North Creek, New York · Since 1934

America's first ski town is coming back down the hill.

In 1934 the railroad ran the country's first ski train from Manhattan to a village of six hundred people in the Adirondacks. Skiers rode up the mountain and slid back into town. Ninety years later we're rebuilding the bottom of that run — a place to work, a distillery, and a courtyard to stand around a fire in.

Five skiers walking into town with skis over their shoulders

The short version

Ride up, slide down.

That was the instruction, and it's still the whole idea. The mountain has never been the problem here. Getting people to stop at the bottom is.

  1. 1934

    The snow train

    The Delaware & Hudson ran skiers north from New York City to the North Creek depot — the first ski train in the United States. Trucks hauled them up the Ski Bowl road. They skied back into the village and got on the train home.

  2. 1964

    The mountain moves

    Gore Mountain opened up the road and became the region's anchor. Main Street kept the depot, the name, and progressively less of the traffic.

  3. 2011

    The Ski Bowl reconnects

    The original hill was stitched back onto Gore. For the first time in decades you could ski from the summit to the edge of the village again. The run came back before the town did.

  4. Now

    The bottom of the run

    Four buildings on Main Street and Ordway Lane. A coworking space that's open, a distillery and a winter courtyard that aren't yet. Same instruction as 1934 — we're just building somewhere to land.

Getting here

Four hours from Manhattan. Six hundred people.

North Creek sits in the southeastern Adirondacks on the Hudson, at the foot of Gore Mountain. It is not a resort town and we're not trying to make it one.

From New York City
≈ 4 hours by car, I-87 to Exit 23
From Albany
≈ 1 hour 15 minutes north
Gore Mountain
5 minutes — 107 trails, 2,537 ft vertical
North Creek Ski Bowl
5 minutes — the original 1934 hill