Lost ski areaNew HampshireWhite MountainsNortheast
Moosilauke Ski Area
Ski trails on Mount Moosilauke in Warren, where Dartmouth built the Ravine Lodge for skiers and the first sanctioned U.S. downhill championship was raced in 1933.
Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
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Mount Moosilauke drew skiers through the 1920s and 1930s, and most of the skiing was on the Warren side. Down-mountain races were held there from 1927, and the 1933 race was the first U.S. downhill championship sanctioned by the National Ski Association; the old Carriage Road was used for racing.1,2,3
Read the whole historyTodayA new Ravine Lodge, built from 2016 to 2017, stands where the original did. (2017)3
Timeline
8 events · swipe
Memories
Skied Moosilauke Ski Area, 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 Moosilauke Ski Area
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- 1973–1990 · 10.3 mi away · New HampshireA double-chairlift ski area on Whites Pinnacle in the Mountain Lakes development in Haverhill, run as Swiftwater Valley and then Monteau from 1973 to 1990.
- Years not yet collected · 15.2 mi away · New HampshireA rope-tow trail on Mount Pero in Plymouth, dated by NELSAP to the 1940s, that may have been linked to the Frontenac area.
- Years not yet collected · 16.7 mi away · New HampshireA Plymouth ski hill founded by Fred Pabst, with one of New England's first overhead lifts, a J-bar, skied from before 1938 into the 1940s.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 3 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Mount Moosilauke drew skiers through the 1920s and 1930s, and most of the skiing was on the Warren side. Down-mountain races were held there from 1927, and the 1933 race was the first U.S. downhill championship sanctioned by the National Ski Association; the old Carriage Road was used for racing. Dartmouth College built the Ravine Camp in 1933 to reach the skiing. It burned in 1935, and the Ravine Lodge that replaced it was finished in 1938 under woodsman C. Ross McKenney, from spruce cut on the mountain, with a ski area in mind.1,2,3
Whether lifts ever ran is unclear: NELSAP's contributors recall a lift or two at one point and a proposal for an aerial tramway. The big log lodge was hard to heat, and as larger ski resorts grew in the 1950s it fell out of use; it later served hikers. The original lodge was torn down in 2016, and a new one was dedicated on October 14, 2017.1,3
TodayA new Ravine Lodge, built from 2016 to 2017, stands where the original did. (2017)3
Timeline
- 1927Down-mountain ski races begin on Moosilauke2
- 1933First downhill championship sanctioned by the National Ski Association2
- 1933Dartmouth builds the Ravine Camp for access to the skiing3
- 1935The Ravine Camp burns3
- 1938Ravine Lodge completed under woodsman C. Ross McKenney3
- c. 1950Lodge falls out of use as larger ski resorts rise3
- 2016Original Ravine Lodge torn down in September3
- 2017New Ravine Lodge dedicated on October 143
Sources for this history (3)
- 1New England Lost Ski Areas Project · Mt. Moosilauke
- 2Wikipedia · Mount Moosilauke
- 3Wikipedia · Moosilauke Ravine Lodge
Photos
No photographs of Moosilauke Ski Area 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 Moosilauke Ski Area, in their own words.
Facts
Location
43.9931° N · 71.8175° W · New Hampshire · White Mountains
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