Mount Pisgah Ski Area

Mt. Pisgah is the Village of Saranac Lake's own ski hill: one T-bar, six trails on 15 acres, a tubing hill and lights for skiing after dark. It sits at the north edge of the village, about 43 road miles south of the cabins, roughly an hour's drive. Saranac Lake children have learned to ski here since the village took over the hill in 1948, and for guests skiing Titus it adds a different kind of day: a midweek evening under the lights, or an easy weekend morning with lunch in the village.

The 2026-27 season

The village is getting the hill ready for another winter. In October 2026 its Mt. Pisgah page listed opening day for skiing, snowboarding and tubing as not yet set, and asked skiers to watch that page and the hill's Facebook page for the dates and times to stop in and buy a 2026-27 season pass. Every ski and tubing day is weather permitting, so check both pages before you build a trip around the hill.

The parks crew started on winter in August, with work on the lift shacks and plans for the snowmaking and electrical systems. September brought work on the wet well, the pump house and a retaining wall, dredging of the snowmaking pond and installation of the new snowmaking pumps. Waterline and electrical work and commissioning the pumps were next on the list, for October. The snowmaking section below explains the new system.

Last winter's schedule is the best guide to this one. In 2025-26 the hill was closed on Mondays, open from 3 to 8 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, weather permitting, with holiday hours that could differ. A weekday visit is an afternoon and evening outing; a weekend visit is a daytime one. The ski listings send skiers to the hill's Facebook page for updates to the ski hill and ticket office hours, and that is the place to look the morning you go.

Who runs Mt. Pisgah

The Village of Saranac Lake owns and operates the ski area. The hill has its own manager in the village government, reached at (518) 891-0970, and the recreation area around it is open from dawn to dusk. Three local groups carry much of the rest:

• Friends of Mt. Pisgah, a volunteer-run nonprofit formed in 1988 to bring snowmaking to the hill. It raised money and donated time to build the base lodge in 1997, raised funds toward the T-bar in 2011, and since February 2024 has raised money for new snowmaking through its Make it Snow! campaign. Its mission is to improve Pisgah as a family-oriented community ski area, and its first priority is the lodge.
• The Saranac Lake Ski Club, which runs the weekly ski and snowboard lessons with the Friends. Its members spent about a month in the fall of 1948 clearing trees, stones and brush from the slope before the village signed its lease.
• Barkeater Trails Alliance, which built and maintains the mountain-bike trails on the hill.

The hill sits on a 72-acre village property in a quiet neighborhood at the north edge of Saranac Lake, on the Essex County side of the village in the Town of St. Armand. It is one of three small mountains around the village, with Mount Baker and Dewey Mountain, and for more than 75 years volunteers and families have kept it running.

Trails and terrain

Pisgah is small and easy to learn. The village counts six trails and some ski listings count seven. The hill covers 15 skiable acres with about 330 feet of vertical, from a base near 1,765 feet above sea level to a summit near 2,090, and the longest run is about 1,600 feet. Snowfall averages about 100 inches a winter.

The easy trails are made for beginners of any age to work on their turns, and the steeper terrain is a larger share of the hill than its size suggests. Indy Pass rates about 30 percent of the terrain beginner and 43 percent advanced, and the state ski areas association counts two easy trails, two intermediate and three advanced. On some dates in the season the village sets park features on one run. Crowds tend to be small.

The layout has one feature parents like: from the base lodge you can see almost the whole hill. Parents sit by the fireplace and watch their children ski, and a skier taking a break can follow the rest of the group from the window. From near the top you look northeast along the Saranac River to the low foothills beyond.

The T-bar

One lift serves all six ski trails: a T-bar bought from Doppelmayr and installed for the 2011-12 season. It lets skiers choose how long a run they want, which suits a group of mixed abilities.

The lift was a community project. It cost $374,769, and replacing the electrical systems behind it to meet current codes added about $100,000 the village had not planned for. The Friends of Mt. Pisgah set a $750,000 fundraising goal for the new lift, on top of a $600,000 state parks grant the village had secured, which was also to pay for new multi-use trails for cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, hiking and mountain biking. A community celebration in the base lodge at the end of October 2011 raised $12,457 toward the electrical work. Doppelmayr installed the lift, volunteers built the attendant shacks, and the lift was set to be commissioned in mid-November 2011, after state inspections.

The 2011 lift replaced an older T-bar. The hill's first rope tow was built in 1938, and a T-bar later took its place. The tubing hill has had its own handle tow since about 2003.

