Belleayre Expert Skiing

Expert skiing at Belleayre is a good news, bad news proposition. The good news is that the ski resort is laid out across a wide ridgeline and the top roughly 1/3 of the the ridge is quite steep. This means that expert skiers can enjoys 300-450′ descents down a long row of legitimately steep headrows. The bad news is that these headwalls are short and all have long blue runouts.

Additionally, there is little to differentiate one trail from another. Although Ultimate-Ski has visited Belleayre at least a dozen times, we find it incredibly difficult to remember particular upper mountain runs. Beyond moderate variations in pitch, the only real differences amongst the expert trails is whether or not they have been groomed.  All the headwalls are generally the same pitch and width. Moreover, they are simply too short to be anything but straight.

That is not to say that the black diamond runs at Belleayre are boring. In fact, they tend to be challenging, particularly when moguled. Belleayre receives sufficient snowfall (141″) that moguls tend to form on many of these runs and mogul skiers will find Belleayre’s bumps to be the best in the region. High elevations and lower skier numbers than nearby Hunter and Windham combine to form wonderful, soft bumps. Belleayre (quite rightly in our opinion) leaves a large number of trails ungroomed and expert skiers appreciate these short, but fun black diamond runs.

Lastly, Belleayre puts its natural snowfall to good use by opening up large portions of the mountain for gladed skiing. The resort even offers hike-to terrain on the periphery of the resort. When conditions are good, the 10-minute climb to ski the double black diamond Cathedral Brook trail is well worth the effort. Visit our Belleayre Backcountry & Glades page for a more lengthy discussion of Belleayre’s tree runs.