Birdseye Mountain

Bill Jenkins began planning a ski area on the Castleton–Ira town line in 1958 with local investors, and NELSAP dates its founding to 1961. It opened early in 1962 with a rope tow on a small beginner slope and a 750-foot Stabil disc lift on the west side, which NELSAP says climbed about 150 feet. A second disc lift on the north face followed, 600 feet long by NELSAP's account and 500 by the Mountain Times.^1,2

In 1965 the board added a 1,300-foot Doppelmayr T-bar, giving six trails; NELSAP puts its vertical at 390 feet, the Mountain Times at 500. The area had Larchmont snow guns, and Jenkins wanted new terrain covered by snowmaking, and when the board built the T-bar without it he resigned. Poor snow followed and the area folded: about 1967 for NELSAP, last run in 1967 for SnowBrains, closed in 1968 for the Mountain Times.^1,2,3

In the late 1970s Donald Goldman, owner of Roundtop, bought the property with revival plans, but a nearly snowless winter at Roundtop ended them. A campground with a pool ran at the base in the 1970s; later the trails grew in, the base lodge burned and the camping stopped. In 2003 the west disc lift still stood, and in 2020 the property, more than 600 acres, was for sale.^1,3

TodayThe old ski area is private land, offered for sale in 2020 as a property of more than 600 acres. (2020)³