn't any flat terrain to do it and blasting to create more would be impractical.  This means that you will have a certain number of intermediate and advanced skiers parking at the Discovery Lodge.  Plus there's also larger groups that have skiers of different ability levels that will usually start at the bottom.  Passholders can use the parking lots at the Tomahawk lift if they don't need to be near a lodge, but day ticket customers can't because they don't sell tickets there.

All the people who started at the lower lodge and are skiing the upper mountain need to get up there somehow.  The only way up before was to take Lift 1/2 to Superchief.  This would only get you to the east side of the ridge.  Since the ridge slopes from west to east, you can't get to the west side without still going down and up twice or crossing every single upper mountain trail to reach the Tomahawk lift from Superchief.  Lift 1/2 should not be serving as an access lift.  It should be used exclusively by beginners lapping the lower terrain.  Of the three upper lifts, Superchief is usually the most crowded and this would be the case even if the upper and lower weren't connected at all.  It's the only high speed lift and the only lift you can take from the Overlook Lodge without walking uphill.  Add in the traffic going from lower to upper and it is a major bottleneck on most weekends.

The addition of the gondola will provide a one lift ride to the west side of the ridge.  Since the west side is the higher side, one can ski down from there to any of the terrain in the middle.  The section between Lift 7 and Superchief is very flat, so people going to those trails would still go Lift 1/2 to Superchief.  The gondola will take significant load off the Superchief and Lift 1/2.  

Exactly, so they spent $8 mil on a lift people will take 1x/day.

I try to only take the gondolas at Gore and Whiteface once a day, so that wouldn't be any different than when I ski Belleayre with the gondola.  If the trail from Tomahawk to the base is fun to ski, then people will lap this lift.

Sno, Belleayre is rarely crowded. Perhaps on four days a year parking becomes limited and significant lift lines appear and when they appear they are almost always concentrated at the Super Chief quad and are partly caused by mechanical and loading management deficiencies. Perhaps the gondola, if they can keep it operating (unlike the Super Chief quad), will bleed off some of those crowds when they occur as well as direct ski school activity away from the quad. Hardly justification for expending $5 million dollars which could have been utilized much more effectively and truly benefitted the mountain. In terms of parking at the upper lodge, plans are already on the drawing board to expand the upper lodge parking area thru demolition of the maintenance and storage sheds. So on the occasionally crowded days, a good part of the parking problem will be alleviated relatively inexpensively. Also, up until a couple years ago, it was possible to buy passes at the Tomahawk parking area. There is no reason this practice could not be re-established. As far as getting skiers from the lower parking area to the upper parking area on the occasionally crowded day, an inexpensive and effective solution is already in place, the shuttle bus.  Yes, a little slower and less exciting than the gondola but just as effective.I appreciate you're thoughtful attempt to rationalize the gondola and I can see you have an engineer's mind, but as a 20 year Belleayre pass holder and careful observer of the mountain's skier patterns, the gondola makes little sense. Not even ORDA has gone into as much a detailed analysis as you have. They didn't need to. The gondola is part and parcel of the adjoining mega resort build-out - a cave in to the developer - as well as a political "gift" from the Governor. Any benefit to the typical Belleayre patron will be more by accident than by intentional planning. It's that simple.

There is a most definitely a political backstory to the gondola.  I don't feel I can go into it, but if you look at the timing of the announcements, you can probably guess what happened without any inside information!

Yes, the gondola is most definitely necessary if the Highmount expansion is to ever be built.  Right now, it takes 4 lifts to reach the top of the Tomahawk lift from the Discovery Lodge.  The gondola will reduce that to one.  That will be a huge benefit for connectivity.

Generally, I prefer to use only skiing and lifts to get around once I'm in the ski area and rarely if ever use shuttle buses to move around.

Sno, Highmount expansion may never happen. Even if it does, Highmount is overrated even as a side country jaunt as we do it these days. Very short, somewhat steep runs, do it a couple of times and its over. Groom it and it becomes even shorter and less interesting. Ski Belleayre 70+ days a year, never had to take more than three lifts to reach the westside. If I start at Tomohawk, only one lift required. Start at the 7 lift, two lift rides required and if I want a little exercise, only one lift ride is required starting from the 7. Belleayre is a small mountain, a little extra time traversing the mountain is no big deal and comes with the territory. Existing lift arrangements adequately access Highmount without causing overcrowding and decimating Belleayre's budget. Plus the mega resort developer insists on maintaining the right of way to crisscross Highmount's slopes with an access road requiring multiple bridges/sheds. This will probably change - depending on negotiations- but the thought of condo's lining Highmount's rustic slopes is depressing. Keep it side country and authentic not a wannabe resort for the rich and pampered.  Unless the Governor can pull another rabbit out of his hat, there are many obstacles to Highmount's integration into Belleayre. It may happen a week from now, ten years from now or never. My guess is ten years to never. The total combined build-out of Belleayre and the attached mega resort is approaching a half billion dollars. Once the Governor is out of office and budgetary sanity of some sort returns to Albany (maybe it was never there) Belleayre will have to fight for every cent it needs to operate let alone go on a fanciful expansion. Even the developer of the mega resort indicates a ten year horizon for the build out of his project if it occurs at all.  Of course, I'm probably wrong on each and every count and it's probably time to put this thread to bed. On a positive point, we've past the halfway point to a new ski season!    

I don't like to start at Lift 7 because of the walk up to get to it.  I start on the Superchief whenever it's open.

Adding Highmount without the gondola or something to provide an equivalent connection would not work as you'd have to go through every single lift to get there from the Discovery Lodge.  It can be added without too much trouble right now.  Just connect the top of Highmount in and out of Deer Run, recut the trails, and add a lift and snowmaking.  The mega resort isn't needed just to add the terrain.

The other thing that I didn't mention earlier is that Belleayre's long term plan, even absent the Highmount and related expansions is for the Discovery Lodge to be the main starting point.  Overlook would only be a secondary starting point.  Looking at Google Earth, even if the maintenance sheds are demolished, there is no way to truly expand parking up there.  The Discovery Lodge has a huge parking lot and it could easily be expanded a lot more.  Expanding that lodge is also a lot easier than expanding the Overlook Lodge which would encroach on existing skiing terrain to add anything to it.  Well, in order for it to function as the main starting point, it has to have easy access to the rest of the mountain.  Getting to the east side of the ridge is already straight forward.  Access to the west side of the ridge will be greatly simplified with the gondola.  

I'm hopeful that once Sno starts paying taxes he will then care about the state wasting our money. Until then I don't see the rose colored glasses coming off anytime soon.

The Belleayre gondola is small potatoes compared to most other government projects.

If you wanted to go to Highmount so bad couldn't you just park there? I mean, it's not like Belleayre is expansive like Vail or Park City.

snoloco wrote

I don't like to start at Lift 7 because of the walk up to get to it.  I start on the Superchief whenever it's open.

My god these kids today are so soft.

snoloco wrote

The Belleayre gondola is small potatoes compared to most other government projects.

I read this as: "it sucks, but not as bad as other stuff has sucked in the past, or is likely to suck in the future."

Hey sno what's your favorite way to get cardio or exercise?

Skiing is of course my favorite form of exercise, but I don't like to go uphill on downhill equipment.

I enjoy biking a lot in the summer.

Another issue with the walk up to Lift 7 at Belleayre is that once it's past first thing in the morning, there can be people skiing down the same hill you're trying to walk up.  It makes zero sense to walk up there when you can ski down and take the HSQ.