"Sledding at Rice Hill is an Ithaca family tradition stretching back generations. Once served by a cantankerous homemade rope tow (a disaster waiting to happen, according to old timers), many visitors now use their cars and the state park access road to shuttle riders from bottom to top. Sound lazy? Not really. Rice Hill is 100 feet high and almost three football fields long."
Another entry "New York & New Jersey: A Guide to the State & National Parks By Barbara Sinotte, pg. 49" as recent as 1996 indicates there was a rope tow used for skiing.