Some schools and colleges opened their own areas, like Millbrook School. A few others, like Victor Constant at West Point and Thunder Ridge, are still open.<\/p>\n
In southern Dutchess County, Mount Storm \u201cendured a tragic history throughout its 30-year lifespan,\u201d Davis writes on his website. The mountain opened in the 1950s, closed in the mid-1970s and then reopened under new ownership. It had three main slopes, a 600-foot vertical drop, one chairlift, one T-bar and two rope tows. But in 1987, the lodge burned down due to arson\u00a0\u2014 a member of the owner\u2019s family died in the fire\u00a0\u2014 and the center closed.<\/p>\n
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The Dutchess Ski Area on Mount Beacon is seen in an undated photo. In 1967, the newly formed Dutchess Ski Area Corporation bought the parcel and hired Walter Foeger to turn Mount Beacon into a center that could compete with bigger-market ski areas and start an instructional school.<\/p>\n
Courtesy of Beacon Historical Society<\/p>\n
Another former slope was on Mount Beacon. According to the Beacon Historical Society, local skiing enthusiasts rough-cut trails on the mountain from the summit to the base station of the Mount Beacon Incline Railway. The so-called \u201cMount Beacon Ski Trail\u201d was first used in 1946, but really got going in the winter of 1947-48, when more than 4 feet of snow fell. The railway ran trolley cars on weekends that winter, bringing skiers to the summit for $1\u00a0\u2014 50 cents for subsequent lifts.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThough short-lived, the makeshift ski area experiment proved popular that year, with 2,200 fares recorded as sold to skiers,\u201d according to the Beacon Historical Society.<\/p>\n
In 1967, the newly formed Dutchess Ski Area Corporation bought the parcel and hired Austria-born Walter Foeger, a well-known ski designer and instructor, to turn Mount Beacon into a center that could compete with bigger-market ski areas in the Northeast and to start an instructional school to draw novice skiers from downstate. Under his leadership, new trails were cut on the mountain, including a 3,100-foot double chairlift that carried skiers to the summit. At the base, a 350,000-gallon holding pond was created to ensure sufficient water for snowmaking.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis Commuter Ski School attracted enrollments of 500 or more each year in a 10-week course of day or night skiing instruction with the guarantee you will be skiing in seven days or your money back,\u201d according to the Beacon Historical Society. On a good day, 3,000 skiers would buy a lift ticket.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Edwards and the Gilberts added to their portfolio and would soon run three centers, mostly during their off-hours.<\/p>\n
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Left: A 1967 prospectus for the Dutchess Ski Corporation. Top right: The Commuter Ski School run by Walter Foeger on Mount Beacon. Bottom right: The Dutchess Ski Area on Mount Beacon, undated photo.<\/p>\n
Courtesy of Jeremy Davis\/Courtesy of Beacon Historical Society<\/p>\n
Top: A 1967 prospectus for the Dutchess Ski Corporation. Middle: The Commuter Ski School run by Walter Foeger on Mount Beacon. Bottom: The Dutchess Ski Area on Mount Beacon, undated photo.<\/p>\n
Courtesy of Jeremy Davis\/Courtesy of Beacon Historical Society<\/p>\n
A family affair<\/p>\n
By the early 1960s, their snowy empire required the owners to divide and conquer. Sandy Gilbert managed Fahnestock, Bill ran Sterling Forest and Edwards patrolled Silvermine.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were three kids,\u201d Edwards said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t know what the hell we were doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
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His son, Rich Edwards, has said his earliest childhood memories were of his father coming home from work in Manhattan, having dinner and then going to make snow for six hours. Then he\u2019d return home, sleep for three hours, swap his snow suit for a business suit and catch the train back into the city.<\/p>\n
Rich Edwards was on skis at Silvermine by age 2 and stamping lift tickets by age 6. Adults paid $3, kids $1.50. Edwards remembers \u201ccounting quarters and putting them into those paper rolls,\u201d he said. His older brothers, Jeff and Cliff, and younger sister, Nancy, also helped in the family business.<\/p>\n
It was a primitive business back then. Only Sterling Forest had chairlifts. Don Edwards bought an automobile with a rope tow attached to it from Mount Snow and used it to haul kids up the bunny slope at\u00a0Silvermine. The \u201cfacilities,\u201d at first, were outhouses.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy wife went to the gas station to pee. She wouldn\u2019t sit in there,\u201d Edwards said.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
The Silvermine Ski Area in its heyday is seen in an undated photo.<\/p>\n
Courtesy of Harriman State Park<\/p>\n
Still, the slopes made money. But when the partners were offered a chance to buy Catamount in 1974, they left their smaller operations to their employees and used what they had learned to resurrect the bankrupt Berkshires resort. When they retired, their sons, Rich Edwards and Tom Gilbert, took over, running Catamount until it sold again in 2018. Rich Edwards still serves as base facilities operations manager.<\/p>\n
Growing the sport<\/p>\n
They were smart to move on. The number of small ski areas \u201ccertainly has decreased in the last 50 to 60 years,\u201d Davis said.<\/p>\n
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He cites a combination of reasons, including warming winters with less snow, higher insurance rates, competition with larger areas farther north, changing consumer habits and a lack of capital improvements. The\u00a0Dutchess Ski Area, for example, could not pay off its debts and went bankrupt in 1975.<\/p>\n
Don Edwards said it was a great run while it lasted, and he\u2019d do it all again\u00a0\u2014 despite the long hours and the many mistakes\u00a0\u2014 if he had the chance.<\/p>\n
\u201cI loved skiing. My children loved it. To this day, they are all excellent skiers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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And, along with the Gilberts, he helped the sport grow nationwide.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe initial surge of skiing started at Fahnestock and Silvermine, and it spread all over the industry,\u201d Edwards said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When it comes to downhill skiing, the Hudson Valley was never Sun Valley. But for a time, in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":82872,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[881,611,40675,40605,844,9,11,10,49,51,50],"class_list":["post-82871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-history","tag-hvexp","tag-hvhistory","tag-hvoutdoors","tag-latestnews","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}