Overview
Look around
Loading the ground…
Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
Counting who skied it…
Davos opened in 1959 by Woodridge, in the Sullivan County Catskills, with two chairlifts, snowmaking and two lodges. When new it was larger than the county's other ski hills, among them Grossinger's, the Concord and Holiday Mountain.1,2
Read the whole historyTimeline
3 events · swipe
Memories
Skied Big Vanilla At Davos, or worked there?
Tell us what you remember, or what this page has wrong. Memories show here, credited to you, after we read them; facts are checked against a source before they change a figure.
Lost near Big Vanilla At Davos
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- Years not yet collected · 2.8 mi away · New YorkThe ski slope of the Pines, a Catskills resort hotel in South Fallsburg that had a double chairlift by 1965; the hotel closed in 1998.
- Years not yet collected · 3.6 mi away · New YorkThe ski slope of the Concord Resort Hotel at Kiamesha Lake, east of Monticello, served by two T-bars and two rope tows.
- Years not yet collected · 9.7 mi away · New YorkThe one-trail ski slope of the Nevele, a Catskills resort hotel outside Ellenville, served by a double chair and a rope tow.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 4 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Davos opened in 1959 by Woodridge, in the Sullivan County Catskills, with two chairlifts, snowmaking and two lodges. When new it was larger than the county's other ski hills, among them Grossinger's, the Concord and Holiday Mountain. It was an upside-down area, with its lodge at the top of the hill rather than the bottom.1,2
Later known as Big Vanilla at Davos, it grew from about eight trails in 1970 to 23 by the early 1990s, with night skiing on the main trails, which had snowmaking. At one time its lifts included a quad chair, said to be the first in New York, two double chairs, four T-bars and two rope tows, and on a busy day it could see as many as 5,000 skiers. Werner Kuhn headed its ski patrol. Its vertical is given as 330, 400 or 500 feet; sources differ.2,3,4
A 1993 ski guide still listed it. The pages read for this history do not say when it closed.4
Sources for this history (4)
- 1Delaware County NY Genealogy and History Site · Downhill Skiing in the Catskills
- 2NYSkiBlog · Big Vanilla at Davos Ski Area Trail Map
- 3Skikabbalah · Big Vanilla at Davos
- 4Skikabbalah · Big Vanilla at Davos, guidebook references
Photos
No photographs of Big Vanilla At Davos we may republish yet
Its old photos and trail maps live on the sites that collected them, and Google finds the rest.
Memories
What skiers remember of Big Vanilla At Davos, in their own words.
Facts
Location
41.6955° N · 74.5871° W · New York
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
from 1959 · the year it closed is not yet collected
Closed for good; the year it closed is not yet collected. It stays here as part of the record of U.S. ski areas.
Its numbers
all 4all 4, in one list
Terrain contours: USGS 3D Elevation Program, public domain