Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
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Brownfield, where a 1947 fire reportedly burned 500 homes, looked to skiing for jobs and visitors. Local people formed a nonprofit in March 1964 that became the Burnt Meadows Mountain Recreation Association in December 1966, and Farmers Home Administration loans backed the project.1,2
Read the whole historyTimeline
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Memories
Skied Burnt Meadows, 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 Burnt Meadows
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- Years not yet collected · 14.1 mi away · New HampshireRussell's Slope, run by Russell's Inn in Kearsarge, was skied on foot in the 1930s and had a rope tow from the late 1940s.
- 1949–1985 · 17.3 mi away · New HampshireA ski area on Nickerson Mountain in West Ossipee, New Hampshire, known for a gondola that crossed the highway, open from the 1940s until 1985.
- 1963–1981 · 18.8 mi away · New HampshireA ski area in Jackson, in the Mount Washington Valley, that ran from the 1960s until 1981 with a double chair, a T-bar and a Poma.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 2 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Brownfield, where a 1947 fire reportedly burned 500 homes, looked to skiing for jobs and visitors. Local people formed a nonprofit in March 1964 that became the Burnt Meadows Mountain Recreation Association in December 1966, and Farmers Home Administration loans backed the project. Work on the T-bar and the access road began in November 1971.1,2
The area opened with free skiing on February 5, 1972. A rare Stadeli T-bar, 3,148 feet long, climbed 675 vertical feet to three trails, some of them about a mile long, and a 600-foot beginner pony lift came for 1972–73. Poor snow, worst in 1973–74, and debts followed, and the association handed the property to the Farmers Home Administration in 1977.1,2
Wendell Pierce, owner of Big Rock in Mars Hill, bought it around 1980 and renamed it Zodiac Skiway, and his daughter ran it for several years. It shut down around 1982. When NELSAP visited, trees had nearly hidden the trails, though the T-bar was still standing.1,2
Timeline
- 1964Brownfield residents form a nonprofit in March to build a ski area1
- 1966It becomes the Burnt Meadows Mountain Recreation Association1
- 1971Work on the T-bar and access road begins in November2
- 1972Opens with free skiing on February 51
- 1977Property handed to the Farmers Home Administration1
- 1980Wendell Pierce buys it and renames it Zodiac Skiway1,2
- 1982The 1981–82 season is the last1,2
Sources for this history (2)
- 1New England Ski History · Burnt Meadow Mountain History
- 2New England Lost Ski Areas Project · Burnt Meadow Mountain / Zodiac Skiway
Photos
No photographs of Burnt Meadows 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 Burnt Meadows, in their own words.
Facts
Location
43.9342° N · 70.9046° W · Maine
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
1972–1982
Closed after the 1982 season. It stays here as part of the record of U.S. ski areas.
Its numbers
all 3all 3, in one list
Terrain contours: USGS 3D Elevation Program, public domain