Silver Bells Ski Area

Silver Bells Ski Center in Wells, New York, was a small family ski hill on the east edge of the village, just off Route 30, the road its brochure called the Adirondack Trail. The slope faced north from a base at about 1,300 feet and gave roughly 400 feet of vertical. Its brochure promised skiers it was less than an hour from Exits 27 and 28 of the New York State Thruway, and its map put Oak Mountain Ski Center in Speculator 15 miles farther north on the same road.

The area opened in the early 1960s. The exact first season is not documented. A 1963 guide listed a Hall T-bar and a rope tow, four trails with a new expert run being cut, a winter carnival on February 1, and weekend crowds of 400 to 500 skiers. By the 1968 season the T-bar ran 1,900 feet and the electric rope tow 500 feet. Trails fanned off the summit in long parallel arcs: Loggers Loop, a mile-long novice route on an old logging road; Sawdust and Hemlock for intermediates; North Slope; and two expert runs, the narrow Whip and the short, steep TNT. A cross-country trail and a Ski-Doo track had been added by then. The base lodge was a pine chalet with a stone fireplace, a cafeteria and picture windows facing the hill.

Thomas Novosel was listed as owner in the 1968 and 1972 guides. His family bought Oak Mountain in 1967, and the two hills were tied together in those years. By the early 1970s Silver Bells ran weekends only, still with no snowmaking and no night skiing. In its last seasons two local couples, the Callahans and the Crouchers, ran it as a part-time job. It closed in the mid-1970s, one of many small Northeast hills that could not compete without snowmaking. The lodge still stands as a private home, the trails have grown back in, and the site is private property.