by Albert Neubert
There’s been a fairly sharp dividing line in the Northeast so far at the start of the new ski and snowboard season. From the Catskills and Berkshires and on south there have been very few periods where snowmaking has been possible and those windows were followed by relatively mild weather so any manmade snow would likely not stick around. However, from Vermont on north, stretching east and west, it’s been cold and even extremely cold for entire nights with some days not breaking freezing in the mountains. In those regions, the snow guns have been busy.
The latest round of favorable snowmaking in the Catskills took place on Sunday and into early Monday morning. Belleayre, Hunter and Windham all had the guns going and started to lay down enough manmade snow to start a base. Note that Belleayre had a “soft” opening only for pass holders on November 16th and announced an opening date to the wider public on the day after Thanksgiving. The rest of this week featured marginal and even mild temps at times so skiing and riding locally will stay on hold for at least another week if not longer.
Sunday River, in Bethel Maine, joined Killington, in central Vermont, on Tuesday and that will be followed this coming weekend by resorts like Stowe, Sugarbush, Jay Peak and perhaps Stratton, Mount Snow and Okemo, all in Vermont. In New Hampshire, expect Wildcat, Loon, Bretton Woods and maybe Waterville Valley to open this weekend. Sugarloaf, in Maine, will also open later this week.
As always, early season turns tend to involve thin cover, limited terrain and too many enthusiastic skiers and snowboarders on too few trails. Conditions deteriorate quickly so get out early and finish early to save yourself for your next time out. It’s a good policy to keep yourself from getting injured at the start of the season. There’s a reason that the early season snow conditions are often referred to as white ribbons of death so caution is the operative word.
There have been a lot of new lift installations during the offseason and for this week I’ll focus on three of the biggest ski resorts in New York. The Olympic Regional Development Authority, or ORDA, oversees the operation of Belleayre, in the southern Catskills, and Gore and Whiteface, in the Adirondack Mountains. Each had a new lift put in during the summer and fall to help with skier and snowboarder traffic flow.
Let’s start with Belleayre, an easy day-trip visit for skiers and riders in the Hudson Valley. Belleayre set its sights on finally replacing the Lift #7 triple chair that started above the Overlook mid-mountain lodge. The triple chair goes directly along the side of the Yahoo trail with a two-thirds get off just where the Yahoo trail becomes a double black diamond run. I’ve used that lift countless times in my skiing lifetime and I always thought it should have had a lift to get to the lift. It required a climb of what seemed like at least 50 vertical feet to get to the loading station. The chair had an 800 foot vertical and covered the best terrain on the mountain, allowing you to go right or left from the summit to access much of the core black and double black diamond trail network. It also was usually not as busy as the other major lifts on the mountain.
The triple has been replaced by a quad chairlift and the base station has been moved below the Overlook lodge with a skier bridge built over the upper parking lot to allow easy access to the lift. This will increase the vertical of the chair to around 900 feet but more importantly, you won’t have to climb to the lift anymore, instead, pop on your skis or snowboard at the Overlook lodge and cruise down a few hundred feet and hop on the new quad. It also allows an alternative to ski most of Belleayre’s 1,300 foot plus of vertical by using the lower mountain quad that will overlap the new quad and get you to the top in the middle of the upper mountain trail network. This was well thought out and will make riding up the mountain a much more pleasurable experience.
Next up is Gore, in North Creek a little over an hour north of Albany. Gore will be replacing the Bear Cub poma lift, which is right near the parking area for the main base lodge, with a conveyor loading quad chair. The conveyor belt allows skiers and snowboarders an easier way to load onto a conventional chairlift that doesn’t come to a stop like a detachable high speed lift. The new chair will allow access to the green circle Sunway trail as well as the novice Bear Cub run.
Last up is Whiteface, near Lake Placid in the northern Adirondacks and home of the greatest vertical drop in the Northeast at over 3,400 feet. A new detachable quad chairlift, called the Notch, has been installed and connects the Bear Den beginner and learning area to the main mountain. The lift will have an unload point to allow lower level skiers and riders to get off before the lift continues uphill to more advanced terrain. The summit terminal for the loft allows access to all of the upper mountain lifts so it will provide for another way to reach that terrain and avoid the hustle bustle of the main base area which is like a narrow funnel and gets overwhelmed on busy days.
Meanwhile, at West Point, I spoke with Dave Brzywczy (pronounced “Breezy”) who is a coach for the West Point Junior Alpine Race Team. The team is made up of 10-16 year olds that have parents that work at the Academy. They train and race at the Victor Constant Ski Slopes which has surprisingly good terrain on over 500 vertical feet. The issue there has more to do with operations and snow making which can be less than stellar at times especially when there are adverse weather conditions like what happened most of last winter. “Breezy” works with up to 11 other coaches and they practice at nights during the week and have races on Saturdays against teams from other mountains including Plattekill in the Catskills, Thunder Ridge, in Patterson, New York, Campgaw in New Jersey and Holiday Mountain near Monticello.
Think more serious and consistent cold in our area and happy skiing and riding!
You can contact me at asneubert@aol.com or you can visit my Instagram page at asneubert