Snowmaking and the new pumps

The village calls snowmaking critical to the mountain's normal operation and to having a season at all. Local skiers formed the Friends of Mt. Pisgah in 1988, after a string of warm winters shortened the season, to put snowmaking on the hill, and in 1989 the Friends brought it to the top of the mountain. By 2011 snowmaking covered the whole hill.

The water comes from Frog Pond, a small man-made pond on the shoulder of the mountain above the old Trudeau Sanatorium grounds, where patients out on their exercise walks once came courting. The village's state permit application, posted by the Department of Environmental Conservation in January 2025, covers drawing up to 1.44 million gallons a day for snowmaking with upgraded pumps.

The village is rebuilding the system in two phases. The first, finished in December 2023, replaced 4,500 feet of snowmaking water pipe, paid for partly with an outside grant and $60,000 from the Friends. In the summer and fall of 2025 the snowmaking pond was drained and surveyed, the pump house reinforced, the pond refilled and the snow guns wet-tested.

On December 22, 2025, the village board approved the pumps for the second and final phase, a system from Ratnik Industries costing just over $200,000. A 40-horsepower pump draws water from a new wet well, and a skid of three 50-horsepower booster pumps raises the pressure for the guns, moving about 500 gallons a minute. The Friends gave $50,000 toward it, and the rest came from the village's adult-use cannabis tax revenue and its general fund balance. The pumps went in during September 2026, with commissioning planned for October. Modern, efficient snowmaking makes more snow with less energy and water, and the goal is a hill that opens sooner and stays open longer.

Night skiing

Lights cover the ski trails and the tubing hill, so on weekdays much of Pisgah's skiing happens after dark. In 2025-26 the hill opened at 3 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and ran until 8 p.m. Around the shortest day the sun sets at about 4:20 p.m., so a December session is mostly under the lights; by mid-January sunset comes at about 4:45, and by mid-February at about 5:25. The village has been changing the hill lights to LEDs, and two-thirds of the ski and tubing lights were LED when the work was described, with the rest planned.

Pack a warmer layer for the hours after sunset; the gear list below has the rest.

Titus Mountain has run its night skiing on Friday and Saturday, so Pisgah's lights cover the midweek evenings; the Titus guide has its hours. Cross-country skiers can ski under lights in Saranac Lake too, on Dewey Mountain's lower trails, which the cross-country skiing guide covers.

Tubing

The tubing hill may be Pisgah's most popular winter draw. It has two lanes on a 550-foot slope, and a handle tow pulls riders back to the top, so nobody climbs. An attendant hooks your tube's loop onto the tow at the bottom, another unhooks it at the top, and a short walk takes you to the next open lane. Pisgah supplies the tubes, which are made for the job, with a smooth bottom for sliding, a padded top that keeps you centered and a handle to hold.

Tubing is sold in two-hour sessions, and in 2025-26 a session cost $25. The tubing runs are lit, so a weekday session can run into the evening. Tubing needs no gear beyond warm clothes, so it suits a group where not everyone skis: the skiers ride the T-bar, the others tube, and everyone meets in the lodge. During the Winter Carnival the same lanes host the innertube races, described below.

Lessons, races and youth programs

Pisgah's lessons are a local program. The Saranac Lake Ski Club and the Friends of Mt. Pisgah run weekly ski and snowboard lessons two days a week for six weeks, starting in January. In 2026 they began on January 13 and ran from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. in two groups, one on Tuesdays and Thursdays and one on Wednesdays and Fridays. The fee includes the required Ski Club membership, every student needs a day ticket or a season pass, and days lost to weather are made up at the end of the season when possible.

The lessons are open only to Ski Club members and run for six weeks. For a lesson during your stay, book one at Titus, which runs a ski school and a learning area (see the Titus guide), and save Pisgah for practice laps afterward.

The hill's races are part of local winter life:

• Candy Bar Races. Weekly Sunday races at 11 a.m. for children aged 2 to 12, on courses that grow longer and harder each week. In 2026 they started on January 18. Every racer gets a candy bar and a hot chocolate.
• White Stag Race. The Winter Carnival's alpine race, open to skiers and snowboarders, with two giant slalom runs and prizes in age groups from 5 and under to 70 and over. In 2026 it ran on Sunday, February 8. The Friends of Mt. Pisgah's site has a race registration page, which had no 2027 race posted in October 2026.
• Team training. Ski teams from around the region have come to Pisgah to train.

Tickets and passes

The 2026-27 prices had not been posted in October 2026. These are the 2025-26 rates, a fair guide to what to expect.

