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Buffalo Ski Club, the area’s
closest, most affordable and most family-friendly skiing
and snowboarding facility begins its 75th
Anniversary in 2006. Located on Route 240 in Colden just
outside West Falls Buffalo Ski Club is only minutes from
anywhere in the Buffalo metropolitan area .
Buffalo
Ski Club brings together three ski areas - Sitzmarker
Ski Club, Ski Tamarack and Buffalo Ski Club—and covers
300 acres with 43 trails ranging in terrain from expert
to beginner. The area is serviced by two chair lifts,
two t-bars and two handle lifts. Both stationary and
mobile snowmaking guns can cover most of the area to
supplement Mother Nature’s offerings.
As the
region’s premier family ski area Buffalo Ski Club boasts
a top-notch snowsports school. PSIA certified
instructors, offer private and group lessons in alpine
skiing, telemark skiing and snowboarding for students of
all ages and abilities. Popular lesson packages are the
Extreme Team and Sitz Kids. The Buffalo Ski Club Race
Team is comprised of skiers ages 8-18 who compete region
wide in Niagara Frontier Ski Council events.
Three
lodges are spread out over the club’s terrain, each with
its own personality. The hub of activity is the Tamarack
Lodge on Route 240 with
Snowsports
School headquarters,
National Ski Patrol headquarters, attended nursery,
snack bar and picnic facilities. Up top on
Lower East Hill Road is the
Sitzmarker Lodge with a functioning kitchen, grills,
picnic tables and a fireplace. It is the site of the
popular Saturday night Pot Luck dinners and many club
parties. Farther south on Lower East Hill is the Buffalo
Lodge, a smaller, quieter lodge with an adult fireplace
room for apres ski relaxation.
Now in its
75th year the Buffalo Ski Club continues
traditions begun in 1931 when eight families from
Bavaria,
Germany,
came together to share their passion for skiing. They
purchased land and a farmhouse in
Holland
not long after and built the area’s first rope tow. They
spent winter weekends skiing, then gathering for huge
feasts and songfests. By the 1950’s they had moved to
Colden where the Buffalo Lodge still stands. In 1948 UB
students and WWII vets, members of the Sitzmarker Ski
Club, bought the adjacent property on Lower East Hill
and began to clear the hill still called Old Sitz just
below the Sitzmarker Lodge. In a building made of
cleared timber they gathered as families for weekends of
skiing and comraderie. In the 1960 Dr. Lore, established
Ski Tamarack just south of Sitzmarker. Although it was a
commercial venture, Tamarack was always a family ski
area. In 1991 Buffalo Ski Club and Sitzmarker merged and
in 2004 the Club acquired Ski Tamarack from the Lore
family to make the entire Colden Ridge one private,
family-oriented ski club .
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