Belleayre Mountain Review

Badly managed. At mid day they had over 400 people waiting in line at their skycheif quad. Hundreds more in queue at their gondola. (the Only transport to the upper mountain). I would not go here again unless it was midweek and there were exceptional snow conditions.

not a big fan on the layout of the mountain - to get to the blue slopes its a long flat track you gotta struggle through it was painful...

Absolutely no handicapped accessibility anywhere! Had to park very far away. Path to the gondola very uneven, Rocky and no way a person with any mobility issues or any physical challenges with walking would be able to get to the gondola. I had to turn around part way
there with my mother and go back to the car. We weren't even able to get to it to ride it! Bellayre should be ashamed.

It was a bit crowded the day we went, but the conditions were excellent, and the new gondola is top notch! We had a lot of fun!!

This is a great ski mountain. They have nice wide slopes for and terrain parks from beginners all the way up to expert.

No Gondola except weekends. Poorly marked trails. A terrible cafeteria. But hey it s Bellayre.

Decent terrain for nyc proximity, could maybe use some faster lifts and this year really needs some help from mother nature. Overall a good mountain though.

A day on the slopes. Weather was iffy, but the day was fun. It wast too expensive either.

I love belleayre mountain along with the new lifts and lodge.

Great place. Came here during the winter season and it was packed. Families, couples, out of towners, we met all sorts of people here. Also has great food and food catered towards children as well as a bar.
The slopes range from green to double black diamond so really all skill levels can do their thing here. There is a lift that goes to all the green slopes and the gondolla brings you up to all the black and blue skill level slopes. The blue eventually merge with green slopes.

Good snow coverage and decent amount of lifts open even in non seasonal weather

First ski resort in New York having gondola, keeping you warm to go the peak. Nice ski place.

This is the mountain of all mountains in the Catskills. So many great trails, always great conditions and is never packed. Not because its bad, but it's spread out and is a hidden gem around Hunter and Windham and Plattekille. Winter is off-season for the nearby towns of Pine Hill and Phonecia so you can even grab a low priced motel nearby. I love the Phonecia Lodge. Worth every dime you spend. Mid week lift tickets are as low as THIRTY BUCKS. For this place?? Its a steal. Plenty of parking in mid and lower mountain. Great food and drinks always are available on the deck with a beautiful view

There is a nice variety of trails and when the snow coverage is adequate the glades are a lot of fun. The key at this mountain is the amount of snow.

Close enough to NJ for day trips, big enough to have challenging trails, not as crowded as Windham or hunter.

Very homey, friendly staff, lift operators and ski patrols.

Great summer day trip. Amazing views, exhilarating gondola ride and very affordable

Excellent place for kids to learn to ski, or snowboard. Good ratio of instructors to kids. Not crowded, good value for the cost.

Great place. In Vermont, it would be 3 or 4 stars.

Great atmosphere, mountain was in terrific shape despite no significant snow recently.

Not a huge mountain, or the best maintained, but it's a fun mountain to ride or ski.

It's great to have a gondola on a freezing day! Way less people then Hunter. I wish it would be less ice, but what you can do with North-East weather)

Great ski resort. A little busy at times but they have lots of trails.

Was there off season for NY State employee's gathering. Very thorough and courteous staff. Spacious and clean inside and out even though there appears to be some construction going on outside. Our meeting was exceptionally nice. If I was a skier, I would be coming back here.

Nice trails for beginners. Some nice cruising black trails. Gondola and no crowds makes it easier on kids to learn.

This place is awesome. There is challenging trails for all skill levels. Not the best place if your into slope style.

Great staff and great skiing. A little crowded on holidays, and the snow tends to get skied off towards the end of the day, leaving the slopes very icy, and not at all good for beginners. Outside of the holiday seasons, this place is pretty awesome.

Lots of improvements to an already fun mountain. The new gondola is a game changer. Plenty of variety in terrain to keep everyone happy.

This review will focus almost exclusively on the exceptional members of the First Aid Station and the Ski Patrol at Belleayre.

After an amazing day of skiing at Belleayre last weekend with my two sons, aged 12 and 11, we experienced an awful incident where my older son severely injured himself on one of the black trails on his last run.

