Happy Valley
Alfred, NY
1965-1980

 History ~ Memories

History

Memories

Many readers remember this ski area - here are their memories: 

Mike Strong: I grew up in Alfred, New York, a small college town that was blessed to have a ski slope (less than 500 ft vertical drop) just on the other side of the valley Alfred is located in.  It was just off the highway that ran past the town, and the school bus would even make a special stop for kids (like me) who would go there after school, on a regular basis, to ski, until their parents got out of work and picked them up to take them home.  Talk about child care!  It was wonderful, and we would ski, literally, every day that the place was open, all winter long.  

The family that used to run this place is named Curran, and they still run the Alfred Sports Shop.  If you look up Phil Curran in the Alfred, NY area, or any Curran in the Alfred area (I think Pat still lives there, and they also had another brother Chris, all of whom I went to school with) they'd have all the history and pics and so forth. 

I looked at Google earth to see how it appears, and the satellite map of that area is terrible, no resolution, you can't see a thing.  Disappointing.  But on the terrain map, the hill is located just south of Route 244 (the Belmont Road), and just North of Alfred itself, just over the hill (on the North facing side of the hill, of course) from Alfred State College.  If you drive up route 244 from Alfred, you'll see on your left as you climb 244 an old, pretty much abandoned parking lot, and you might even see where the foundation of the lodge was.  The ski slope itself is perfectly obvious, a big field that climbs up to the top of the hill.  

I think it closed in 1981 or so, I'm sure insurance had something to do with it.  There was a rope tow that was rarely used, we used the T bar almost all the time, no chairlift.  They did have snowmaking for at least the last few years, and there were four runs, and now I can't remember all of the names.  There was the main slope, and there was Banana Bend (to the right, as you looked up the mountain) and there was another run on the left of the main slope, don't remember what we called that, but it had, marvelously, a true ramp jump, that would be built up with haybales and groomed carefully, and came down on a very very steep (and therefore supremely soft) landing, so that we would make some serious and crazy jumps, I'm talking 30 - 40 feet from takeoff to landing, with spread eagles and tip drops, crossed skis, and 360s (or Helicopters) from the truly skilled and bold.  No flips, but we always talked about it.  Kids started going off the ramp jump when they were no more than 11 or 12 years old, it's hilarious to think of it in retrospect.  It was a major rite of passage to go off that thing, great stories out there, and plenty of injuries as well, but nothing we couldn't recover from.  Then there was one other run, that went way out and came way back, like a long lazy run, but I honestly don't remember what it was called.  Our favorite thing to do, when we tired of tucking it down the broad face over and over again, was to go "grubbing" -- which was to just launch ourselves into the entirely uncleared woods that surrounded the place (of course you could only do this if there was a good dose of powder), and work on our tight and risky powder turns where an inch the wrong way and you ended up best friends with a birch tree.  Or you hooked your tips on some brush and got a snow sandwich for lunch and foggy goggles.

Eric Fowler: Formerly in Alfred, western New York, the main run and a few (sort of) side runs. Three hundred foot vertical (yippee!). Single T-bar, rope tow in intermittent operation. Season pass, juvenile, $70 in 1977, which works out to about 1.5 cents per run if you go every single day except Christmas and New Years. This is a clue as to why the Valley went broke sometime after I left the area in 1978. The school bus used to stop in front of the main lodge, and the local school would simply reconvene at the ski area every day.

It was operated by the Curran family who still own the Alfred Sport Shop.

Pete Daly: Happy Valley Ski Area was operated by the State University of New York at Alfred. I attended school at Alfred in the late 70's and early 80's, the area closed in the spring of 1980. It had a t-bar lift.  Alfred is located in Allegheny county (western) NY.

Mike Cuzydlo: Happy Valley had a T-bar and cost student $15 a year.  Location was the back side of the hill that the school was on.

Brian Bamberger: I graduated from there (Alfred) in 1971, (and skied there during the two winters I was there) and it was still alive and well.  I believe it is closed now, and likely closed around 1980.

Jim Kovach: In the Alfred, NY area, near Alfred State University, I once skied and area called "Happy Valley". It was not large. It was just off state highway 17.  I remember t-bars and rope tows.

Last updated: August 13, 2009

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