The Western NY Blog

The Ski Wing Murders

Posted on by Harvey

I learned about the Ski Wing Murders in a roundabout way. This summer we’ve been working on the NYSkiBlog Guide, our directory of all kinds of historical data. One goal is to make progress on our Western NY Ski Areas section during this offseason.

In the process, we’ve come across information about some great looking NY ski areas that are now gone. Places with Holiday Valley vertical and more than 100 inches of snow in an average year. This peaked our curiosity.

This story is about a NY ski area that was best known as Ski Wing, even though the area had three different names from 1958 to 1993. The story is both tragic and incredible.
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Tagged: NELSAP, Ski History, Western NY41 Comments

Hunt Hollow: Berms, Bruises and Brews

Posted on by Robert

I walked through the early morning fog into Hunt Hollows main lodge with a six pack in hand. The beer was part of the registration fee for “Berms, Bruises and Brews” an all snowboard banked race event.

first chair

The divisions were separated by decades and the top 3 fastest of each division took home a portion of the beer. Part of the money raised was also being donated to upgrade the park at Hunt Hollow.

After registering I caught up with Alex who had already taken a few runs. The visibility was not great, as fog eclipsed the upper 3/4 of the mountain. We rode down Fox run and dipped onto the course to check it out.

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Tagged: Hunt Hollow, Park, Western NY5 Comments

Swain Mountain Jamming

Posted on by Robert

There’s always this looming feeling of dread for skiers and riders as we enter the month of March. The sun may be shining and the weather warmer but that means the snow will soon melt and our season will be over. You want to make every weekend count.

Swain base area

Swain hosted its spring carnival last Saturday but it could have easily been mistaken for a mid-winter day. A bit of lake effect dusted the mountain the night before and the temperatures were in the mid teens. Swain is one of the mountains I grew up riding so I was excited to get back and see what was new.

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Tagged: Indy Pass, Swain, Western NY4 Comments