I was in the lodge with my 11 year old when I got the call from Steve Reich, a member of the ski patrol, to inform me of the news about my 12 year old. He was on the mountain and got to my son minutes after he fell. Despite telling me that my son had badly hurt his back and that his breathing was pretty ragged, Steve's professionalism, focus, and demeanor helped me to stay calm and to absorb the alarming news. Steve told me to get to the First Aid Station where they would bring my son. I went there immediately and was greeted by the amazing staff there. Christina Wells and Jim Lowda greeted me and were patient, kind and most importantly, incredibly competent. They did a great job calming down a shocked, frazzled, and worried father as we waited for the Ski Patrol to arrive with my son.

Let me tell you, I almost had a heart attack when I saw my son in the stretcher being pulled by the ski patrol's snow mobile. But, Christina and Jim were amazing. They kept talking to my son and assuring him that he'd by ok. The other members of the ski patrol, Tony Caneski and Mike Sarubdi, did a phenomenal job of securing my son to the stretcher so that they could quickly bring him down to the First Aid station. There were no less then six people who rushed to help him get off the stretcher, out of the restraints and into the ambulance so that we could get to a nearby hospital in Margaretville.

After several hours in the ER, we got the good news that my son hadn't broken or fractured anything. We were released and were on our way home later that night.

As if their attention to my son and me the day of the accident wasn't enough, the very next day I received phone calls from Jim and Steve to check up on him to see how he was doing. Their concern was genuine and I can't thank them enough for taking the time to do that.

It's been about a week since his accident, and my son is still healing, but he is on his way to a full recovery.

You absolutely should visit Belleayre to ski/snowboard as it is a great resort, with really nice facilities, and well maintained trails. However, I wrote this because I wanted you to know that, if you are ever in need of medical attention while you're there, you will be in VERY good hands. I simply cannot thank the First Aid staff and Ski Patrol enough for what they did for us.

Our go to place for family skiing. Well layed out to separate different levels of difficulty. Easy to get around from lift to lift. Even when crowded doesn't feel packed.

Great terrain choices. Still snowmaking in March. Would have given 5 stars except they did not run the Tomahawk lift or gondola. Instead ran #7. So no Dot Nebel access.
During the day I asked why to 4 different employees from different departments. Each said the same thing. Poor management. They were also kind of grumpy.

Great place. Quite expansive, however sometimes runs blend into each other, making them hard to distinguish. Ok place to learn. Still quite nice though.

A lot less glitz than Windham, little less expense. The gondola seems to handle a busy day much more efficiently. Trails and parking are a little confusing at first.

Spent most of the day at the magic carpet with my wife and son. It seems that the staff is almost none existent there. I had to stop the carpet 2 times because someone had fallen and no staff member was there to step in. This is definitely where you need someone 100% of the time. No excuse!

My Favorite local mountain. Besides the overpriced food, the staff is amazing and even in the 2011-2012 snow drought, they still managed to pump out as much snow as possible.

Lots to choose from in terms of terrain. The new gondola is nice.

Great family atmosphere. Friendly staff. Couldn't recommend more.

We've been skiing here for years and the addition of the gondola makes it even better.

They have now scenic gondola rides (closed chair lift rides) throughout the year!

lift lines can be long, great conditions and different kinds of trails.

Great mix of beginner trails and intermediate trails had a great time.

This guy from Marketing "Joe" was very rigid. Not very customer/family friendly. Even when there was a winter storm refused to give a full refund for my sons kids camp lesson.Will be avoiding this one for sure.

Overcrowded. 20 minute chair lift wait times. Trails closed off for competition, even with thousands of paying customers, broken lifts, complete parking and shuttle mess and extremely rude staff.

This place is terrible. The lines are LONG. People come early and throw all their stuff on a table in the lodge so there is nowhere to sit and eat. My daughter took her first lesson and there were at least 15 people in her group.

Would love to tell you that it sucks so you would not go there but can't

Bellayre is a great ski mountain not to crowded has terrain for everyone and is not far. The only problem is how small the beginner terrain is it has about 5 main trails. Also it is very hard to get to the tomohawk lift

It was an enjoyable experience for me as a beginner but the lines for the rental were very long and the slopes on the bottom were so icy to the point that they were more dangerous than the higher ones.

