The Bearpen Blog

Bearpen Mountain: Going the Distance

Posted on by ml242

Change is a constant in New York and exceptions will only prove that rule. Through the foggy goggles of memory, we skiers like to reminisce about the past, but someone else will always remember the story differently from a time before we lived it.

Bearpen-Climb

Bearpen is like that for me, as I can play “remember when.”  Still, I learned about the mountain from NELSAP, but that was well after the halcyon era for the bygone resort.

I suppose my own glory days at Bearpen were spent assisting the owners and the caretaker, Russ LaChapelle in maintaining the property and learning of its storied past.

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Tagged: Bearpen, Catskills9 Comments

Bearpen: The Original Beast Of The East

Posted on by NYSkiBlog

Four months ago, we posted an interview with New York ski history expert Russ LaChapelle, in which he explained how his passion for lost Empire State ski areas developed over the years.

Of the many ski centers that had closed for good, none caught his imagination more than Bearpen — a mountain in the western Catskills that could have turned into the biggest resort east of the Rockies. Instead, it became a forgotten footnote. But this story must be heard.

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Tagged: Bearpen, Catskills, Magazine, Ski History

ThatNYguy: Russ LaChapelle

Posted on by James Michaud
Belleayre single chair
Belleayre Single Chair

I first became aware of Russ LaChapelle through his posts on the Snowjournal forum under the screen name “ThatNYguy.” In addition to his extensive nuts-and-bolts knowledge and outspoken opinions about New York’s rich ski history, I liked how he conveyed the emotions behind his passion for Empire State skiing. In 2002, Russ launched “Skiing History in New York” — a website designed to tell the stories of the state’s lift-served ski hills and mountains, both those still in operation as well as the many that had closed.

But what really fascinated me were Russ’s ongoing reports about the rise and fall of Bearpen Mountain, a ski area in the western Catskills that closed 50 years ago, and his efforts to make it accessible to skiers once again. Following is a discussion that details one man’s views of the changing landscape of NYS skiing from the late 1960s to the present.

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Tagged: Bearpen, Catskills, NELSAP, Ski History27 Comments