CROTCHED MOUNTAIN

'Crotched Mountain Ski & Ride Area' is a small ski area on the border between Francestown and Bennington, southern New Hampshire, USA, unusual because it reopened in the 2003-2004 winter after having been closed for 13 years. This bucked a trend in the downhill ski industry, which has seen hundreds of small ski areas close due to high costs and increased competition.
The mountain was bought in 2002 by St. Louis-based Peak Resorts, a company that runs ski areas in the American Midwest. The company spent an estimated $9 million to build a new lodge, install new snowmaking equipment and chairlifts, and to recut trails.
The snowmaking system claims the highest snow production capacity of any ski area in New England at 200 US gallons per minute per acre (11 cm/h).^[2]
During the summer of 2006, additional new trails were cut into the top of the mountain as well as the side of the Galaxy trail. Many of these trails were open for use in February 2007, although they are listed on the trail map as "future expansion".

Contents

History

References

External links

History

The original Crotched Mountain Ski Area actually operated on a different face of the same mountain - the northest side, entirely in Francestown. It opened in 1964. The current ski area opened in 1970 with the name Onset, later changed to Bobcat. Bobcat and the original Crotched Mountain merged in 1980 and operated jointly as Crotched Mountain. More than 100 adjacent condominium units were constructed in the late 1980s, creating a burden of debt that contributed to the demise of the resort in 1989. [1]
It lay dormant until bought by Peak Resorts in 2002, and the Bobcat side reopened the next winter as Crotched Mountain Ski Area.

References

1. Trail map
2. Snowmaking information

External links

★ Official website