Craigmeur

Craigmeur began in 1937 as one small slope with a rope tow, set up for family and friends on land Hugo Meury had bought in Morris County. The name joins his with that of his wife, Helen Craig. It stood off Green Pond Road in Newfoundland; local accounts call it New Jersey's first ski area, with the state's first rope tow; historian Liz Holste told NJBIZ it was the country's second ski area with one. In 1942 a string of white Christmas lights along a slope gave the state what were probably its first lights for night skiing.^2,4,5

New Jersey's highway maps listed a T-bar and rope tows in 1976, a T-bar and one rope tow in 1980–81, and in 1988 four slopes, four lifts, a lodge and a restaurant on a 300-foot vertical drop. A DCSki reader recalled six trails lit for night skiing, served by a double chair, a T-bar and two rope tows. Holste names Olympic mogul champion Donna Weinbrecht among the athletes who skied there.^3,4,6,7,8

No ski area in the state ran longer. Sources differ on its last year: 1997 for DCSki and ABC7 News, 1998 for Holste. Morris County's parks department bought the land and kept it as open space, and the Craigmeur Ski Club, the state's oldest, lived on after the lifts stopped.^1,2,3,4,9

TodayMorris County's parks own the land as open space, and a 2024 news report found the old ski site unoccupied. (2024)^1,9