Season passes are priced for village residents and for everyone else. In 2025-26 an adult pass was $195 for a resident and $225 for a non-resident, a student pass for ages 4 to 18 was $140 or $165, a college student pass $165, a pass for a child under 4 or a skier over 65 was $30 or $60, and a family pass for two adults and two children under 18 was $415 or $450. For 2026-27 the village will post dates and times to stop in and buy a season pass.

Mt. Pisgah joined the Indy Pass for the 2026-27 season, one of the new partners Indy announced in September 2026. Indy's page for the hill lists no blackout dates, and both the Base Pass and the Indy+ include two all-day or night tickets at each partner. Titus is an Indy partner too, and the ski cabins page shows how one pass covers both hills on the same trip. Check Indy's rules for the season before you go.

Gear, rentals and what to bring

Pisgah has no rental shop listed with the state's ski areas association, so plan your Pisgah day around your own skis or snowboard, boots and helmet. A guest who came without gear can rent at Titus for the Titus days and make Pisgah a tubing evening, since the hill supplies the tubes. Snowshoes for Pisgah's trails can be rented at Dewey Mountain, about four road miles away on the west side of the village, and its rentals may be taken off the property; the cross-country skiing guide has Dewey's details.

Pack for an evening on the hill:

• Goggles with a clear or low-light lens for skiing under the lights.
• A warm mid layer and spare gloves, kept in the car for the second half of an evening session.
• A helmet for every skier and rider in the group.
• Money for hot drinks and snacks at the lodge.
• Your Indy Pass, day ticket or season pass.

The base lodge

The lodge at the foot of the hill is the one the Friends of Mt. Pisgah raised money for and helped build in 1997. It replaced the hill's warming hut from just after the Second World War. A native-stone fireplace stands at its center, with a moose head over it, a case of historic ski gear and a trophy case nearby, and big windows look out over the slope. Picnic tables stand outside for sunny afternoons.

The kitchen sells hot drinks and snacks, from chicken tenders and walking tacos to fresh fruit, and posts its specials on the lodge's Facebook page. A plaque in the lodge records the hill's dedication as a living memorial to Saranac Lake's veterans who died in service.

The village has made the lodge one of its clean-energy projects. Two air-source heat pumps serve the main floor, a heat pump heats the water, and the lights in the lodge, the pump house and the garage are LEDs. With renewable hydroelectric power from the village's Lake Flower Dam, the lodge reached net-zero emissions status. It hosts community gatherings through the year, and in the off-season the 2,500-square-foot lodge can be rented through the Friends of Mt. Pisgah, with bathrooms, kitchen access, tables and chairs.

History of the hill

Skiing in Saranac Lake goes back to 1892, when John R. Booth of Ottawa sent the first pair of skis to town. By about 1918 the Saranac Lake Ski Club had 105 members, a ski jump on Blood Hill and weekly jumping and cross-country contests, and its skiers traded visits with the Montreal Ski Club. In 1922 the U.S. Eastern Amateur Ski Association was organized in Saranac Lake, at the club's annual banquet in the Berkeley Hotel.

The mountain takes its name from the Bible's Pisgah, the peak from which Moses saw the promised land; village maps from about 1890 and 1897 call it Jenkins Hill. In 1900 gold and silver were claimed in its rock, the Saranac Lake Mining Co. was organized, and a tunnel was begun.

Skiing came to Pisgah in stages:

• 1938. The first rope tow on the mountain was built at Frank Baker's shop at 119 River Street, from a Ford truck, and later sold to the village.
• November 1948. After the Ski Club spent about a month clearing the slope on the Harland Branch farm, the village board discussed a lease at $500 a year with an option to buy for $16,000, and the lease was signed the next day. The village has run the hill ever since.
• December 1948. Bulldozers cut the run, and a visiting Swiss expert helped lay out the Solo Sledway, a one-man bob run on the Cresta model.
• December 16, 1950. At a ceremony led by Mayor Alton B. Anderson, the 100 acres were dedicated as a living memorial recreation center for Saranac Lake's veterans who died in service.
• 1952. The Saranac Lake school district began free ski lessons on Pisgah for grades 2 through 8, with rides to the hill, a program that ran until 1969. After Christmas that year the poet Sylvia Plath broke her leg skiing on Pisgah while visiting her boyfriend, who was taking the cure for tuberculosis at the state hospital at Ray Brook, and she later wrote the accident into her novel The Bell Jar.
• December 30, 1953. Harland Branch deeded the property to the village.

