The Interviews Blog

Interview with Scott Brandi of I SKI NY

Posted on by NYSkiBlog

NYSkiBlog has long advocated for a public and private partnership to invest in the infrastructure New York skiing will need to stay competitive now and in the future. This summer the players came together with a significant package for financing snowmaking efficiency improvements across the state. Scott Brandi — the President of I SKI NY — was a driving force on the project and we asked him for details.

NYSkiBlog: Scott, where are you from originally? How long have you been skiing? Where did you learn to ski? How many ski days do you get in an average year?

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Tagged: Expansion, Interviews4 Comments

Snowfarmers by Adam Carboni and Tansy Michaud

Posted on by NYSkiBlog

In September of 2013 we received an email from filmmaker Adam Carboni. He wanted to do a short film on lift maintenance, featuring a mountain in the Catskills.

NYSkiBlog provided contact information for operations and marketing people at each of the four mountains. After some further back and forth by email we didn’t hear more about it until this spring.

Recently Adam reached out again, providing us a Vimeo link to the results of his effort entitled Snowfarmers. What follows is an interview with Adam and Tansy Michaud, the husband and wife team who worked on film together.

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Tagged: Catskills, Interviews, Plattekill16 Comments

Bearpen: The Beast Resurrected

Posted on by Peter Minde

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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Tagged: Bearpen, Biking, Catskills, Interviews, Nordic Skiing13 Comments