Lost ski areaNew HampshireNortheast
Franklin Pierce College Ski Hill
A college ski hill in Rindge with a rope tow, a ski jump and open slopes, used from about the mid-1960s to the early 1980s.
Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
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Franklin Pierce College in Rindge kept its own small ski hill on campus: a rope tow, a ski jump and three open slopes south of the tow, used for all sorts of winter activity. Owen Houghton, dean of students from 1975 to 1990, believed it was developed soon after Dean Wheeler Merriam came to the college in the mid-1960s.1
Read the whole historyTodayThe slopes have largely returned to a natural state, and the student-built Outing Club House is still used.1
Timeline
2 events · swipe
Memories
Skied Franklin Pierce College Ski Hill, 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 Franklin Pierce College Ski Hill
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- 1962–1967 · 8 mi away · New HampshireA small rope-tow area in New Ipswich, also known as Kidder Mountain, that ran from 1962 to 1967.
- 1937–2001 · 9.7 mi away · New HampshireA ski area on Temple Mountain in Temple and Peterborough, New Hampshire, that ran from the winter of 1937–38 until 2001.
- Closed 1984 · 9.9 mi away · MassachusettsA family ski area on Mount Watatic in Ashby that grew from a rope tow to T-bars and two chairlifts, closing in the mid-1980s.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 1 page below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Franklin Pierce College in Rindge kept its own small ski hill on campus: a rope tow, a ski jump and three open slopes south of the tow, used for all sorts of winter activity. Owen Houghton, dean of students from 1975 to 1990, believed it was developed soon after Dean Wheeler Merriam came to the college in the mid-1960s. Students built the Outing Club House at the base as a January-term project, from native pine hauled out by horses and hewn by hand. The college ran a youth racing program, and its ski team raced at nearby areas such as Fitzwilliam, Pinnacle and Temple.1
With no snowmaking the hill was seldom open; one student from 1979 to 1983 skied it only for a few days in January 1982. After several warm, snowless winters, and a large lawsuit against Stratton Mountain that pushed the college's insurance premium from $200 to $4,000, the hill closed in the early 1980s and never got the tramway license it needed to reopen. The slopes have mostly gone back to nature, while the Outing Club House remained in use.1
TodayThe slopes have largely returned to a natural state, and the student-built Outing Club House is still used.1
Sources for this history (1)
- 1New England Lost Ski Areas Project · Franklin Pierce College
Photos
No photographs of Franklin Pierce College Ski Hill 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 Franklin Pierce College Ski Hill, in their own words.
Facts
Location
42.7818° N · 72.0537° W · New Hampshire
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
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.
No figures from its operating years are collected yet.
Terrain contours: USGS 3D Elevation Program, public domain