The Capital District’s only ski and snowboarding destination actually started as the brainchild of a child.
Decades ago, William and Elizabeth Mulyca were taking their children to Scotch Valley Ski Resort, which is now closed, and their children started talking about cutting down some trees and brush on their family’s farmland property. Eventually, the parents agreed and a bulldozer started to clear the hill that’s known today as Maple Ski Ridge. But it would take several years for the area to become the resort-style retreat it is today.
“Friends and family and the neighborhood would come over and it kind of developed in that way,” said Kate Michner, marketing and special events coordinator of Maple Ski Ridge. “Our grandfather William was a very ingenious man. … Every year, the place just got bigger and bigger.”
The first rope tow was installed around 1967 and the first chair lift opened in 1972. A year later the owners got into snowmaking when powder failed to materialize. A second chair lift, a triple, was added in 1989.
Today, Maple Ski Ridge has eight trails, two lifts, a rope tow and a handle tow. The entire Ridge property totals around 120 acres, but not all of it skiable or used for recreational purposes.
“It has been in our family the entire time and we are hoping that it stays there,” Michner said.
To celebrate Maple Ski Ridge’s 50th anniversary there, will be a weekend of events from Thursday, Jan. 17, to Sunday, Jan. 20. It starts with a ribbon cutting hosted by the Chamber of Schenectady County on Friday, with $10 lift tickets offered along with retro specials from the lodge’s kitchen. On Saturday, there will be a “Ski, Dance and Sing” with Mountain Music DJ starting at 5 p.m.
The celebration ends on Sunday with a traditional Polish dinner featuring kielbasa, perogies, sauerkraut cooked with pork, kluski, vegetables and rye bread. Food will start being served at noon for around $10, with take-out available. Pre-orders are appreciated and can be made by calling 381-4700.
Michner said the property, which is agriculturally zoned, has seen new usage in recent years during the off-season. The Ridge has hosted special events and concerts to bolster revenues, which the entire industry has seen fall off through the lingering recession.
“We have to expand the business in order to stay viable as a ski area and to make the business itself grow,” she said. “If you were to look around at the other ski areas they have similar situations as ours and they are doing things all over the place.”
Michner said she understands the Ridge serves a niche purpose for most people.
“We realize we are what they call a feeder ski area,” she said. “It is a great place to warm up for the season and it is a great place to learn.”
This business has largely tailored itself to suit its customers, serving as a family-friendly destination and welcoming seniors who are still hitting the slopes. Its 70 Plus Club, which offers free season passes to anyone 70 and older, has been growing in popularity, she said.
“We don’t want to lose the family-friendly atmosphere that we have,” Michner said. “We want to keep it in with the feel of the town, in with the feel of the people that we primarily call our customers in the winter time.”
But people in general are demanding more from the Ridge than when it first opened, and it’s only getting harder to deliver that during warmer winters.
“The seasons are a lot shorter than they used to be and the people are much more skilled and people want more now than they were happy with in the ‘70s,” Michner said. “Now, you just see people coming to learn and wanting to learn. … We can’t make the hill any bigger than it already is.”
The family already used the land for a completely different business when it ran a dairy farm where snowboards now carve through the hills.
In the ‘60s the cows were dropped after it became unprofitable to run a dairy farm “unless you went big,” Michner said. The original barn is still by the entrance to the ski area, but a different family now owns it.
It’s not just one family that has connections back to the early days of the Ridge, though. Frederica Anderson, director of the Schenectady Ski School, started teaching friends and their children who to ski in 1950, and it quickly grew into a budding club.
Anderson was giving lessons at the Schenectady Municipal Golf Course, but when she heard about a family in Rotterdam that installed a rope tow on their farming land she contacted the Mulycas. Since 1967, she’s held the ski school there on her original verbal agreement.
“It is extremely important to introduce families and young children into the sport,” Anderson said. “The industry has adapted to making the equipment much more user friendly.”
Anderson said she had fond memories of William Mulyca, the original owner, and has continued a good relationship with future generation of owners.
“We have always had a very friendly cooperative relationship,” Anderson said. “It is honestly one of the best managed snowmaking ski areas I could ever hope to ski upon.”
Michner said the business is something that “gets into your blood” and she hopes Maple Ski Ridge will make people smile for many yeas to come.
“We are just like everybody else, another small business trying to survive,” Michner said.