Russ LaChapelle: The Bard of Bearpen

I first crossed paths with Russ LaChapelle in the fall of 2010; though, like many people interested in New York ski history, I’d encountered him years earlier through his quirky, deeply personal website.

Jam-packed with information about vanished rope tows, forgotten slopes, and half-erased ski dreams, it was clearly the work of someone who cared more about getting the story right than making it look polished or easily navigable (as much as was possible with internet technology back then).

Russ LaChapelle
Russ LaChapelle — photo ML242

When we finally connected on the phone, I explained the pitch I’d made to Harvey, editor of the nascent NYSkiBlog.

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Bearpen: The Beast Resurrected

With the future of winter in doubt, what makes someone open a ski center in a remote part of the Catskills?

“Insanity, I guess,” said Bearpen Sports Center owner Howard Rennell. “Kind of a childhood dream. I fell in love with the mountain, as well. It’s been a long, arduous process.”

Bearpen fat bikes

Growing up on the east end of Long Island, Rennell recalled, “Talk about the era of global warming, out there the chances of snow were slim and none. The sledding aspect, as a kid, you and your friends would gather together and make a kind of luge track. Pack it down and go out with watering cans and douse it with water, hoping it would freeze and last a little longer. This is a bigger scale of it.”

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Bearpen Mountain Hike with Ben Lane

In the four years since we posted an interview with Russ LaChapelle, about the Catskills’ enigmatic Bearpen Mountain — the one that got away — that article has become far and away NY Ski Magazine’s most popular, both in page views and comments.

Bearpen-License-Plate

Between my conversations with Russ, his many forum posts on the Snowjournal website, a feature article on his Lost New York website, and a 2014 trip report from Matt Lucas here on NYSB, I felt like I already knew Bearpen even though I’d never been there.

The closest that I’d ever come to the former Princeton Ski Bowl was seeing it from afar while at other Catskill ski areas, after which I’d always post photos in trip reports captioned with “Bearpen Mountain In The Distance.”

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