CAZENOVIA — This winter, Cazenovia Ski Club, located at 5251 Rathbun Road, will open for its 85th consecutive ski season.
Located behind Chittenango Falls, the small, private ski area offers roughly 100 acres of diverse terrain.
According to a Dec. 20, 2010 article written by Cazenovia Ski Club member Russ Brownback, the slopes were first cleared for skiing in the 1930s by a group of local residents hoping to participate in the alpine craze that was sweeping the nation following the 1932 Lake Placid Olympics.
“The early enthusiasts ascended the rugged slopes by virtue of a portable rope tow, powered by an old Ford Model-A motor,” Brownback wrote. “Ultimately, these pioneers purchased the property and incorporated [it] as the Cazenovia Ski Club in 1941.”
Since the beginning, club members have handled all of the ski area’s operations, from lift maintenance and ski patrol to trail grooming and year-round social events.
“Even the snow making operation is managed by enthusiastic volunteers who brave frigid temperatures and 2 a.m. shifts to ensure a consistent quantity and quality man-made output,” wrote Brownback in his 2010 article.
In the 1960s and ‘70s, the ski club was the training ground for Camillus native Viki Fleckenstein, the area’s most celebrated skiing star.
According to the Greater Syracuse Sports Hall of Fame, Fleckenstein, who learned to ski at the club, won the Junior National Slalom championship in 1974, drawing the attention of U.S. Ski Team coaches. From 1974 to 1980, she competed on the World Cup circuit as a member of the U.S. Ski Team, claiming a number of top 10 World Cup finishes in Europe, Japan, Canada and the U.S. In 1977, she was voted the top U.S. female skier. She also had the honor of being one of seven U.S. women to make the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics alpine ski team, competing in the giant slalom. Following the Olympics, Fleckenstein joined the pro tour and ranked among the top athletes in her sport.
On the eve of the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics, Ski Magazine highlighted Cazenovia Ski Club in its February cover story, “New York: Skiingest State of Them All.” The article named the area alongside high profile destinations, like Whiteface and Bear Mountain, as one of a handful of so-called pioneer ski areas that were “still going strong.”
Throughout the years, however, the ski club has had its ups and downs.
In the 1980s, when the ski industry hit a rough patch that resulted in the demise of New Woodstock’s Mystic Mountain and Pompey Hollow’s Ironwood Ridge, the ski club’s membership dwindled to a small core group.
“The economy wasn’t good or there just wasn’t enough local interest in skiing to support that many ski areas,” said Brownback. “But the ski club persevered through that.”
Today, the ski area maintains 10 diverse trails for its roughly 250 individual members.
“There are some very steep double black diamonds, but we also have some very gentle cruisers and the like,” said Brownback. “But then we own acreage around the trails, and there are many, many members who will go and just ski down through the woods and make their own trails. You can’t do that at commercial areas where everything is either in-bounds or out-of-bounds. Here, as long as it’s on club property, it’s in-bounds, so it’s a very unique offering. I think there has always been demand locally for that type of product, and it’s the only place you can actually get it.”
Brownback also noted that, although he was sure there are others in existence, he knew of only one other private ski club in the state — Hunt Hollow in Naples.
Membership to Cazenovia Ski Club is available to anyone interested in joining.
“It’s a come one, come all club,” Brownback said. “It’s a very unique place. It’s very rustic. It doesn’t have the traditional amenities of a public ski area. My family taught me to ski there in the 1970s, and they had skied there the generation prior to that. We didn’t have running water there or flush toilets until about seven years ago, and there was no heat other than a couple of wood stoves; now there’s some propane heat. We have one 60-year-old surface lift — it’s a T-bar — so we don’t have chair lifts or things like that . . . There is no cafeteria or bar. It’s bring your own food, bring your own picnic basket, bring your own drinks and everything, but there is a community grill on the deck that gets fired up in the morning and then whenever families want to throw on hotdogs or whatever. We are also not open during the week, unless it’s a holiday week. It’s not for everyone. There is a certain type of skier that will always want that very hardy experience. And if that is you, then this is the only place you would ski locally.”
For more information on Cazenovia Ski Club, visit skicaz.com.
