Skiing in Catskill Mountains

   Yeah, finally we've got real winter in 1999. We even had snow in NJ. So, we decided to go ski... First time we spent 2 days in these mountains on Christmas. There are many ski resorts in NY area, we chose the Catskill mountains and Belleayre resort in particular. It's about 2.5 hours drive from our home. First time we've been there in December on Christmas and there was almost no snow. So, they made an artificial snow by spilling the water around. That thing allowed us to ski... This resort has 3 separate areas with trails for beginners, intermediate and expert skiers. They have several lifts on the hills for downhill skiing. The lifts operate also in the different areas. We rented special skis and boots for downhill skiing, not cross-country (as we did in Russia) and just bought tickets for lift and that's it. The ski are really good and you can chose plain ones or parabolic. I really like parabolic, it's easier to ski First day we tried only beginners lanes. First couple times I was falling down every 10 meters, terrible! Mike was much better and he easily got it. Actually it was first downhill skiing in our life. Next day Mike tried intermediate trail and was very excited because it was really difficult and fall down there. I told I wouldn't even try :) We spend Christmas night in very small indian hotel which had an indian restaurant on property. The food was very delicious... I'd come back there just for this! On he way back we visited family hungarian-german restaurant which was very great and we then visited it every time we skied.
   Later in winter we visited it 2-3 times more. We finally moved to intermediate level which is still not easy for me but Mike skies great and he can go to expert trail next winter I think. Last time there was a lot of snow and it was more difficult to ski when show is deep. I really like skiing and very excited every time... The only downside is that after going down fast you need to use lift to go up again (of course). And it's moving slowly and so you get cold just sitting on the bench..
  There are a lot of different ski resorts in Vermont and other states. I really want to drive to Vermont and ski there. To do this it's better to take week off at winter and go ski during the whole week. It would be great experience!