Lost ski areaMassachusettsNortheast
Abell Ski Slope
A small town novice slope with one rope tow in Braintree, across from East Junior High School, used for ski lessons from 1973 to about 1976.
Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
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The Abell Ski Slope was a small novice hill across from the entrance to East Junior High School in Braintree, named for Charles F. Abell, the town's first superintendent of parks.1
Read the whole historyTodayParts of the cinder-block hut, the tow poles and their guide rims are still there. (2011)1
Timeline
3 events · swipe
Memories
Skied Abell Ski Slope, or worked there?
Tell us what you remember, or what this page has wrong. Memories show here, credited to you, after we read them; facts are checked against a source before they change a figure.
Lost near Abell Ski Slope
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- 1949–1990 · 18 mi away · MassachusettsA city ski slope with T-bars and night skiing in Waltham's Prospect Hill Park, open from 1949 into the late 1980s and once more in 1989–90.
- Opened 1970 · 22.5 mi away · MassachusettsA town-run ski slope with a single J-bar on Sunrise Hill in North Attleborough, dedicated in 1970 and closed by the early 2000s.
- Years not yet collected · 25.7 mi away · MassachusettsA ski slope and jump without a lift on Punkatasset Hill in Concord, used in the 1920s and 1930s, on what is now town conservation land.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 1 page below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
The Abell Ski Slope was a small novice hill across from the entrance to East Junior High School in Braintree, named for Charles F. Abell, the town's first superintendent of parks. Jack Devin, a Braintree resident who taught skiing at Blue Hill, began lessons there in the 1973–74 winter under the Braintree Woman's Club. That first winter the instructors packed the snow by sidestepping, and 75 children paid $10 each for five lessons.1
In the summer of 1974 a cinder-block hut went up to hold the motor and pulleys of a new rope tow, about 500 feet long on 50 feet of vertical, and lights on the tow poles allowed night skiing. Vandals later damaged the lift controls and set the hut on fire, which ended the program; NELSAP dates the end to about 1976.1
TodayParts of the cinder-block hut, the tow poles and their guide rims are still there. (2011)1
Sources for this history (1)
- 1New England Lost Ski Areas Project · Abell Ski Slope
Photos
No photographs of Abell Ski Slope we may republish yet
Its old photos and trail maps live on the sites that collected them, and Google finds the rest.
Memories
What skiers remember of Abell Ski Slope, in their own words.
Facts
Location
42.2197° N · 70.9883° W · Massachusetts
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
from 1973 · the year it closed is not yet collected
Closed for good; the year it closed is not yet collected. It stays here as part of the record of U.S. ski areas.
Its numbers
all 2all 2, in one list
Terrain contours: USGS 3D Elevation Program, public domain