Hunter Mountain (ski area)

Infobox ski area
name= Hunter Mountain

---

picture= Hunter Mountain.jpg
caption= Snowboarder at Hunter Mountain
location= Hunter, New York, U.S.
nearest_city= Albany, New York
lat_degrees= 42
lat_minutes= 12
lat_seconds= 01
lat_direction= N
long_degrees= 74
long_minutes= 13
long_seconds= 49
long_direction= W
top_elevation= 3200 ft (975 m)
base_elevation= 1600 ft (488 m)
skiable_area= 240 acres (0.96 km²)
number_trails= 58
longest_run= convert|2|mi|km|0|abbr=on
liftsystem= 10 chairlifts; 1 J-Bar; 1 rope tow
terrainparks= 2
snowfall= 216 cm
external_link= http://www.huntermtn.com|

Hunter Mountain is a ski resort located about two and a half hours north of New York City. It features a convert|1600|ft|m|-1|sing=on vertical drop.

From its inception in the late 1950s, the management of Hunter Mountain has employed extensive snowmaking. Hunter was the first in the state to install snowmaking, the first in the world with top-to-bottom snowmaking, and the first in the world to have 100% snowmaking coverage of the mountain.

The resort offers snowtubing and snowshoeing. Hunter Mountain also features two terrain parks and holds freestyle events throughout the season.

History

During the mid-50’s a group of local businessmen, including Orville and Israel Slutzky, developed plans to revive the area's economy after the Great Depression and World War II had caused long-term economic distress. The sport of skiing was becoming popular, and the group considered developing Hunter Mountain as a ski resort. After a failed lobbying attempt to get the State of New York to develop a new ski area on Hunter Mountain, the group contacted Denise McCluggage, a sports editor at the New York Herald Tribune. They told her they had a mountain to give away as long as the developer built a ski area called Hunter Mountain on it. McCluggage wrote an article that attracted the interest of a group of Broadway show-business people.

This group created the Hunter Mountain Development Corp., the first operator of Hunter Mountain. The group was headed by Jimmy Hammerstein, the son of Oscar Hammerstein II, and included many Hollywood and Broadway stars of the time. With Orville and Izzy Slutzky providing most of the land and their firm I. & O.A. Slutzky providing the construction, ground was broken to develop the ski area in the summer of 1959. The area was given to the group to operate with two stipulations: that it be called “Hunter Mountain Ski Bowl” and that it have snowmaking capabilities, a relatively new technology at the time.

On January 9, 1960, Hunter Mountain opened for the first time with the original “B” Lift in operation. The original “A” Lift was under construction and was not completed in time for the first season. The old Starr Hotel served as the first base lodge, located just below the old Ski and Snowboard School administration building. When the Hunter Mountain Development Corp. went bankrupt by the middle of the 1961/62 season the Slutzky brothers took over the operation.

During the summer of 1962, the “A” lift was completed. This opened up the skiing to the summit. Over the next several years, many new trails were cut, including the opening of the Belt Parkway and the construction of the Upper Shop, and more snowmaking was installed. In the summer of 1963, Hunter opened for summer skiing on plastic chips. Summer skiing only lasted for a few years. During the winter of 1963/64, Hunter Mountain opened for night skiing for the first time. Night skiing was discontinued in 1972.

In the summer of 1964, construction of the present day base lodge began, which was opened on December 12, 1964, featuring a 300-seat dining room, an indoor swimming pool, sauna, health club, and massage rooms. The "D” Lift opened in December 1967, the first triple chair at Hunter Mountain. Also that winter, Hunter Mountain became the first area in the world with summit to base snowmaking with the completion of snowmaking lines to the summit. Also at this time the “East Side” was developed including K-27, East Side Drive and The Milky Way.

In the summer of 1969, construction of the trails on Hunter West began. It was opened with the “Z” Lift for the season. That summer, the Summit Lodge was constructed. Also that summer, Hunter Mountain became the first ski area in the world to feature snowmaking on 100% of its trails. In 1975, the first Hunter Summer Festivals took place in July with the ten-day German Alps Festival. Under the direction of Don Conover and his family, the festivals grew steadily each year thereafter. The Colonel’s Hall was added to the base lodge in the summer of 1977. In addition, the Mini-Lodge in Hunter One was constructed. The Mini-Lodge has since been removed.

