What It’s Like to Live 15 Minutes From a Ski Mountain
I’ve been skiing for most of my life. I learned at Windham when I was seven, took the OvRride bus from the Upper West Side to Hunter as an adult, and traveled out West whenever I could. In a good year, I might get around 14 days on skis.
Then I bought a house 15 minutes from Belleayre. When I lived upstate full time, I skied 34 days one winter, then 40, then 53. I didn’t suddenly have unlimited free time. Skiing just stopped requiring an entire day.
When Skiing Becomes Part of Everyday Life
On a weekday, skiing can be my workout. I can look at the snow on my front steps in the morning and have a pretty good idea of what I’m dealing with. I know how warmly to dress, whether I need hand and toe warmers, and what kind of conditions I might find. If I have two hours, I can ski for two hours. If the conditions aren’t great, I can take a few runs and go home. If they’re unexpectedly excellent, I can stay.
Having a season pass helps. I buy mine when Belleayre first releases passes, months before winter begins. By the time I’m skiing, I’ve already spent the money and stopped thinking about what each day costs. With a day ticket, I’d want good conditions, enough terrain open and enough time to make it worthwhile. With a season pass and a house nearby, I’ll happily go when only a handful of trails are open.
The season usually gets underway around Thanksgiving, but I don’t really feel like my season has started until about day seven. By then, my legs are back, I’ve had time to work on my technique, and there’s usually enough snow for more of the mountain to be open. When the whole mountain is skiing well and I don’t have to think as much about which trails have enough coverage, winter feels like it’s humming along. By the time the first really good storm arrives, I’m ready for it.
The Case for Skiing the Northeast
There is a certain kind of skier in New York who likes to say they only ski out West or in Europe. I understand the appeal. Destination skiing can be spectacular. I’ve been to Aspen at least once a year for the past 12 years, often twice. I’ve skied throughout Colorado and Utah, as well as at Whistler, Palisades Tahoe, Mt. Bachelor and plenty of other mountains. I love skiing out West and usually take one or two Western trips every season.
But if you live in the Northeast and only ski out West, you may love skiing, but you probably don’t ski very much. I’d rather ski 30 or 40 days here and still take those trips than spend an entire winter waiting for six or eight supposedly perfect days somewhere else. I’ve often found that people who ski regularly in the Northeast and also travel West are more adaptable skiers for it.
Northeast skiing asks you to adapt. There is hardpack, ice, wind, fresh snow and the inevitable freeze-thaw cycle. A trail that skis terribly at 9:30 can be completely different after the sun hits it. A day that looks questionable from the base can be excellent higher up.
The more days I’ve spent skiing here, the less interested I’ve become in complaining about conditions. Really good skiers know how to adjust their technique to what’s underneath them. That doesn’t mean I’d choose an icy day in the Catskills over a powder day in Aspen. Of course I wouldn’t. It means I think it’s a mistake to dismiss the skiing available within a few hours of where you actually live.
Every once in a while, the snow gods reinforce the point. Some winters favor the Northeast while destinations that are supposed to be more reliable struggle for snow. Weather doesn’t care much about anyone’s ski hierarchy.
Getting to Know One Mountain
Most people I know who ski regularly in the Catskills eventually settle into a home mountain. Mine is Belleayre. The elevation and snowmaking are important to me, as are the infrastructure and continued state investment. There is a gondola, varied terrain, enough challenging runs to keep things interesting, and the mountain works particularly well for families.
It also feels polished. Parking is well organized, shuttles circulate through the lots, ambassadors are everywhere, and the lodges and patios are well maintained. The different lodges have different personalities, so even where you stop during the day can change the experience.
The crowd generally seems to take skiing seriously too. That doesn’t mean everyone is an expert. It just doesn’t have the feeling of a mountain full of first-timers and people drunkenly bombing downhill after too many morning Fireball shots.
After enough days there, I’ve developed my own way of moving around the mountain. Early in the season, I’ll do easy laps on Deer Run. Most days, I gravitate toward the Belleayre Express and ski Belleayre Run or Tongora. On a good powder day, I’ll work my way east toward Cathedral Brook, where it gets quieter and feels more immersed in the woods. When there’s enough coverage, Dreamcatcher Glades is where I’ll go if I want more of a challenge.
I’ve learned the mundane things too. I know where I like to park, where to drop my skis before getting my boots on, and where to keep an extra lens and some hand and toe warmers. I know how to manage lunch without losing a huge chunk of the day. And I know which holiday weekends aren’t worth bothering with because the lift lines can be punishing.
