The Big Issue at Your Home Ski Hill

What, in your opinion, is the #1 issue at the ski area you call home?  

Is there:
a) no solution
b) a potential solution
c) a potential solution, but with a major impediment or restriction

I'll start:

Issue
At Belleayre in the Catskills, the mountain is more or less cut in two by a mid-mountain lodge and parking area, and it needs more terrain to overcome its ridgeline topography: short steep sections at the top followed by blue runouts.

Solution
On the looker's far right, annex Highmount Ski Area next door. On the looker's far left, build trails and a lift along Cathedral Brook all the way down to Pine Hill, almost 2,000 vertical feet below. Build a top-to-bottom gondola with a mid-station that'll connect the two disparate areas. All of this has been on the drawing board for years.

Impediment
Money is tied up in a mixture of state politics and environmental issues. Historically, most of the state ski money ends up at Gore and Whiteface via ORDA. Also, Belleayre's environmental review process is very onerous.

Prospects
Some of it may happen eventually, but probably not during my lifetime (or before I leave the region).  

This is simple for me. In the last five years Gore has added:

• 50% more terrain
• 20% more snowmaking

I have no idea if the precise numbers are right, but the fact is Gore has added a ton of terrain, and some snowmaking.   I reached out to Mike Pratt to get his input and will correct my numbers, when I get something more accurate. But the ratio of snowmaking to total terrain has got to be lower than it was 5 years ago.

The solution is time.  Gore is probably 90-95% built out now. The recession will end. Snowmaking improvements will come, and Gore will eventually be just fine.  Would love to know if other Gore skiers see other, bigger issues.

Hunter is under going big time improvements this season..Hopefully this will but some pressure on Bell to implement some of their  plans ...

Harvey44 wrote

Would love to know if other Gore skiers see other, bigger issues.

I fully agree with what you said, but there is another issue with Gore
The problem:  They close early each day by about 2-5 minutes.
The solution:  Fix the clocks to that they do not close early.  It they really want to close earlier then change their advertised closing time and the signs at the lifts.  The sign at the triple would say “Last Chair 3:57”
The Impediment:  The lifties are itching to go home so this is why I think that they close early.