The Belleayre Blog

Confession time, but I doubt any of the NYSB authors will be surprised; I’ve got a bit of an OCD thing going on. I obsess about numbers, among other things. With just a few exceptions, the only truly legitimate numbers are even, and some even numbers are better than others. The best numbers are divisible by other even numbers like 12, 16, 24 or 36.

It effects me at work, slowing me down when I have to set column widths in a spreadsheet. It’s also effects my ski day count and maybe even my skiing. Last week looking at the weather ahead, I was sitting at 21 ski days and the weekend looked wet. Friday, on the other hand, was forecast to be sunny and very warm, at the end of a warm week. Skiing Friday felt right.

Continue reading →

It has been a good winter for skiing. In the grand scheme of things, that may be a trivial thing but there it is. I’ve been a nomad this winter. I skied more then ten different hills, including four new ones. Of course nothing lasts forever. The seasons change and we must move on. With the warm weather and impending rain, giving up on the ski season this weekend would have been understandable. But I wasn’t ready to throw in the towel.

I wanted to keep skiing. Until Saturday, I hadn’t included any ORDA mountains in my ‘20/‘21 ski odyssey so I figured it was a good time to take a break from exploring and retrace the well worn path to Belleayre Mountain in the Catskills.

Continue reading →

I’ve never really accepted the idea of “no friends on a powder day.” The right friends can make all the difference when you are chasing new snow. They can help with the prep and planning, and they can help when things can wrong.

I’ve been lucky chasing storms over the last few years, managing to avoid major setbacks, weather delays or transportation issues. My luck was bound to run out eventually, and this week it did. But I was with the right people, and it almost didn’t matter.

Alex and I woke at 7 am in the Starlite Motel to the sounds of other guests cleaning off their cars and loading up. We quickly joined them as the new snow was going to take time to clear.

Continue reading →