Ski Valley
Naples, New York1965-2000
Order Ski Valley tees, long sleeve tees, hoodies and crewnecks. A later owner traced the hill to a farmer's rope tow strung in a field in the 1930s, and the farm's barn slowly became the warming hut. In the late 1970s the area went private as a ski club, and member money paid for a double chairlift. Browse the styles below, and the full Ski Valley history is further down. Down Home Apparel is an American small business remembering the best places and teams of yesteryear, and every shirt is printed to order in the USA.
5 products
Ski Valley History
Ski Valley Ski Area near Naples, New York, sat on West Hollow Road (County Road 33) in the town of South Bristol, about five miles north of Naples village and a few miles from Bristol Mountain. A later owner's account traces it to the 1930s, when a farmer strung a rope tow in one of his fields for family and friends. More tows followed over the years, and the farm's barn slowly became a warming hut. The hill opened to the public in 1965, with a J-bar and a T-bar.
By 1970 the ski guides listed about 610 feet of vertical, a T-bar, a J-bar and two rope tows, with snowmaking and night skiing. The 1972 Eastern Ski Atlas counted nine trails and six slopes on a hill facing northeast. In the late 1970s the area went private as the Ski Valley Ski Club, and the money raised from members paid for a double chairlift and more snowmaking. A 1994 guide listed Ski Valley Club with a 700-foot vertical, eleven trails, a run about a mile long, and snowmaking on 90 percent of the hill.
Brochures from the 1990s show the chairlift, the T-bar, a small Mity Mite surface lift for beginners, a lodge at the base and a sundeck at the top, with runs named Yodeler, Walt's Run, Upper and Lower Fall Line, Alpine Way, Deke's Folly, Sizzler, Devil's Delight, Easy Street and Bunny Chute, most of them lit for night skiing. Skier visits fell through the late 1980s and early 1990s. Sources disagree on the last season: a later owner's business plan says the area closed in 1997, while a 2011 newspaper account says it closed in the fall of 2000, and the property went through foreclosure in 2001.
A new owner bought the property in 2011 and began renovating the 12,000-square-foot lodge, with plans to reopen as Bristol Ski Valley Resort, and a 2014 business plan filed with the town proposed snow tubing and putting the old T-bar back in service. The hill never reopened to the public, and in 2016 the property was listed for sale at $475,000.