JOHNSBURG -- Gene Arsenault remembers riding a T-bar lift up in the 1950s and 1960s up the North Creek Ski Bowl.
As a 15-year-old, he would make a "v" with his skis to form a snowball that would build up as he was pulled to the top, he recalled, where he would then release it down the slope.
Now a Johnsburg Town Board member, he was part of an effort launched by local and state officials and private developers to connect the historic Ski Bowl with the rest of Gore Mountain Ski Center.
On Saturday, a Hudson chairlift connecting the Ski Bowl with Gore opened for skiers and snowboarders.
"This is where skiing began in the Adirondacks," said state Sen. Elizabeth Little, R-Queensbury, at a dedication ceremony Saturday morning while wearing ski boots. "This is an incredible moment on an incredible day."
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When Little asked if any attendees had skied on the original slopes, dozens of people like Arsenault raised their hands.
Officials praised the connection from the Ski Bowl to Gore Mountain as a boon for business in North Creek.
A ski-in, ski-out village near the lift also has plans to build a 34-room inn, a membership ski lodge and customized residential townhouses, Ski Bowl Village at Gore Mountain project manager Mac Crikelair said.
Skiers gradually decreased use at Little Gore Mountain since 1964 when Gore Mountain relocated to its current site, Gore Mountain spokeswoman Emily Stanton said.
Johnsburg Supervisor Sterling Goodspeed recalled to the crowd how he once was home from college and went up a ski lift at Gore with two strangers.
They asked him where he was from, and he said the village at the base of the mountain, Goodspeed recalled.
"You mean there's a village at the base of the mountain?" he remembered one of them saying.
"I think the world has found our village at the base of the mountain," he said to a crowd of skiers and snowboarders ready to use the lift for the first time.
Property where the new ski lift stands had belonged to FrontStreet Mountain Development, LLC, which is investing in the Ski Bowl Village and had transferred 60 acres of ski trails and the ski lift line property to the town of Johnsburg, according to a press release.
Currently, the company has sold one two-unit townhouse, where each unit has four bedrooms, and is constructing another two-unit townhouse, which would have a total of nine bedrooms. Crikelair said the second building has buyers lined up.
The 1,900-foot peak of Little Gore Mountain allows skiers and snowboarders to connect with a quad lift on Burnt Ridge Mountain.
The combined ski trails now make Gore the sixth-largest ski resort east of the Mississippi River.
Skiers from North Creek and Indian Lake said the lift's opening could lead them to switch where they park because of the convenient location.
"You don't have to rush over to the mountain in the morning. You can get a late start," North Creek resident Andy Jackson said.
"Plus, it's nostalgia."
