
New England Lost Ski Areas Project - craigcannon
http://www.nelsap.org/
======
ethagnawl
I just now realized I owe nelsap.org a debt of gratitude. I _stumbled upon_
this site back in 2004/5 and, for some reason, was inspired to ride my bike
down Neutaconkanut Hill in Providence. The "trail" was pretty much non-
existent and that trip wasn't particularly fun, but it did give me a taste of
what mountain biking _could_ be like. Afterwards, I decided to explore other
biking trails in the area (Lincoln Woods, Burlingame, Weetamoo Woods, etc.)
and I've been mountain biking regularly ever since.

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ilamont
I remember skiing Prospect Hill as a teenager. In the wintertime prior to 1990
it was possible to leave work at Polaroid or one of the other big office
complexes along Rte 128 in Waltham and be booting up at the base of Prospect
Hill 15 minutes later. Just a few slopes and a WW II-era T-bar, but still ...

[http://www.nelsap.org/ma/prospecthill.html](http://www.nelsap.org/ma/prospecthill.html)

ETA: A quote from a former employee during its last year of operation:

 _I was part of the ski school management team in Prospect Mountain 's last
year of operations, 1990. They had been out of business for two or three years
before this season. A man named "Bill Krikorian" had been trying to reopen Mt.
Watatic in Ashby, MA. The town fathers saw through him and would not allow him
the permits. He leased Prospect Hill from the MDC, but three problems arose:
1. They would not give him a liquor license for the premises 2. There was
virtually no natural snow that winter 3. His "cannon-style" snow gun literally
blew up on the hill in mid-December._

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nateburke
This is one of my favorite sites on the internet. Having grown up skiing at
Ascutney, one of the largest ski areas to ever die, seeing it and other CT
river valley areas such as Mt Tom memorialized here is very meaningful to me.

~~~
brightsize
Maple Valley still has infrastructure in place though I'm sure it's rotting
away. I drive by there often when I'm back in 05301-land and it's haunting to
behold. I think it's been for sale[1] for ... decades ... hard to imagine
small hills like this ever being economically viable again. Even when I was a
kid my peers chose to break their arms and legs at the more distant (and
likewise defunct) Hogback Mountain.

[1] [https://youtu.be/eb9iZY_wCwc](https://youtu.be/eb9iZY_wCwc)

~~~
thenipper
That video brings me back. I learned to ski and snowboard at Maple Valley. My
elementary school had a program where you could get a seasons pass and go
there on Wednesday's and Fridays. In high school we ended up at Okemo which
wasn't bad but never had the charm of Maple Valley.

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chmaynard
Nice! A blast from the past. This is a classic "old internet" site that still
works fine and appears to be maintained by someone.

~~~
ilamont
_< meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 6.0">_

Guess he's manually updating it now ... or running FrontPage on an old PC.

Is it possible to run FrontPage on a newer PC?

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Neliquat
A friend is working on providing access to abandoned ski areas in the rockies,
how timely, and what a relic!

~~~
chadgeidel
Does he/she have a website or a forum? I think I know folks who would be
interested in this.

Unless they don't want the publicity. I'm not that popular though. :-)

~~~
planteen
Here are some in Colorado. Most ski resorts (open and closed) in Colorado are
on public land.

[http://www.coloradoskihistory.com/lostresorts.html](http://www.coloradoskihistory.com/lostresorts.html)

~~~
wavefunction
Great website! Took my first and only ski lesson at Broadmoor. They had an
alpine slide as well at one point. Only time I've skied as I tried
snowboarding the next time and never looked back (those scotch-guarded jncos
kids wore... ugh ;)

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theklub
Crazy, I never would have guess some of these I live very near. thanks for
this.

~~~
ghaff
There used to be a huge number of these rope tow and a hill or maybe a
chairlift and a small mountain areas in New England. But the business really
became go big or go home given factors like snowmaking and modern chairlifts.
There are a few survivors but not many.

