Dutch Hill Ski Area
Heartwellville, Vermont1944-1985
Browse Dutch Hill Ski Area tees, long sleeve tees, hoodies and crewnecks. The Heartwellville, Vermont, hill went all in on a Dutch theme, with the Dutch Boot lodge, the Dutch Oven ski shop and a cartoon Dutch boy on skis on its snow-report postcards. Horses hauled the steel towers up for its 2,000-foot T-bar in 1946-47. Volunteers began clearing the old runs in 2017, and skiers now climb them on their own power. Pick a style below, then read the full Dutch Hill history further down. We are an American small business bringing back the signs and logos of places and teams that are long gone but remembered fondly.
5 products
Dutch Hill Ski Area History
Dutch Hill Ski Area in Heartwellville, Vermont, a village in the town of Readsboro, ran on a 570-foot hill off Routes 8 and 100, about ten miles north of North Adams, Massachusetts. Webster Ottman, David Allen and two partners from the North Adams Ski Club started it in 1944, and a single rope tow ran that first winter of 1944-45. The hill is said to take its name from Dutch settlers who farmed the area in the 1700s.
The area became a real ski center for the 1946-47 season, when a 2,000-foot Constam T-bar built by John A. Roebling's Sons of Trenton, New Jersey went to the summit. Horses hauled the steel towers up the slope. The owners kept the Dutch theme everywhere. Skiers warmed up in the Dutch Boot lodge, rented gear at the Dutch Oven ski shop, and after 1958 ate at the Dutch Treat lodge beside a new J-bar on the Dutch Meadows beginner slope. The trails included the mile-long Dyke, Yankee Doodle, Dutchman's Holiday, Ski Lark, and two steep expert runs, Christiana and Windmill. Madelon Mulroney, the publicity director, mailed weekly snow-report postcards that featured a cartoon Dutch boy on skis.
The founders sold in 1968, and the hill changed hands several times after that. It never got a chairlift or snowmaking while nearby areas added both. A later ownership group renamed it Dutch Mountain in the mid-1970s, and new owners went back to Dutch Hill in 1981. After three poor winters in a row, the area closed for good following the 1984-85 season. Local firefighters later burned most of the buildings for practice, and the land became part of the Green Mountain National Forest around 1999.
The trails did not stay lost. A volunteer group, the Dutch Hill Alliance of Skiers and Hikers, began clearing the old runs in 2017, and the hill reopened that winter as a free backcountry ski area with no lifts. Skiers now climb on their own power to ride the same slopes the T-bar once served.