Belleayre on Saturday & Windham Slalom on Sunday (February 6 & 7, 2010)

Belleayre Saturday


We started this weekend at Belleayre, the 13th day of my ski season.  We drove two cars up to the ski house, because my wife and son did not want to go to Windham for the race on Sunday.

Belleayre on Saturday was a lot of fun.  The snow was coverage was excellent, the bumps were soft and playful.  Belleayre has been blowing snow like crazy.  They blew a huge whale on upper Yahoo, to stockpile for March.  They blew enough on lower Algonquin to make a mini-terrain park.  They have even blown snow on Utsayantha, which is previously unheard of; Utsayantha has always been a natural-snow only kind of ski run.  I heard they had to pull hoses through the woods to accomplish that.  The snowmakers at Belleayre should be commended.  The entire mountain should be commended for maintaining such great snow conditions despite the lack of one single snow dump all winter.

Even the woods have snow.  Enough to poach new lines through unheard of glades.  A lot of the snow is blow-over from snowmaking.  My friends and I were exploring heretofore uncharted Belleayre woods.  Of course there is the Yahoo glade, to the skiers right of Upper Yahoo.  We had been skiing that one for a few weeks.  We added runs through the woods below the Goat Trails between Upper Yahoo and Utsayantha, through the woods to skier's right off Peekamoose, and through the woods to skier's right off Dot Nebel, cutting off the Cayuga catwalk.  That last one was dicey - skis took some dings over rocks that were covered by powdery snow.

We all had a fun day, and lines were minimal.

Windham Sunday

This was a long adventurous day.  It was my 14th ski day this season.  My daughter raced the J4 slalom race at Windham.

The adventure started on the drive on to Windham.  I had never driven from our ski house in Halcott to Windham.  So instead of taking the known way - out through Fleishmanns, taking Route 28 to 42 towards Hunter & Windham - I plugged in some Google Maps directions.  It sent me an interesting way that had me thinking that I might learn some new area roads.  The directions started:

1. Head south on Co Rd 3 toward Elk Creek Rd - 0.6 mi
2. Sharp left at Elk Creek Rd - 1.0 mi
3. Turn right at Townsand Hollow Rd - 1.8 mi

I was familiar with the turn onto Elk Creek Road. I had never taken it before, but I thought it would be cool to see where it went.  It went to a dead end, right after the turn onto Townsand Hollow Road, thankfully.  So there I was in the half light of 6:35 AM on Townsand Hollow Road, driving my front wheel drive Mazda3, going up hill on a dirt road.  Well it wasn't all "dirt" - it was frozen dirt, and about 50% of its surface was ice over said dirt.  Lucky thing the Mazda3 has all kinds of traction controls built in, and it was making it up the twisty parts as long as I applied increasing pressure on the accelerator pedal.  I admit I was a little worried at this point, considering the timing to get to the race was tight, and it was just my daughter and I on this lonely road so early in the morning.  Then I saw the sign.  The sign said, "Seasonal Road, Minimal Winter Maintenance".  Nice, thought I: On on.  Then came the barricade and the deepest snow I had seen anywhere in the area, including on Belleayre Mountain, this weekend.  There were tracks around and past the barricade, but without AWD I wasn't going to try it on this morning.  So I turned around and headed back to the known route.  I lost a total of about 10 minutes.  Luckily the roads were dry and there was no traffic, so I was able to speed fairly safely.  Too early for the cops, but watched out for the deer....

...Pulled into Windham at 7:20.  That was amazing.

A weekend regular price ticket at Windham costs $65.  Parent discount tickets were $45.  Race registration fee was $35, coffee and muffin were $7, daughter's additional lunch chicken and fries were $8.50.  Despite the "Windham is The New Aspen" logo on T-shirts there, this was a fairly normally priced ski day for el cheapo me.

The last time I skied Windham I hated it.  It was this same race last year.  The previous day at Belleayre had perfectly dry powder conditions.  Last year, when we got to Windham it was mostly a few-inch thick covering of mostly ice with some pebbles embedded.  It was windy and cold.

But Sunday was totally different.  It was sunny and the snow conditions were good on the right side of the mountain.  Not as good as Belleayre, a little harder and a little more icy, but the coverage was so much better than last year that I can't complain about that.

There are other things I can complain about, because they just don't suit my tastes.  First of all there is the pretentious classical music piped into the entire lodge and outside on the patios and into the lower lift area.  To me, that just does not smell like skiing.  There is the fact that about 90% of the terrain was groomed to death.  There was about a half of a quarter of a run with some bumps on the west side, and there was an entirely boilerplate set of bumps on "Wicked" on the left side, East Peak, which should be called Ice Peak.

And the lines at the main lift, The Whirlwind Express, do get long.  The lessons line is always favored, and a lot of people ski in groups.  We at Belleayre have been spoiled by the general lack of lines this winter; which is bad for business there, but great for us skiers.

Windham has some nice real estate off the side of the mountain, no doubt.  The last thing that is only slightly annoying is the fact that they actually sell a t-shirt that says, "Windham - The New Aspen".

My daughter raced and had fun.  She missed a gate on the first run after she had declared the course to be easy.  So easy and icy that several skiers missed a gate.  At lest her second run was a success and she finished with a big smile on her face.  Slalom is a tough discipline, especially for the light kids.  I often wonder about this ski racing thing.  Ski racers spend thousands of dollars and spend hundreds of hours on training, yet there is only about a grand total of 10 to 15 minutes of time spent in a real race course all winter.  And less is ironically best.