Great for families and beginners. You can "graduate" from the Lower Mountain to the Upper and makes everyone feel accomplished. Lots of fun and keeps getting better each year.

This is a great, friendly mountain, well worth visiting, and much worthier of support than their local competitor, Hunter Mountain, which enforces archaic, discriminatory practices like firing all male employees who grow their hair an inch below their ears! (see my review of Hunter Mountain if you want more information on this disgusting company policy on Hunter Mountain). Belleayre is convenient, it has a lot of trail options, and it doesn't discriminate based on appearance. Worth all 5 stars.

While this entity is well known for good, less expensive skiing in the winter, in the summer there are good activities to explore. We parked here and unloaded our bikes and rode along the mountain roads nearby and the pics perhaps confirm what a fine and lush place to explore the area is.

The mountain here is definitely better than Hunter and Windham. I like that they separate the intermediate/expert trails from the beginners. It really helps with the lines and the trails. Didn't see one green by staying g on certain lifts and it was awesome.

Loved it because it wasn t busy.
People were nice, and there were many trails to ride even when the weather was above freezing for about a week

Great place and it won't cost a bundle. Finally a state run facility that's professionally operated. I love NY!

The gondola ride was awesome! The serenity and the beautiful mountains add to the experience.

I am so done with this mountain. I've been here twice this year (December 31, 2016 and today February 11, 2017) so far and both times their main lift, the Super Chef has been closed. I understand that things break down but it has been over a month and they still haven't solved the problem. This causes a major inconvenience when you want to go down any slopes on that side of the mountain. I would much rather spend my money at a mountain that has all of their lifts working. I would reconsider making a trip out to this mountain if you can avoid it.

Amazing place, with friendly instructors. I'll be back as son as possible.

We didn't ski, but the lodge has a big fireplace you can hang out in front of. The cross country skiing area is free to use

You will be charged for lessons even if the mountain is closed and it is pouring rain and you cancel the lesson 24 hours in advance. Apparently you have to cancel the lesson within 72 hours which makes no sense as the weather changes from day to day. This is a terrible policy as it's raining more than it is snowing. If they don't want to refund money, then they should apply the money spent for a lesson on another day. But no, that would be doing the right thing and good customer service which apparently they have no interest in doing. This is unfortunate because I have been snowboarding here for decades and was hoping to bring my kids here now that they are old enough to ski. I highly discourage lessons here for this reason.

Great vibe of a New York mountain. Not as big or polished as it could be but it feels like home.

Kid friendly slopes. Bring your own skis and food if possible (skis are pricey for rent and food is a disaster as in any ski center canteen)

The one star is for the ski school. The mountain was nicely groomed.

Class was way to slow overpacked and overpriced. I stopped by throughout the day and saw my 5yo little man and waited and waited some more but all I saw was standing around, this was about 1h 45 min into class. And I guess I was expecting skiing not 20 kids just standing around.

Went back to skiing to return around 2(1hour before class was over) to check on him with my wife to see the progress.

This seemed to be perfect timing as he was coming up the magic carpet. First he fell coming of the lift and not getting helped making a pile of 3 kids before one of the teenagers noticed anything. The kids then got helped up only to be standing there taking turns falling over for 15 min until they got so grumpy they where all aloud to go inside.

We went to pick up our son and as we picked him up they had misplaced his shoes and hat.

If you want a babysitter this is meh if you want your kid to learn something more then standing still on skis just save yourself the money.

This ski mountain is very good. Lifts and lift lines are fast. Food is also good, especially at the mid mountain overlook lodge. WiFi is really bad, but that doesn't matter.

Went skiing for the day, for a smaller mountain the trails were pretty nice!

Snow condition was bad. Too icy. But people were friendly.

In 1.5 hours I learned how to ski, and I had the best time ever

2020.02 me and my son never ski before. He is 10 and joined the camp. He learn slow and in the afternoon of the camp instructor only taking care 4 kids and 2 sitting doing nothing. Don't think it is worth at all....check my video