Lost ski areaMassachusettsNortheast
Groton Hills
A rope-tow ski area off Martin Pond Road in Groton, first called Priest's, that ran from the early 1960s to about 1980.
Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
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Richard Priest opened Priest's ski area in Groton in the early 1960s. Rope tows served open slopes on 150 feet of vertical, and a 1962 ski map listed six novice and intermediate slopes with snowmaking.1
Read the whole historyTodayHouses stand at the bottom of the hill, and 32 acres of the former ski hill are town conservation land with walking trails.1,2
Timeline
4 events · swipe
Memories
Skied Groton Hills, 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 Groton Hills
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- 2017–2018 · 7.7 mi away · New HampshireA small Magic Carpet slope on Long Hill in Nashua that skied on natural snow for a few weeks in each of the 2016–17 and 2017–18 winters.
- 1935–1984 · 9.8 mi away · New HampshireA Brookline ski area that opened in the winter of 1935–36 and ran as Brookline Ski Area, Big Bear and Musket Mountain until 1984.
- Years not yet collected · 9.9 mi away · MassachusettsA very small ski area beside a hotel off Route 117 in Boxborough, with 130 feet of vertical, that ran from the 1970s into the late 1980s.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 2 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Richard Priest opened Priest's ski area in Groton in the early 1960s. Rope tows served open slopes on 150 feet of vertical, and a 1962 ski map listed six novice and intermediate slopes with snowmaking. On one day in the early 1960s it drew more than 1,200 skiers. A surface lift, probably a T-bar, came in the late 1960s or early 1970s.1
Joseph Cappelletti later bought the area and renamed it Groton Hills; a 1980 guide listed ten slopes and two trails. Poor snow years and competition from Nashoba Valley, which had chairlifts, closed it around 1980 or in the early 1980s. Hang gliders used the hill until houses went up at the bottom in the 1990s.1
TodayHouses stand at the bottom of the hill, and 32 acres of the former ski hill are town conservation land with walking trails.1,2
Sources for this history (2)
- 1New England Lost Ski Areas Project · Priest's / Groton Hills
- 2Town of Groton, MA · Groton Hills
Photos
No photographs of Groton Hills 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 Groton Hills, in their own words.
Facts
Location
42.6233° N · 71.5411° W · Massachusetts
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.
Its numbers
all 2all 2, in one list
Terrain contours: USGS 3D Elevation Program, public domain