IF YOU were up in the Catskills last weekend you might have seen some strange things flying over Belleayre Mountain.
No, it wasn’t your imagination; for three days towers flew over the rugged terrain of Belleayre Mountain Ski Center in Highmount, New York. It was a helicopter delivery and positioning of the three-ton, 40-foot towers from which two quad lifts will be suspended.
The towers have come to be the most visual and dramatic evidence of the $5 million state-funded capital improvement investment which is transforming the popular high peak Catskill Mountain ski center into what many skiers had been hoping Belleayre would be come for the past decade.
It may be a little early in the year to be writing about a ski area, but these improvements have tens of thousands of skiers excited about the coming season.
The flying of the towers graphically symbolized the year-long overhaul of Belleayre, the oldest active ski area in the Catskills, which last year celebrated its 50th birthday.
Improvements include, in addition to the two new quad lifts, a 20-percent increase in sk worthy terrain with major extensions of many of Belleayre’s trails, several new trails, a new lodge, new and expanded parking facilities, increased snowmaking capacity, and cat access to remote terrain.
Belleayre is owned by New York State and operated by the Department of Environmental Conservation as a year-round recreational facility. The ski area was first built in 1949 when a special amendment to the state’s constitution permitted construction of ski trails through Belleayre’s forest preserve lands.
The ski center opened for the 1949-50 season with five trails, and electrically powered rope tow, New York’s first chair lift, a base lodge with dirt floors and parking. Local residents remember how skiers would pitch tents outside the lodge so they could beat the crowds and be the first on the lift line.
Ski trains, some with as many as 8-10 packed cars, ran every weekend from New York City to Pine Hill and Fleischmanns, and the communities literally opened their doors to skiers – almost every home rented rooms on weekends as demand exceeded the capacities of the few hotels.
Snowmaking came to Belleayre in the ’70s, and while there have been some improvements every year since, the ski center fell well behind in its amenities and state of the art equipment as compared to other ski areas in the Northeast.
It wasn’t until Gov. Pataki made the money available for the current face-lift that local businesses breathe a sigh of relief.
“In a very real sense,” stated Tony Lanza, Assistant Superintendent and Director of Ski Services, “Belleayre is now not only the oldest operating ski area in the Catskill, it’s also the newest.”
Since it was built in 1949, the ski center has been a vital anchor for the tourism-driven economy of the region, and local merchants and residents have eagerly awaited a re-investment by the state in Belleayre’s superstructure.
Now that the improvements are in place, the only thing left for a totally successful season is for Mother Nature to cooperate with some skiing weather.
