Donny’s an all around great guy. Super friendly, great skier AND instructor who is really fun to ski with and learn from. I did the weekend workshop with him for a couple years 15+ years ago back when it came with the season pass.
He got tired of the current situation at Belleayre and left 3 or 4 years ago, as did/are many long time employees because they are unhappy with the management(and the new #2 guy they just hired is only hurting not making things better!). Big loss for the Mtn when Donny left. He’s retired from his real job now and skiing during the week.
Reading your Cathedral article brings back some good memories. It’s also a stark reminder of how much the vibe on the mountain has changed and not for the good. The Beast was awesome! It ended up succumbing to an electrical fire.
The Beast is something like that would never be considered today, nor would the mountain manager or ski school director even think about skiing down to Pine Hill much less bring a member of the media down there.
Back then the priority was skiers and skiing. I don’t really even know what their priority is now, but I do know that no lift loaded until 9:45 on Monday after 10” of snow and that’s unacceptable. They were short staffed on the upper mountain lifts while multiple lifties were shoveling out the magic carpets in the learning area and the line at 7 stretched all across onteora and down almost to the lodge.