December 1983 saw the opening of the Sushi Bar in the Summit Lounge. In the summer of 1987, The SnowLite Express Quad was built along with the West Wing and CopperTree Restaurant addition to the base lodge.

In 1989, Hunter became the first area in the U.S. to install an automated snowmaking system. The system installed on Racer’s Edge by York International was and still is operated remotely from the Upper Shop. This year also saw the completion of the first LiftSide condominiums. Construction and development continued into the 90’s, with lifts, trails, and shops added to the resort.

Statistics

*Base: convert|1600|ft|m|-1|abbr=on
*Summit: convert|3200|ft|m|-1|abbr=on
*Vertical drop: convert|1600|ft|m|-1|abbr=on
*Skiable area: convert|240|acre|km2|1
*Number of Trails: 58
*Percentage of Terrain:*Beginner 30%:*Intermediate 30%:*Advanced 27%:*Expert 13%

Lifts

Snowmaking

* 1967: Hunter became the first area in the world to feature summit to base snowmaking
* 1980: First area to achieve 100% snowmaking coverage
* 2006: Over 1,100 snow machines installed. Most of the snowguns are mounted on towers to insure the maximum amount of "air time" for falling snow to freeze. Hunter has enough air and water available to run half of the snowmaking arsenal at once under marginal snowmaking conditions.

nowmaking Statistics

*Hunter uses more than convert|60|mi|km|-1 of snowmaking pipe
*Water capacity equals nearly 43 US gallons per minute, per acre (40 m³/s per km²)
*Air capacity equals about 45000 ft³/min (21 m³/s), including all fan guns with onboard compressors
*Overall snowmaking capacity equals 40 tons per minute (700 kg/s) of snow
*Hunter is able to cover one acre (equivalent to size of a football field) with one foot of snow every hour at five °F.
*In an average season, Hunter can turn about 500,000 US gallons (2,000 m³) of water into snow

Grooming

Hunter Mountain's grooming fleet consists of four LMC 4700s and three Pisten Bully Edges for normal grooming operations, in addition to a PB300 Winch Cat for grooming steeper slopes. A Pisten Bully (Snowcat) Park Bully and Pipe Magician used in the Terrain Park and Half Pipe round out Hunter's grooming fleet. Hunter also has one LMC 3900 for use in the Snowtubing park.

Each grooming machine is equipped with flexible roto-tillers which produce a more consistent, smooth surface than straight tillers. The concept of the flex tiller originated at Hunter Mountain and was realized through a joint effort between LMC and Hunter Mountain. Flexible tillers are now used world-wide. Hunter still owns and operates the first two-piece and three-piece snow tillers ever produced, as well as the only four-piece tiller ever made.

Hunter has a Pipe Magician that's designed for cutting the walls and floor of a Half Pipe.

nowtubing

*Snowtubing park with 9 chutes
*Two tube tows for hauling visitors to the top There is a minimum height requirement of 42 inches (1.07 m).

Related Developments

Hunter Mountain Shiobara, a Japanese ski resport near Tokyo named after Hunter Mountain, was created with the support of Hunter Mountain New York principal Israel Slutzky. [ [http://www.hunter.co.jp/ Hunter Mountain Shiobara] , official website.]

Controversy

Privately owned Hunter Mountain opposes expansion, development and continued existence of publicly owned Belleayre Ski Center.

In 2006, Paul Slutzky, son of co-founder Orville Slutzky, claimed that privately-owned ski areas such as Hunter Mountain do not "operate on a level playing field in New York State" against state-supported areas such as Belleayre. [ [http://industryreport.mountainnews.com/2006/07/the_party_keeps_on_rolling_in.shtml Mountain News Industry Report, "The Party Rolls On In The Catskills," July 24, 2006] ]

External links

* [http://www.huntermtn.com Hunter Mountain Official Website]
* [http://www.huntermtn.com/huntermtn/SiteAssets/images/mountain/trailmap-small.jpgTrail map] , Hunter Mountain website.
* [http://www.onthesnow.com/NY/184/skireport.html Hunter Mountain Snow Report]

References