Innsbruck USA Ski Area

Innsbruck USA Ski Area near Hawleyton, New York, was a mid-sized ski area in the Town of Binghamton, on Maxian Road in the hills a few miles south of the city of Binghamton. It opened in the mid-1960s. One local account gives 1965, and the area shows up in the eastern ski guides from 1967. It took its name from the Austrian ski city, and its trails followed suit: the 1972 trail map labels them Salzburg, Bregenz, Klagenfurt, Zirl, Dornbirn, Lustenau and Saint Anton, alongside plainer names like Sun Line, Glade and Woods.

Two T-bars ran side by side up the main hill, with a mid-station partway up, for a vertical drop of about 485 feet. A J-bar served open beginner slopes near the base, and a rope tow was added in the later years. Bregenz was the wide, steep main face beside the T-bars, and Wein was an easy winding trail. The 1972 map shows 11 trails and 3 open slopes, a main lodge with a stone chimney, and a skating rink by the parking lot. Snowmaking and night skiing covered several trails from the summit and the beginner slopes, though the snowmaking was poor in the first few seasons. By 1977 a guidebook listed 19 slopes and trails, the longest about a mile, with a ski school, a snack bar, a cocktail lounge and cross-country skiing, open Tuesday through Sunday.

Innsbruck USA closed in the late 1970s, and one account puts the last season in 1979. Money was the problem. The story told about the end is that the area fell behind on its electric bills and the power company shut the power off, which settled the question of whether the lifts would run. The equipment was sold off.

The land is now the Aqua-Terra Wilderness Area, a 466-acre Broome County park that was also once home to the Aqua-Terra Sportsman's Club. Hikers climb the old slopes from a parking area beside a 6-acre pond, and T-bar foundations and lengths of snowmaking pipe were still in the woods in the 2000s.