~~~
douche
Even some of the bigger mountains are struggling. Saddleback, in Rangeley, ME
has shut down, and Sugarloaf, also in northwest ME, is not doing that great.

~~~
baldfat
Ugh I HATED Sugarloaf. Got my ticket cut at 9 am for doing a helicopter on a
small jump on the side of the trail. I never went back. They claimed to be the
family resort and would hunt teenagers down, this was a few decades ago. I
never was even warned at any other resort in my life and never had my ticket
cut.

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ilamont
Easy to get lost in this site. Many unusual stories, including the "Private
Property No Trespassing Keep Out Ski Area"
([http://www.nelsap.org/ma/private.html](http://www.nelsap.org/ma/private.html)):

 _I actually once owned the farm that included the hill that the ski slope was
on (long before I bought the property though). I was there with Peter
Kallander, its owner operator, on what was likely the last occasion the rope
tow was operational on that site. I think it was in the fall of 1983. Peter
was the guy that built the lift and owned several hundred acres including the
mountain.

Peter was a pilot of wide-body jets for Delta Airlines. He had a small private
airport on the site (with grass north-south and east-west runways), and the
run-out for the ski slope ran across the east-west runway over toward
Stoneybrook golf course a few hundred yards away. Peter built that golf course
with his dad when he was younger on another part of the property. It was a
small 9 hole par 3, which is the golf equivalent of his small ski slope. They
sold the golf course at some point I believe. Here's the Airline Owners and
Passengers Association link to the private air strip, which is still in
operation:
[http://www.aopa.org/airports/09MA](http://www.aopa.org/airports/09MA).

... Kallander Hill, which it should be referred-to as, was north facing, and
had two purposes. In the summer and the fall, Peter told me if the conditions
were right, he would take his plane up the hill and take off. I never saw him
take off on that side of the hill because my property was a few hundred yards
south and west, and the ski slope faced pretty much due north. I did, however,
help Peter clear the west side of the mountain in 1983. At that point he
hadn't been operating the lift in the winter for a number of years. The lift
was an old farm vehicle with its drive-train intact. I did see it, and I think
we may have fired it up that day to see if it was still working properly. He
showed me how it operated because he knew I was a life-long skier and had
learned at a place like this in Dudley Mass near Nichols College, and at Mount
Tom and Maple Valley. The rope was attached to one of the back wheels with its
counterpart at the bottom. He'd just start it up and run it for his kids and
their friends. I don't recall him ever saying if it was ever a commercial
venture for Peter. It was likely just for his kids and for locals. Peter was a
popular guy around town and had been the president of his class in high
school.

... We cut down a number of cedars that fall weekend, and I took them to use
for a fenced-in paddock that I was going to build off my barn (which I never
got around-to). Peter then had a west-facing runway on Kallander Hill that
could be used when the winds came from the other direction. I don't believe
anyone ever skied on that, although I had planned to try it. My estimate is
the hill had a vertical of at least 200-250 feet. On that day Peter gave me
the history of the mountain that I note here. Over the next year I did see him
take off from the part of the hill we cleared. I think he did that as a
practice exercise for having to take off or land in extraordinary conditions.
He had a house on Moosehead lake in northern Maine, and would fly up there
regularly.

Around the time I moved away a few years later he had purchased an amphibious
plane (either a Lake or a Seabee), with a large prop high and behind the
cockpit. I did see him taking off and even doing the last part of his landings
on the side of the mountain with that and its predecessor plane, sort of like
touch and goes. It was an amazing site for me and all the other neighbors that
could see it. I think he bought the rear prop plane because there wasn't
enough prop clearance on the west facing hillside given the steeper grade.

Peter also told me that the mountain was his retirement, so that would explain
why he never tried to develop it into a commercial ski area, as he did with
the golf course. He was going to build houses on it. Clearing the portion on
my side was likely a part of that strategy. It was pretty steep, and I didn't
quite understand how he was planning to do that. I also didn't completely
realize how big the mountain was. But he had been seeing it from all angles
during his years of flying around it.

About 15 years ago he did that and there must be 60 high-end homes/condos on
it now, most with magnificent views. It's a high density development with 2-4
units in each structure. They've also made major topographical changes, taking
off at least 100 feet of vertical and creating a large plane for the area
where the homes are now._

