Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
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Silver Bells was a small family ski area just off Route 30 in Wells, near a church in the middle of town. It began sometime in the early 1960s; its first owners also owned Oak Mountain.1,2
Read the whole historyTodayThe lodge is a private home, and the old trails are heavily grown in. (2006)1
Timeline
5 events · swipe
Memories
Skied Silver Bells, 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 Silver Bells
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- 1944–1993 · 23.7 mi away · New YorkA ski area at Porters Corners in Greenfield, north of Saratoga Springs, that ran from the 1940s into the early 1990s, for two decades as Adirondack Ski Center.
- Years not yet collected · 26.8 mi away · New YorkA small town-run T-bar hill on Route 30 just south of the hamlet of Indian Lake, also known as Water Tower Hill.
- Closed 1981 · 34.6 mi away · New YorkA two-rope-tow ski hill off Ridge Road in Glenville, beside Ski Venture, that ran on leased land from about the 1950s until 1981.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 2 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Silver Bells was a small family ski area just off Route 30 in Wells, near a church in the middle of town. It began sometime in the early 1960s; its first owners also owned Oak Mountain. A 1963 trail map shows four trails, from Loggers Loop for beginners to The Whip for experts, on 400 feet of vertical. A Hall T-bar served the main slopes and a rope tow the beginners, and the hill ran by day and at night.1,2
Thomas Novosel was listed as owner and manager by 1968, and a 1977 guide still gave seven slopes and trails. The area never had snowmaking. Competition, the energy crisis and changes in how skiers travelled in the 1970s wore it down, and it likely closed by the middle of that decade. The lodge still stands as a private home, and the trails had grown in almost beyond recognition by 2006.1
TodayThe lodge is a private home, and the old trails are heavily grown in. (2006)1
Sources for this history (2)
- 1New England Lost Ski Areas Project · Silver Bells
- 2skikabbalah.com · Silver Bells
Photos
No photographs of Silver Bells 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 Silver Bells, in their own words.
Facts
Location
43.3868° N · 74.2832° W · New York · Adirondack Mountains
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 4all 4, in one list
Terrain contours: USGS 3D Elevation Program, public domain