Bobcat Ski Center
Andes, New York1963-2005
Shop Bobcat Ski Center tees, long sleeve tees, hoodies and crewnecks. Bobcat ran two T-bars up 1,050 vertical feet of Mount Pisgah, the highest point in Delaware County, with trails named for Catskill rivers and creeks. The lodge was hung with mounted deer heads and a stuffed bobcat, and the last day was March 19, 2005. Pick a style below, then read the full Bobcat history further down. We are an American small business bringing back the signs and logos of places and teams that are long gone but remembered fondly.
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Bobcat Ski Center History
Bobcat Ski Center in Andes, New York, was a Catskills ski area on Mount Pisgah, the highest point in Delaware County at 3,345 feet, reached by Gladstone Hollow Road off Route 28. Waldemar Durke and Paul and Emma Grommeck opened it in 1963 as the Catskill Ski Center, running weekends and holidays. The McIntosh family bought the first season pass that year, bought half of the area in 1965 and the other half in 1971. It was later renamed Bobcat Ski Center after the bobcats in the surrounding woods.
The hill had a vertical drop of 1,050 feet and northwest-facing trails up to a mile and a half long, served by two T-bars: a Little T-bar of 2,200 feet and a Big T-bar of 3,700 feet. Most trails were named for the rivers and creeks of the western Catskills, including Tremperskill, Beaver Kill, East Branch, West Branch, Little Delaware and Coulter Brook, along with Courage, Challenger and Deer Run. The 1977 trail map announced snowmaking on the lower slopes for the 1977-78 season, but in its later years Bobcat relied on natural snow. The area kept a ski school (the Kid-Cat Ski School for children), a ski shop, rentals, a cafeteria and a bar, and in the 1970s it also held a Lumberjack Round-Up in September and an Oktoberfest in October.
After about sixteen years of ownership the McIntoshes sold Bobcat to the Schuman family of New York City, who kept Chuck and Roger McIntosh on to run it. Brochures sold it as skiing the way it was meant to be, and the roadside sign called it the family place to ski since 1963. Very little changed. The lodge was hung with mounted deer heads and a stuffed bobcat, the groomer was a 1973 snowcat, and in the 2000s the area opened only on weekends and holidays. It skipped one winter in the early 2000s, reopened, and ran its last day on March 19, 2005.
A 2005 account of the last season pointed to the long drive from New York City, a small local population and competition from bigger Catskill areas. A small group later looked into reviving the hill, but no plan came of it, and Bobcat has not reopened.