Bearpen Mountain, NY 07/05/15

Last Sunday, I went on my first organized hike of a lost ski area, with a bunch of people from the Snowjournal forum. We visited Bearpen Mountain in the Catskills -- what could've/should've become the largest ski area in the East -- with New York State ski-history expert Russ LaChapelle acting as tour guide:



What made this especially memorable was that the two brothers who developed the ski area, in operation from 1955 to 1959, joined us. Here's the blog report that includes a short interview.

ChrisC said:

Even New York State-owned ski areas were able to expand recently, despite their status as State Parks and/or Preserves.

• Whiteface → Adirondack Forest Preserve (not a state park, but constitutionally protected land).
• Gore → Adirondack Forest Preserve (same as Whiteface).
• Belleayre → Inside Catskill Park (a designated state park/Forest Preserve).

Aside: I believe these Parks/Preserves prevented the development of a lot of potential ski areas with 200" summit snowfalls in the Catskills and significant vertical drop ski areas in the Adirondacks. Effectively, New York State let its skier base develop the ski industry of Vermont.

Click to expand...

Bumping this thread from ten years ago to put the little content that we have about Bearpen Mountain content on one thread:

My 2011 New York Ski Mag article about the place that ChrisC's comment in bold likely alludes to:

There'll never be a lift-served ski area at Bearpen; however, an outdoor adventure operation that offers x-c skiing, snowshoeing, tubing, and fat bikes has been open since 2018. Here's a NY Ski Blog piece about it.