Grosstal Ski Area

Grosstal Ski Center in Allegany, New York, was the first name of the hill later called Wing Hollow, on a north-facing hillside off West Five Mile Road, about three miles northwest of the village and a short drive from Olean, Salamanca and Bradford, Pennsylvania. It went by three names. It opened in 1958 as Grosstal, German for big valley, and its trail map billed the hill as Swiss designed to rival the ski centers of the Alps. The runs carried German names with English translations beside them, such as Tannen Weg (Hemlock Way), Mach Schnell (Go Fast), Rennbahn (Race Way) and Zugspitze.

The hill was big for western New York. A 3,200-foot chairlift, billed as the Giant Chairlift, climbed 813 vertical feet, the figure the area advertised for the rest of its life. A 2,600-foot T-bar, a 630-foot baby T-bar and a rope tow handled the lower slopes, the T-bar area was lit for night skiing, and the lot held more than 1,200 cars. A private club, the Wing Ski Club, kept its own building next to the area and ran a youth racing team.

Grosstal closed in 1968 and was sold to Henry Stein and his wife, who reopened it as Ski Wing. Ski guides of the 1970s listed a double chairlift, two T-bars and a tow, a base elevation of 1,610 feet, snowmaking, an Austrian-trained ski school and a chalet with a cocktail lounge, with trails named Smoothie, Fang, Echo, Zinger, Lightning, Rampage and Feather Run. NYSkiBlog reports that Henry Stein took sole ownership in 1975 and renamed the area Wing Hollow, which is also the name of the valley on federal maps. The 1982 trail map, under the Wing Hollow name, showed 17 slopes and trails, including Chicken Chute and Turkey Chute.

Wing Hollow closed in the early 1980s. No closing report has turned up. The land is private, and visitors in the 2000s found some trails filled in with evergreens while the upper slopes stayed fairly open.