Sometimes the only way to understand the conditions is to go. I’ve stayed home when the snow report hinted at soggy conditions and I’d seen rain outside my own window the night before. I’ve also gone over with low expectations and found surprisingly good skiing. There are days when two runs tell you everything you need to know. There are others when you keep saying, “one more.” Being close makes room for both.
A Powder Day Starts the Night Before
Living near skiing has given me a collection of routines that I barely think about anymore. If several inches of snow are expected overnight, I’ll put the car in the garage so I don’t have to clean it off in the morning. If it’s going to be a huge storm, however, I may do the opposite and park at the very end of my driveway. The public road will be plowed. My driveway will be plowed eventually. Those two things do not necessarily happen at the same time.
I’ve learned this the hard way. I’ve tried to leave before my driveway was cleared, gotten stuck, shoveled myself out and then made the futile attempt to clear the driveway myself. There are few things more frustrating than waking up to a great powder day and realizing the only thing standing between you and the mountain is your plow guy.
On a good morning, I like to arrive at Belleayre around 8:20. That gives me enough time to park, walk to the lodge and get my boots on without rushing. I’m ready by 8:45 for the lifts to start turning at 9. If the skiing is great, I’ll stay. If I’ve had enough after a couple of hours, I’ll head down the hill, stop in Fleischmanns for lunch and go home.
There is also a certain satisfaction in documenting the big powder days. I keep a running ski-day count that inevitably gets reported to the WhatsApp group for my annual guys’ trip, usually accompanied by photographic evidence when the Catskills are having a particularly good snow year.
Watching My Son Learn
Some of my strongest childhood memories are tied to skiing, although not necessarily to the skiing itself. I remember being proud when I moved up through the levels at Windham’s ski school. I remember skiing with other kids and the ridiculous hats everyone wore before helmets became standard. I remember breakfasts at the Thompson House, now Wylder Windham, and playing Monopoly and other board games with my brother and sister after skiing. We took those trips until I was around 12, when my family started traveling farther away to ski.
Now I’m watching my son have his own introduction to the sport. He started at three, and he loved his first day at Belleayre, with my wife skiing alongside him during a lesson. On the second day, he refused to ski. On the third, he hit his instructor, at which point we ended the lesson early because that was obviously not acceptable behavior. A considerable tantrum followed. Skiing with a three-year-old is not always as idyllic as the photographs suggest.
Later, we took him out West. He skied with us the first day and then went into ski school for the next two days. Something clicked, and he started to really enjoy it. He ended up skiing eight days last season, roughly what I used to get in an entire season growing up. At his age, the repetition matters. Learning to ski as an adult is hard, and giving him the opportunity to become comfortable on skis while he’s very young is one of the things I value most about having this access.
We rent his equipment for the season and keep everything upstate. His skis, boots and winter gear are waiting for him when we arrive. And if ski school falls apart after an hour, we’re 15 minutes from home. With a three-year-old, that may be as important as the snow.
How Close Is Close Enough?
I particularly enjoy working with buyers who ski because we can have a much more specific conversation about what access to a mountain actually means. There isn’t one correct distance. Fifteen minutes is fantastic. Thirty minutes can be completely reasonable. If you’re going to ski three times a year, I wouldn’t choose a house primarily around skiing at all. But if you want skiing to become a regular part of your life upstate, distance matters more than it appears to on a map.
I’ve worked with people who had a weekend house around New Paltz and became frustrated by how much of their weekends they were spending driving their children back and forth to Belleayre. An hour each way doesn’t sound outrageous until you’re doing it repeatedly for ski school.
I don’t think the answer is necessarily to buy directly on a mountain either. I don’t consider my house a ski house, and I wouldn’t want it pigeonholed that way. It’s a Catskills house I love throughout the year that happens to be 15 minutes from skiing. For a serious skier, that’s a meaningful distinction. Thirty minutes versus an hour can be the difference between skiing regularly and talking about skiing regularly.
I still love taking ski trips and look forward to them every year. But they require planning. There are flights, hotels, packing, delays and all the gear. At home, everything is already there. Some days are icy. Some are wet. Some seasons are better than others. Sometimes I ski two runs and leave. Other times I wake up to blue skies and fresh snow, put the skis on the roof and am riding a lift less than an hour later. Owning a house near Belleayre hasn’t replaced those trips. It’s filled in everything between them. Instead of skiing being something I do on vacation, it’s something I can do on a Tuesday morning.
More than anything, it has changed my relationship with winter. Living in the Northeast means winter is coming whether you want it or not. I like having a reason to hope it’s cold. I like watching the forecast for snow. I like that my son is starting to get excited about it too. Instead of enduring winter, I get to revel in it.
