Opening Day 2008
I thought I was going to miss this opening day. But the planets aligned and I was able to get up there for the best opening day at Belleayre I ever had. Wanatuska and Onteora were open from the top, and there was about 10 inches of natural light powder on the ground.
I had a great day! The snow was super if you stayed off Wanatuska. Despite my legs still feeling a little sore from running last Sunday's Philly Marathon, I did 20 runs in 4 1/2 hours. All but about two of them were practically ski-onto-the-lift. I only did 4 of those 20 runs on Wanatuska, and I can confirm that it was like the Garden State Parkway during rush hour with lots of fender benders. The problem was that Roaring Brook was closed. There were no blue square rated trails from the top. Lots of people that loaded Superchief seemed to not know that. Many "beginner-level" skiers had no choice but to try to navigate Wanatuska, which was icy by 10:30 AM. It looked like ski patrol downloaded many people that wanted to play it safe on lift 7.
I skied lift 7 all day. Onteora was deep with soft blown snow on top, and had great soft snow from the middle on down. The top half had irregular moguls on a big whaled up center, which yielded about three different fall lines. You could start down the middle and take it, or hang diagonally left. At one point I could swear i was skiing turned more than 90 degrees from "straight down" the slope.
The closed trails - Yahoo, Utsayantha, Algonquin - were practically open by about 1 PM. There were a few earlier poachers, but when people realized there were no ski patrol people in the lift 7 vicinity - probably because they were hung up dealing with injuries and crazyness on Wanatuska - so many people skied them that they were virtually open. Dry powder indeed, but bottoming out did happen, especially on the runs above lift 7's midstation. I like my bottoms, so I avoided them and concentrated on burning the bumps on Onteora. Super workout today!
What I noticed that was different perhaps due to the budget constraints - and maybe this was just because it is the day after Thanksgiving, opening day, and they couldn't get enough people to work - but not enough people were at work at the mountain. To save money? In the morning, there was only one lift ticket window open outside at Overlook Lodge. The line snaked around all the way back to the flagpole. Inside, the guest services line snaked around and back to the first aid area doorway. It took 25 minutes of line waiting for me to get my season tix there this morning before skiing. At the end of the day, it took 15 minutes of line waiting to buy one of those limited 4-packs they were selling today. I didn't even eat lunch because when I went in at 12:30 the lunch line was backed up into the table area and there was only one person ringing register. Trash cans were overflowing. So I bagged it and ate on the lift - I had a couple of Cliff bars and my Camelbak. A ski patrol woman told me there wasn't many of them on duty today. Definitely short staffed today.
Finally, this was interesting: On the Belleayre access road there was a straight ahead arrow kind of sign that said "Highmount Ski Center", with a picture of people riding a lift. I am wondering if the Belleayre Resort people are resurrecting Highmount for operations this winter.
I skied lift 7 all day. Onteora was deep with soft blown snow on top, and had great soft snow from the middle on down. The top half had irregular moguls on a big whaled up center, which yielded about three different fall lines. You could start down the middle and take it, or hang diagonally left. At one point I could swear i was skiing turned more than 90 degrees from "straight down" the slope.
The closed trails - Yahoo, Utsayantha, Algonquin - were practically open by about 1 PM. There were a few earlier poachers, but when people realized there were no ski patrol people in the lift 7 vicinity - probably because they were hung up dealing with injuries and crazyness on Wanatuska - so many people skied them that they were virtually open. Dry powder indeed, but bottoming out did happen, especially on the runs above lift 7's midstation. I like my bottoms, so I avoided them and concentrated on burning the bumps on Onteora. Super workout today!
What I noticed that was different perhaps due to the budget constraints - and maybe this was just because it is the day after Thanksgiving, opening day, and they couldn't get enough people to work - but not enough people were at work at the mountain. To save money? In the morning, there was only one lift ticket window open outside at Overlook Lodge. The line snaked around all the way back to the flagpole. Inside, the guest services line snaked around and back to the first aid area doorway. It took 25 minutes of line waiting for me to get my season tix there this morning before skiing. At the end of the day, it took 15 minutes of line waiting to buy one of those limited 4-packs they were selling today. I didn't even eat lunch because when I went in at 12:30 the lunch line was backed up into the table area and there was only one person ringing register. Trash cans were overflowing. So I bagged it and ate on the lift - I had a couple of Cliff bars and my Camelbak. A ski patrol woman told me there wasn't many of them on duty today. Definitely short staffed today.
Finally, this was interesting: On the Belleayre access road there was a straight ahead arrow kind of sign that said "Highmount Ski Center", with a picture of people riding a lift. I am wondering if the Belleayre Resort people are resurrecting Highmount for operations this winter.
Lift Ticket Line at 9:30 AM
Labels: trip report, video
posted by Thinnmann at 9:05 PM
1 Comments:
As a snowboarder, I'm really glad I asked about Onteora being the only way down from lift 7 ..I'm not too good with moguls :)
The run from Wanatuska down to the Superchief was great, until they shut it down from the lines freezing up. I probably went down that about 5 or 6 times before they told everyone that the lift was closed (on Sunday).
It was a great weekend overall.
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