Wed 12/19/2007

[method9455]

Two of us are going up tomorrow if anyone else is going up.

 

I'll be wearing

Red Jacket

Gray Pants

White Helmet w/ white/black checkerboard goggles.

 

She'll have

Tan pin stripe one piece

Tan helmet w/ black goggles

[AtomicSkier]

Two of us are going up tomorrow if anyone else is going up.

 

I'll be wearing

Red Jacket

Gray Pants

White Helmet w/ white/black checkerboard goggles.

 

She'll have

Tan pin stripe one piece

Tan helmet w/ black goggles

 

 

lol

[ddelcore10]

I'll be up too, actually I will be wearing exactly what she is wearing

Edited December 19, 2007 by ddelcore10

[ddelcore10]

Welcome to the site..you must be Methods beezy...post a trip report..

 

I don't know how I feel about 'beezy'... as long as its not bitch its cool

first of all, method was the one that commented 'ill wear the same thing' I just wanted to get out the door...I'm gona try to post a trip report, let's see how I do, I'm still tryin to figure out how to work the system.

 

Sidenote, if anyone has ever been up there you remember that like everything is for sale and theres no fast food and I don't want to pay $8 for a 'panini' at belleayre. Any lunch suggestions? We hit the diner on 28W which was packed for the breakfast crowd on the way in but dead at 230. It wasnt bad but we played it safe w a cheesburger and chicken fingers.

 

The most important part: We got there at like 10:30, overall coverage was pretty good. It's kind of a pain in the ass to get from one chair to the other though, especially today. The problem was that they had almost all of the blue trails open to the right of chair 7, from area51 to seneca but the black trails that were the top half of the full run were closed so no one was on them anyway I like to stick to the left side of the mountain, at least until I'm able to actually get over to the other side. I take chair 6 to wanatuska, chippiwa, roaring brook, Onondaga, Mohawk, onteora, I think we did all of them by now. All good, no complaints. We tried taking the Tomahawk lift, but the above problem forced you to take tuscarora?, which was crappy half ass moguls that didnt work out. Oh and there was 2 ski teams there; not only did half of the team not know how to ski, but there was a million of them and they destroyed the course. We didnt have to hurt anyone but comments were made from the chairlift...When we got separated we took some random trails and method found a goldmine, area 51 is usually there park but they don't really care about making a park right now, at least it doesnt look like it. (They have a crappy 2 foot, no gap jump and a battleship and a flat rail set up on the trail to the left of chair 7 but theyre all ride on) So right now or at least today area51 was pure powder, even at 2:00 if you stuck to the outside you could slice right through it. There were 2 random minijump/3 ft dip and rises that went straight across the trail but if you took it too fast you land in powder anyway, how could you be mad. Oh but at the bottom there was like a 50 ft long random ass crusty section, I think they tried to make snow and it just froze and glazed over, but it was fine.

 

It's a start, I'm sure method will fill in all the holes.

[method9455]

Left NJ today at 7 am, hit Poughkeepsie at 8:15. I stole some breakfast from her dorm, switched cars and hit the road by 9.On the mountain at 10:15.

 

Crowds: About 40 cars in the lot, so about that many people on the mountain, plus two or three bus loads of high school team team kids. What the hell are these kids doing that they are off from school mid-week middle of the day for ski team practice? And more importantly, if you are taking off from school to practice skiing, shouldn't you not suck? A lot of these kids where really bad what is up with that. Largely they where on two trails (yahoo and one way out by tomahawk) but randomly you would see them on other trails in small groups. Overall, no crowds, never waited for a lift.

 

Mountain: It was my first time at belleayre, I see what people mean about being horizontal rather than vertical. The 3 main lifts are very spaced out. Vertical was good but not much greater than PA stuff, probably 800-1000 on the main face. Hypothetically less than Hunter but I always end up just using the F lift at Hunter or the back side which is about the same, the quad at hunter is too crowded, so it is a wash on that front. It felt like there where a lot more trails at Belleayre, every named trail was substantial. Although it was hard to get a feel in the amount of time we had.

 

Trails/Conditions: The best trail of the day by far was Area 51. It wasn't the steepest, but it had the most untracked powder of all the trails. It was edge to edge with 10 tracks when I showed up in the morning, and at 2:30 when we left we where still getting some tracks. We took chair 7 and got off at the mid station so it was only like a 600 vert run, but it was awesome. I don't think they had made snow on it, just the natural stuff from the last week or two, and the drainage ditches where deep with lots of pop for powder ollies. The rest of the day was spent on corduroy, everywhere, grippy but fast. No ice except 1 random ass patch that must have been a poorly adjusted snowgun. There where many other powder stashes, a lot of trails where 1/2 groomed half powder, and there where seemingly an endless number of closed trails with 2' of powder with a lot of tracks through if you didn't mind a few branches here or there, and the poach.

 

The only trail we didn't like was Onturio? It was really moguly but in the way snowboards are terrible for, very irregular, just a bunch of powder that had been pushed around. Snowboards can handle harder moguls that are regular by staying high on the bump, but if you have to fight your way through the troughs it is impossible. I am one of the only snowboarders I know that likes bumps, and even I said fuck it the second time down the trail and just bombed straight down it flattening a bunch along the way. Sorry guys.

 

Park: Didn't hit it, 4 jibs all ride on, one jump, I would call it a 0 footer. The lip ends and the landing begins, there is no table at all. The jibs themselves looked like good quality, but its just not there yet. I dunno if I'll ever hit their park, it probably won't be that good.

 

Weekend outlook: I dunno, they weren't making snow at all when we where there. The snow that is there is great. By the weekend there will be no powder left I bet, even the closed trails where getting tracked pretty good at this point I guess they don't care much about poachers. It looks like every trail just need 12" of man made snow and they could be 100%. There are several runs that need 2 or 3 areas covered that are so small one gun per run would do it, belleayre run was a prime example, so hopefully they will get some more open for the weekend. As it stands right now, all the greens and blues are open, but it is incredibly sparse up top, you only have 2 or 3 options off the ridge, and not knowing the place that meant we couldn't really get onto a lot of the blues because their upper half was closed. It seemed kind of dumb to have so many trails open that you can barely get to. I bet locals would be able to find a bunch of good trails that are not getting any traffic at all in the middle area. We could see them through the trees and have no idea how to get there.

 

Overall, a very good first day at the mountain.

 

 

 

Some pictures from our last run of the day on area 51, of course I had to wipe my ass out the one time the camera is there. The drainage ditch is about 3/4 of the way up the photo it is hard to see. Check our lines coming down next to each other - thats at 2:30 and still plenty of powder to float on, oh yea. And this stuff fell on Sunday night? Its awesome.

 

Edited December 20, 2007 by Method9455

[method9455]

Nice report..8 bucks for a panini isn't that bad..Panera probably charges 7 bucks and a diner would charge almost that but you have to wait 15 minutes and tip...nice report..

 

Was this your first time at Belleayre??? Belleayre really shines for spring skiing..due to their location the snow lasts into late April..

Yea it was our first time, we bought season passes without having gone there based on the advice we got on PASR a few months back, and we're really happy with it. There might not be a trail with the sustained pitch of the stuff at Hunter, but there are a lot of trails with good headwalls and it feels a lot less artificial than Hunter, everything kind of flows better it was a lot of funny. No crowds, great snow, 30% cheaper than hunter, and lots of trails to explore made it fun, and it will only get better as they open more up.

[method9455]

Is Dot Nebal open yet? That's a PASR favorite..

 

It was but we didn't hit it, ski team was practicing on that and Yahoo.