Hard Work Pays Off – Belleayre Mountain is Tracking Toward a Record-Breaking Season
Mother Nature arrived fashionably late this season. Seems to be a growing trend.
Ski areas around the world and the skiers and riders who love them have all persevered variable weather and a lack of early to mid-season snow. For Belleayre Mountain, despite the hurdles they are on track for a record-breaking year. To make even more monumental they were tracking for success well before the March snow storms. And it didn’t just happen. They planned it and worked hard for it.
Over the past several years, the Olympic Regional Development Authority has invested in updating Belleayre’s snowmaking infrastructure. It’s been a multi-phase series of projects that mean today’s Belleayre is better equipped to make more snow faster with less energy. The mountain also recruited a dedicated group of some of hard-working snowmakers. Today, Belleayre boasts a powerful snowmaking system and an expert team of snowmakers running the guns.
This winter, the crew got the mountain open November 18, earlier than any other ski area in the Catskills. And even with nature’s all-over-the-board behavior this fall, the entire mountain (63 trails, 100%) was open December 19. That’s not even officially winter yet!
For several summers now, they have been all about winter, laying the literal groundwork up and down the mountain for great winters on the mountain. This past summer, the snowmaking team installed 60,000 feet of new pipe. They added stronger pumps for greater efficiency and more output. They set up a new high-tech control system and put the icing on the cake with energy-efficient, high-yield snow guns, 300 of them lining the trails from top to bottom. It was a busy summer considering they also recruited and trained several new members of the team.
The previous year, they built a new pump house and added new compressors, installed 235 new guns, and put down 13,000 feet of pipe. The year before that, they made similar upgrades. All in all, recent summers have been non-stop for the Belleayre Mountain snowmaking crew who built the foundation for this year’s snow filled season.
It’s a fitting tribute then, that fans of the mountain voted in droves for their Belleayre Snowmakers, who won the national I AM A SNOWMAKER contest. In doing so, the people who love Belleayre paid a fitting tribute to a hardworking team that gets the job done. With the investments by the Olympic Authority, they have the tools, and they make the most of them.
The result is reliably epic days for skiers and riders all winter long. The investments in snowmaking technology and the grueling work it takes to install and operate it proved beyond beneficial. To mountain guests, to snowmakers, to the community and the region’s economy, and to Belleayre’s bountiful winter wonderland.