Belleayre and Plattekill

I had one day to ski last weekend and for me, this year, that means the Catskills. I wanted to ski those intermediate pitched bumps underneath the Belleayre Express. I also yearned to be back with my people, at Plattekill, on what was likely closing day.

Early in the week, Plattekill was promoting St Platty’s Day without specifically mentioning skiing. Believe me I get it, Saturday was a long ways off. I decided I’d ski Belle in the morning and head over in the afternoon for Plattekill’s most excellent corn beef and cabbage dinner special.

I arrived at Belle an hour before first chair. There were already hundreds of cars in the lot at Overlook.

It looked like a race day, and when I came through the tunnel I saw racks loaded with race skis. The Kandahar Festival was in town for a two day event, for hundreds of skiers, from a dozen race teams across New York.

I hoped to connect with some Belle regulars, that I knew from our forum, but had never met. I booted up and skied down to the gondola. It was the only line I waited in all day, and the lifties were doing an excellent job loading gondola cabins. Christina pointed at me deep in the crowd and said “single?”  I nodded yes, and in just a few seconds, I was riding up the mountain with six female U10 competitors from the Windham Mountain Club race team.

They were upbeat, and excited to be together on the mountain. I tried to draw them out, and it wasn’t hard. I asked if they were great skiers, and one told me “we often win.” I wondered where else they skied, and they mentioned Gore, Whiteface, Chile and France. I offered to take their picture, and they happily pushed together for a tight shot inside the gondi. What a treat.

After a couple laps I connected with Bandit, Eric and their crew. They remind me of my people at Gore; they get a lot of ski days and many of those days are at home. We made our way across Belleayre ridge, skiing I forget what, until we came to those blue rated bumps on Belleayre Run. I’ve got to be honest, I think about those bumps a lot. Belle blows the run deep, and rarely grooms skiers left. I can ski the bigger bumps on the steeper part of the pitch, but for me, they just aren’t as much fun as that sweet low angle action.

After some fun bumping, we went into Groomer’s Pub for lunch. For some reason nothing on the menu appealed to me. Everything was meat and cheese, it felt like too much. It was odd, I normally eat almost anything, especially when I’m hungry. My friend Dean — who brings his own dried fruit whenever he skis — says that once you eat meat, you get “end of day” legs. Whatever, I drank my water and didn’t order anything.

From following Bandit online, I knew he was into drag racing, and I asked him about it. He explained some of the basics of competition and strategy. Like others who race, he’s a mechanic, driver and poker player all-in-one.

Each competitor posts their best time in the quarter mile and the slower car in each heat gets a head start equal to the difference in those times. It puts the faster car behind, for much of the race, reeling in the slower car. He showed me some dashcam, and I found it fascinating.

My phone buzzed. I had texts from Brownski and Roman asking some version of “where are you man?”  At that moment, I was in a good position to change my boots, grab my skis, and head out to the car. I thought about that corned beef and cabbage dinner for a moment, and then said my goodbyes. I knew I could be booting up over there in 30 minutes.

That part went exactly to plan, and I headed out to ride the triple.  The Face lacked continuous snow from top-to-bottom, and only the most advanced skier (aka Nick) was hitting it. The “S” was in play and Lower Face was covered.  Blockbuster was accessed from the triple side, with a ~200-foot walk at the end of the snow on Buckle Up. On the double side you could ski North Face continuously, while Plunge required getting a bit of air (or sidestepping) over some mud in one spot at the top.

Objectively, Northface was probably the best skiing, but Blockbuster still had skiable bumps. I soon ran into Roman, he had just shut down the ski school for the year. He was all in for laps of Block and Northface. After a few runs, we found Brownski and Junior at the top of the triple, and made some turns with patrol.

We skied until 3pm and then headed in for the St Platty’s Day dinner. I can honestly say it’s the best corned beef I’ve ever had.  I gobbled down all of it, every single shred of cabbage, the bread, the carrots, all of it. Tragically, in the excitement, I neglected to snag my desert.

I pulled up at the bar with my plate next to Macker, who was enjoying his dinner too. In case you don’t know, he’s the top ops guy, and he’s been working for Plattekill, almost since the beginning of the Vajtay ownership, in 1993. He’s also one of the great humans on the planet. He told me the season ended up pretty solid, after a really tough start at Christmas. He also told me about plans for summer infrastructure, including snowmaking on Ridge Run and Overlook.

I knew it was coming, snowmaking on Ridge Run, sometime in the near future.  I lobbied for full length plumbing on Overlook, as a stall tactic, to save Ridge for one more year.  It’s certainly been considered, you’d be adding another Powderpuff. It’s a huge job, Overlook — probably two years —  that was the devious part of my plan. There is simply more bang for the buck in getting Ridge going. Having consistently open blue terrain off the double makes a lot of sense, especially during early, busy periods, aka Christmas. It spreads people out.

After dinner I went out on the deck to watch the sun go down behind the mountain one last time this season. I bid my farewells to patrol, ski school and operations. A special shout out to patrol, they look out for all of us. Laz and Danielle told me they were happy to see me, that felt good. I was glad to hear that they are skiing Steamboat with the boys this week, earning their first time off in months.

I skied both of these hills in the same day, one other time, on my birthday, last year. Both times, I came away with the same impressions and feelings. The contrast between these hills, just twenty miles apart, is striking. From both days, I’ll remember the depth of the snow at Belleayre and the depth of my connection to Plattekill.