Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
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Happy Valley was a small ski slope just north of Alfred, south of Route 244 on the far side of the hill from Alfred State College. NELSAP says it likely began around 1965, when the school, then the Alfred Agricultural and Tech Institute, installed a Hall T-bar 1,153 feet long with 251 feet of rise.1
Read the whole historyTodayThe slope has grown in with trees, though the main run can still be made out. (2011)1
Timeline
6 events · swipe
Photos
Memories
Skied Happy Valley, 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 Happy Valley
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- Years not yet collected · 34.8 mi away · New YorkA small T-bar and rope-tow hill on Route 19 just south of Warsaw, with snowmaking and night skiing, listed in guidebooks through the 1970s.
- 1965–2000 · 35.6 mi away · New YorkA chairlift and T-bar ski area on County Road 33 north of Naples that opened to the public in 1965, later ran as a private club, and closed in 2000.
- Opened 1958 · 38 mi away · New YorkA ski area on West Five Mile Road in Allegany that opened as Grosstal, later ran as Ski Wing and Wing Hollow, and closed in the early 1980s.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 4 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Happy Valley was a small ski slope just north of Alfred, south of Route 244 on the far side of the hill from Alfred State College. NELSAP says it likely began around 1965, when the school, then the Alfred Agricultural and Tech Institute, installed a Hall T-bar 1,153 feet long with 251 feet of rise. The college owned the slope and the Curran family ran it, and the Alfred University ski team practiced there.1
Through the 1970s a T-bar and a rope tow served about ten runs, with some snowmaking, ice skating and night skiing four nights a week, by Skikabbalah's account. Guidebooks gave its vertical as anything from 230 to 350 feet. NELSAP says it closed around 1980, probably because of rising costs and a poor snow season that year.1,2,3
The hill has grown in since, though the main slope was still visible in 2011 along with a collapsed rope tow building.1
TodayThe slope has grown in with trees, though the main run can still be made out. (2011)1
Timeline
- c. 1965College installs a Hall T-bar; skiing likely begins around this year1
- 1970Trail map of Happy Valley dated this year4
- 1972Eastern Ski Atlas lists a 1,500-foot T-bar and 300 feet of vertical3
- 1977White Book lists a bar lift, a rope tow and ten trails3
- c. 1980Closes around this year after a poor snow season1
- 2011Visitors photograph the overgrown slope and a collapsed tow building1
Sources for this history (4)
- 1New England Lost Ski Areas Project · Happy Valley
- 2Skikabbalah · Happy Valley
- 3Skikabbalah · Happy Valley, guidebook references
- 4Skimap.org · Happy Valley
Photos
No photographs of Happy Valley 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 Happy Valley, in their own words.
Facts
Location
42.2642° N · 77.7983° W · New York
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
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 5all 5, in one list
Terrain contours: USGS 3D Elevation Program, public domain