White Lines...Belleayre 12/31/15

Well here we are on NYE and there is no natural snow in the Catskills. No, I lie, we got a dusting to 2 inches or so yesterday which was then followed by a good r÷%n most of the day.  There are just a few manmade white lines in the Catskills that are skiable right now.  I awoke to a dusting and temps just above freezing. We have friends coming up later today for the New Year celebration and my girls are awaiting their arrival at home to go to the rec center for a swim.  So, that left me with a window of opportunity to slide down one of those white lines amidst a sea of brown.  

I arrived at the Belle at about 9:15 to a fairly empty parking lot. Just one run on the upper and one on the lower will do that!  It is close to the point of not being worth skiing...but being only a very short drive and the fact that I was due for a fix, not having skied in almost 2 weeks, I bit the bullet and used my frequent skier card for a ticket. There is so little snow, they are giving away a free non-holiday ticket with the purchase of any ticket this week. A nice perk given the very limited open terrain.  Enough to easily tip the scales in favor of skiing today.

The crowds were light, even on the the one open trail. The snow quality was quite nice. It was right around freezing last night, which left yesterday's wet snow firm but not frozen. I'd call it firm mashed potatoes. No ice, even on the steeper, upper portion of Onteora. I don't think they groomed last night due to the weather, but either way,  there were some really nice bumps and mounds to play on, especially in the afternoon, which made for some interesting, fun skiing. I skied for about 4 hours with just one quick break for a cup of tea.

Another day in the log for the 2015-2016 ski season.  I am usually close to or well into double digits for my day count as of the New Year, but today was only day 3 so far.

There does seem to be some normal, cooler weather coming in starting tonight and lasting well into next week before temps start to rise again.  With the cold temps combined with some lake effect snows which are forecasted for this week, I'm hoping Platty will get a run or 2 open off the triple for next weekend, the 9th and 10th.

Some pictures from today.







Happy New Year to all of my fellow NYSkibloggers.

That snow looks good. Sounds similar to what we've been skiing. Lower elevs were best today so I can see how Belle would be t2b soft.

Happy New Year Marcski!

Here was the view from the bottom yesterday

Thanks for this report Marcski. Knowing about the vouchers gave me the extra push I needed when I slept through my alarm yesterday. Onteora got a little bumpy and sloppy about halfway between the mid station and bottom so my son moved down to the greens on the lower mountain after lunch but overall it was another good day.