Belleayre: Racking Up Miles

One more year as a flatland road warrior, and I’m going to have to rally. I admit it, working full time, having a family, and chasing snow from 200 miles away is tough. This could be my last season balancing all three. Then again, without logistics, who am I? What do I write about? I guess we will see.

This weekend it actually worked out pretty well. Over the holiday I had three full nights sleep, rising without an alarm. I can’t remember the last time that happened. Then, for Sunday morning, I set my regular Belleayre alarm for 4am. I take an hour to make coffee and hit the road. If I leave for Belle at 5, I’ll arrive at 8, an hour before first chair. With my alarms, I can usually handle one delay, gas or food, and stay on schedule.

Another upside to skiing Sunday, it allowed for a few more days of snowmaking and grooming. Belle’s been killing it the last few years and I assumed that extra time would lead to more terrain. In reality, as long as it’s not too crowded, I don’t pay attention or care how much terrain is open, especially on “opening day.” All I really need is some soft snow on Deer Run or Sunway, to work out the kinks.

Everyone I know recommended parking at Discovery Lodge and riding the gondola. But for some of us, the Overlook Lodge represents Belle in a way that Discovery never will. That’s not a rap on Discovery, it’s beautiful, but for me Overlook is Belleayre.

The new skier bridge is pretty impressive. As an Overlook lover, I should probably embrace it, and I probably will, when it’s done. I wondered how pedestrians were expected to get to the other side of the bridge. I assume the tunnel underneath the bridge will be closed to motorized vehicles.

I booted up inside, surprised to find I was almost alone. I guess everyone was down at Discovery. As I clicked in, I realized the only way to ride a lift uphill from Overlook was walk to “The Hawk” or ski down to the Overlook Quad or ski down to the gondola. For some reason, I chose the gondola.

Over the last few years, I’ve tried to develop the habit of recruiting ski partners in advance. I tend to ski the same mountains over and over, and when ski, I probably know somebody on the hill.  But without some advance communication, you’re leaving it to chance. This time, I was on my own.

The wait for a gondola was less than a minute, and I rode up with a couple of guys who told me they normally ski Plattekill.  At the top, they headed for Deer Run and I followed. I did tele turns much of the way down, not exactly normal behavior on my first run of the season. Soft and dreamy, it was consistently the best run, all day long.

I hit Seneca and then skated down the ridge to find Goat Path, the new trail from the top of the new Overlook Quad. It’s got an intriguing entrance, but when get into it you see a handful of turns that could be beyond the ability of intermediates. There are two sharp curves and both are steep at the apex. In fairness to the trail designer, the conditions on Sunday were challenging, and on a different day, there are probably many blue skiers who could handle it.

I get why it’s rated so, if you study the trail map, it kind of has to be. It reminds me of Echo at Gore. If you don’t rate it blue, the whole mountain is less functional. The steep section of Goat is not that long. Maybe it’s as simple as some special attention to keep it groomed as wide and deep as possible for the families it’s likely to attract on the weekends.

Unloading at the top of the gondi, Plattekill skiers Scott and Stefan called me out. I skied with them the rest of the morning.  I wanted to ski Deer Run over and over.  Stefan eventually redirected me to Peekamoose. Peekamoose has one of the longer stretches of sustained expert pitch at Belle, and the snow was loose and deep. Well into the afternoon, you could find six inches of loose snow down the sides.

All of a sudden in my life, I find I can’t ski all day and catch up on my eating later. Noon came and went, and I was getting hungry. Stefan and Scott were set to leave by early afternoon, so they didn’t want to stop. Sandwiches in my bag down at Overlook were calling to me. I skated across Route 9. From the top of the gondola, my only real choice was the Goat Path.

Between the first and second turns, I came across a little girl, who was down and crying.  Her leg was in a bad position, twisted under her body, with a lot of pressure on her knee.  Several vertical feet below her, on a snowboard was, I assumed, her dad. He was trying to give her advice on how to get up.  But she couldn’t get untangled.

I couldn’t let a kid be that afraid, when I knew I could help. Dropping down from above it was a relatively simple matter to set myself down on the snow and click her out of her binding. From there she was able to stand up.  She was clearly tired at this point and the trail was hardpacked and steep, so it wasn’t easy to get her binding lined up with her boot.

Eventually we got her clicked in.  There was another 50 vertical feet of steep left to conquer, and she was understandably afraid to face the fall line.  If she was my own kid, I’d have grabbed her around the waist from behind, cranked out a snowplow and carried her down.

Instead I stayed uphill to block incoming traffic and give her encouragement. I talked her through one turn at time. When she came to the crux of the second bend in the trail, I could see that it was going to take something extra to get past that point.

Then, on her own, intuitive and brilliant, she side slipped ten vertical feet to get through the toughest section. It looked like she’d never been taught the technique; she figured it out on her own, on the spot. It was the coolest thing I’ve seen in quite a while. I told her she was incredibly brave. After that, I skied behind her at a comfortable distance until it flattened out, and then skied off on my own.

The situation was surreal as I’d inserted myself without really talking to her dad, or asking permission.  When I saw her knee under so much stress, I couldn’t think about anything else. He and I never spoke through the entire exchange and if you’re out there Dad, I apologize.

I made it down to Overlook and ate my lunch: cornbread, ham sandwiches and dried cherries. I looked around but didn’t see any available beer. I knew I had to ski more, and banged out four more runs.  Deer Run, Peekamoose, Deer Run and Goat Path back to the venerable Overlook Lodge. My legs were feeling it, I was happy. This part of the season is all about building my legs and balance back to the point where I can ski the fall line and capitalize on the natural snow when it falls. Solid season opener for me.

Belleayre is sprouting up all around. New lodge, new lifts, new trails and skier bridges on top of a decade-long investment in snowmaking that’s really getting noticed.  Last year the amount of snow Belle made was astonishing. It will be interesting to see how this year unfolds. I’ll still ski from the Overlook Lodge, my connection to the history of the mountain.