Ski the Buckaloons

Buckaloons Ski Area in Youngsville, Pennsylvania, began in 1961 as Youngsville Skiways on York Mountain, just off U.S. Route 6 near Warren. Local investors including Elmer Hill and Neal Barnard developed it, according to a DCSki reader, and a reader who was there at the opening adds that Vern Mauk, one of the founders, had run a small pasture ski hill north of Warren for a couple of years before that. The first winter had two rope tows, the big one covering about 200 feet of vertical, and buses carried skiers to the top of the mountain until a 3,000-foot T-bar went in the next year.

The name changed more than once, and readers disagree about the dates. A reader says it became York Mountain around 1968. Another says a ski resort across the line in New York ran it under another name in the 1970s, though a rate card for the 1977-78 season already reads Ski the Buckaloons. A 1970s brochure lists a 3,000-foot double T-bar, an 1,100-foot chair lift, a 1,400-foot double T-bar and a 600-foot beginners' lift, with a vertical fall of 579 feet, night skiing five nights a week and snowmaking on much of the slopes. Readers recall named runs such as Elk's Tooth, Bear's Claw and the Headwall, freestyle contests with a jump off the chair, and loud music across the lit slopes.

Buckaloons was the last name. The name came from the recreation area in the Allegheny National Forest. One former owner recalls a group of families buying the area from a local bank around 1980, and readers disagree on when the name changed. Its round patch reads Ski the Buckaloons, Youngsville, PA., with an A-frame lodge in pink and blue. The slopes lacked snowmaking in the later years, one reader says, and the last season is remembered as 1982-83, with one reader recalling only a single day open in early 1983. The lifts were taken down and sold, and the equipment was auctioned. Overgrown trails and the lodge remains can still be seen from Route 6.