The first 32 days the village ran the hill brought in $564.55 against $421.68 in costs. Through the 1950s and 1960s the Ski Club held picnics, clinics, obstacle races and work sessions at Pisgah, along with high school and college races.

Snowshoeing, biking and summer

The skiing is only part of the property. About 3.5 kilometers of snowshoe trails have views of the McKenzie Mountain Wilderness and the Saranac River, and the village also keeps fat-tire bike trails for winter riding. The summit is a short walk, with views of the High Peaks and the Saranac Lakes.

When the snow melts, the ski hill becomes mountain-bike terrain. Barkeater Trails Alliance built and maintains a network of about five miles there, with trail names drawn from Saranac Lake's history and culture. Riders climb to the summit and ride down, warming up on Natski II or Zonkers before The Cure, a machine-built flow trail with jumps and big berms. The mountain is bordered by private land on all sides, so ride only the bike trails and keep dogs under control. The village has added pickleball courts, and the recreation area is open from dawn to dusk.

Getting there from the cabins

Mt. Pisgah is about 43 road miles from the cabins, roughly an hour in good conditions. The route:

1. Local roads from the cabins to County Route 25, then west on County Route 25 to NY 30, about 7 miles in all.
2. NY 30 south for about 24 miles to Paul Smiths.
3. NY 86 east for about 10 miles, through Gabriels, toward Saranac Lake.
4. Just before the village, turn left onto Old Lake Colby Road and bear left at once onto Trudeau Road, then turn right on Mount Pisgah Road and follow it up to the base lodge. Signs for the Mount Pisgah Ski Area point the way from NY 86, and you can park anywhere in the base-area lot.

For a phone map, use 92 Mt. Pisgah Lane, Saranac Lake; the village also lists the address as Mount Pisgah Drive. The hill is about three road miles from Berkeley Green in downtown Saranac Lake, so dinner downtown is a short drive after the lift stops. Allow extra time after a storm, and read the winter driving guide before a night drive home on NY 30. The Saranac Lake and Paul Smiths guide covers the village itself.

A Pisgah day on a Titus ski trip

Titus Mountain is the home hill for guests at the cabins, three and a half road miles away. Pisgah fits around it in a few ways:

• A weekday evening. Spend the afternoon in Saranac Lake, walk Main Street and Broadway past the 6er bell on Berkeley Green, then ski Pisgah from late afternoon until closing. The Saranac Lake 6er guide explains the bell.
• A learner's second day. After a lesson at Titus, an hour of short laps on Pisgah's T-bar and easy trails builds the turns a new skier just learned, and the rest of the group can watch from the lodge.
• A Nordic and alpine day. Ski the groomed loops at Dewey Mountain in the morning, eat lunch in the village, and ski Pisgah when it opens in the afternoon.
• A tubing night. For a group with non-skiers, or skiers resting their legs after two days at Titus, a two-hour tubing session under the lights.
• Carnival week. Pair the torchlight skiing at Pisgah with an evening at the Ice Palace (see below).

Whatever the plan, the drive home is about an hour, and the hot tub is waiting. The Modern Pine, with its apres-ski decor and a hot tub open around the clock, suits a ski week best; see The Modern Pine, and the ski Titus, then soak post for a day at the home hill.

Winter Carnival events at Pisgah

The Saranac Lake Winter Carnival, the village's festival with its Ice Palace, parades and fireworks, runs from February 5 to 14 in 2027; the Winter Carnival guide has the whole program. Pisgah hosts three of its events:

• Torchlight skiing and fireworks. Children carry glowing torches down the slopes in the dark, and fireworks follow. In 2026 it fell on Thursday, February 12.
• The White Stag Race and the Arctic Bar-B-Que. The carnival's alpine race, described above, with the Arctic Bar-B-Que at the lodge alongside it. In 2026 both fell on Sunday, February 8.
• The innertube races. Age-group races, run head to head down the tubing lanes, with many of the racers in costume.

The 2027 dates for the Pisgah events had not been posted in October 2026. Watch the carnival schedule and the Friends of Mt. Pisgah's site in January.

Questions

Sources

Facts on this page were checked against these sources in October 2026. Hours, fees and schedules change; confirm before you go.

1. saranaclakeny.gov saranaclakeny.gov/mt-pisgah
2. saranaclakeny.gov saranaclakeny.gov/office-of-the-village-manager
3. fompsl.org fompsl.org/
4. fompsl.org fompsl.org/history
5. fompsl.org fompsl.org/lessons
6. fompsl.org fompsl.org/lodgerentals
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