Evan and I took a day off from work and headed to our local mountain, Belleayre Mountain in the Catskills. Evan bought new board, jacket, and pants, the whole package. I even bought a new jacket. We were totall psyched for the first ride. Belleayre was great last year when we went after the Valentine's Day snow fall.
The mountain was just as nice as I remembered. Since it was the Friday before the peaked season started, there were no more than 30 cars in the parking lot. The mountain belonged to us. Even with only 14 of the 47 trails open, the condition was great. Machine-made snow powdered the opened trails. Without the normal weekend crowds, the trails were powdery the entire day. I even had the opportunity to sneak behind the "closed trail" sign to get a run at the pure powder trail. Reminds me of Utah. Evan wasn't so fond of that run. He ran over couple of rocks and scratched up his new board. Oh well.
Belleayre is by far the better ski resort than Hunter Mountain which is about 20 minutes closer. I feel like everyone in NYC who ever ski'ed or thought of skiing go to Hunter. Everytime I went to Hunter Mountain, I can barely ride for more than 2 seconds before performing a giant slalom move to avoid a hapless skier.
Belleayre has more varied trails, friendlier staff, less crowd, and better terrain. It is definitely worth the extra 20 minutes drive.
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