Atlantic Forests Ski Area
Amesbury, Massachusetts1940s-1992
Shop Atlantic Forests Ski Area tees, long sleeve tees, hoodies and crewnecks. Its trail map logo showed three pines on a peak above rolling waves, and a trail called Locke's Lane honored Everett Locke, who had rope tows and lights for night skiing on the hill in 1948-49. An adult day ticket cost $16 in the last season, 1991-92. The full Atlantic Forests history is further down, below the styles. Every shirt is printed to order in the USA and carries the memories of bygone places and teams.
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Atlantic Forests Ski Area History
Atlantic Forests Ski Area in Amesbury, Massachusetts, ran on a hill just south of the New Hampshire border, with its base on South Hampton Road. Skiing there goes back to the late 1940s, when Everett Locke had three rope tows and lights for night skiing on the hill for the 1948-49 season. Known as Locke's Hill, it drew more than 1,000 skiers on one day in 1951, and in 1952 the Boston Globe was comparing its groomed slopes to North Conway's. A snow cat arrived for the 1957-58 season.
In 1962 Locke sold the area to Locke Realty, Inc., with Joseph "Donnie" Deschenes as president, and it soon took the name Amesbury Ski Tows. It had six tows by 1965. Two Pomalifts, probably secondhand from Arrowhead in New Hampshire, went in for the 1968-69 season: a long one of about 1,350 feet that climbed 225 feet and a shorter one of about 765 feet. Snowmaking followed around the 1979-80 season, and the hill offered about 330 feet of vertical in all.
The name changed to Atlantic Forests during the 1986-87 season, and David Marcus's Atlantic Forests Ski Area, Inc. was incorporated in April 1987. Its trail map from that era showed a logo of three pines on a peak above rolling waves, a novice lift, "The Big Poma" and an intermediate Pomalift, and trails named Sea Breeze, Atlantic, Orchard, Forest Run and Locke's Lane, the last one a nod to the founder. The area advertised five trails, three lifts and 80 percent snowmaking, and an adult day ticket cost $14 in 1988-89 and $16 by 1991-92.
The 1991-92 season was the last. By the mid 1990s the area turned up in a newspaper roundup of local hills that had shut down, and houses have since been built on parts of the old slopes. In the 2000s the white base buildings still stood in the overgrown field, one of them still carrying its Atlantic Forests Ski Area sign.