Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
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Mt. Otsego sat on the ridge above Wedderspoon Hollow, about six miles west of Cooperstown.1,2,3
Read the whole historyTimeline
6 events · swipe
Memories
Skied Mt Otsego, 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 Mt Otsego
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- Years not yet collected · 7 mi away · New YorkA small Poma and T-bar ski area on a ridge a mile west of Richfield Springs, running from around 1960 into the early 1980s.
- 1972–1998 · 14.8 mi away · New YorkA 750-foot ski area with two double chairs above the Thruway south of Little Falls, run from 1972 until the late 1990s.
- 1962–1998 · 29.6 mi away · New YorkA ski area on Route 10 in Jefferson, just outside Stamford, New York, opened in 1962 and later called Deer Run, which closed in the late 1990s.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 3 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Mt. Otsego sat on the ridge above Wedderspoon Hollow, about six miles west of Cooperstown. In the fall of 1938 the tow motor from the Fenimore Slope in the village was moved here, and with a network of trails the hill became, in Skikabbalah's view, New York's first true ski area. A tandem rope tow served about 380 feet of vertical. The Cooperstown Ski Club, organized in November 1939, set up its own ski patrol for the hill.1,2,3
The area shut during World War II and started up again in the winter of 1946. In 1953 a Hall T-bar and a second rope tow more than doubled the terrain, and it ran on weekends and holidays. Poor winters, a fourfold rise in liability insurance in a single year and competition from bigger areas wore it down, and the 1981–82 winter was its last.1,2
Timeline
- 1938Tow motor from the village's Fenimore Slope moves to the ridge1
- 1939Cooperstown Ski Club organized in November and forms a ski patrol2
- 1946Reopens after closing during World War II2
- 1953Hall T-bar and a second rope tow added1
- 1970Ski Area Guide lists a T-bar, three rope tows and five trails3
- 1982The 1981–82 winter is the last of operation2
Sources for this history (3)
- 1Skikabbalah · Mt. Otsego
- 2All Otsego Current (The Freeman's Journal / Hometown Oneonta) · Dedication Made Mount Otsego Ski Patrol Something Special (George M. Ehrmann, February 2011)
- 3Skikabbalah · Mt. Otsego, guidebook references
Photos
No photographs of Mt Otsego 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 Mt Otsego, in their own words.
Facts
Location
42.7870° N · 74.9242° W · New York
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
1938–1982
Closed after the 1982 season. It stays here as part of the record of U.S. ski areas.
Its numbers
all 3all 3, in one list
Terrain contours: USGS 3D Elevation Program, public domain