WHY

My name is Joshua Segal. I receved the material for this website from Russ LaChapelle who maintained it for a number of years. I left the content of the original author (whom I have never met) intact because I want him to get credit for his work. Since for the time being I am maintaining the site, the "mailto links Joshua Segal", will send your inquiries, questions, addenda, etc. to me

Thank you for visiting this web site. It has been virtually thirty five years in the making as it has been my lifetime dream to share with others the passion for what makes the mechanics of skiing and its history so fascinating.

It all started for me in Liverpool, New York, the winter of 1964/65. I began messing around with skiing at the age of nine on a small slope behind a friend's home. It was the neighborhood winter playground and on any given weekend as many as twenty five kids and sometimes our parents would have an absolute blast enjoying the "lake effect" snow. My love for this sport led to writing the many ski areas in the northeast to create a collection of brochures and other related information. I found, by far, New York had more ski areas than any state in the Americas. I had a New York state map on my bedroom wall and on it were one hundred and twenty red dots. Each of these dots were ski areas within its borders. The location of each dot became well known to me; a memory well embedded. I regularly skied a hot bed of several new ski areas in and around central New York. I knew these loveable little areas like the back of my hand as I became enchanted by what they were.

In the beginning of my first year at Liverpool High School, my family moved to the Albany area as my father received a transfer with his job. My dreams unfolded as this opened up a brand new opportunity to finally ski the New York State big mountains. One by one, I skied as many new places as I could reach with the high school ski club, the MWF or by getting parents to drive. At age sixteen, with my driving license in hand, I worked my way to Canada and the state's of New England. By the time I was thirty, I had skied several times out west, all the northeastern ski areas with a 2,000 foot vertical drop or greater and many that fell below that mark.

During the 1970's, I realized many of the areas I loved and remembered from my youth had closed. On closer examination, approximately two thirds of the one hundred and twenty red dots placed on my bedroom wall map were either no longer operating or had become ski clubs.

Why did this happen?

A large number of the New York ski areas that existed was the direct result of a visionary engineer, Victor Hall. Settling in Watertown, HALL LIFTS offered well-built methods of getting skiers uphill at a very reasonable expense. Virtually in their backyard, this created opportunities for ski area operations offering first class service and quick consultation.

To quench their thirst for more, "baby boomers" needed larger vertical drops. Many smaller operations lost skier visits which made their operations what they were. Other areas suffered various problems such as bad snow years, land disputes and poor cash flow .

The importance of truth through perspective...

Observations of those who skied the areas can create conjecture. What they experienced was based upon the time they spent enjoying the skiing rather than watching the forces that offered them the opportunity in the first place. The real history comes from the stories told by the operators themselves. Through personal interviews with these individuals, I hope to bring perspective to what really happened. Their stories will be added as updates in the future.