Mt. Rowe Ski Area

Mount Rowe Ski Area in Gilford, New Hampshire, opened for the 1965-66 season on the northeastern face of Mt. Rowe, right beside Gunstock. It was a separate business from the older Mt. Rowe chairlift that Gunstock had run on the same mountain since the late 1930s. The new area started small, with a T-bar whose wooden bar hung from a long metal tube, a few slopes and a vertical drop of under 200 feet.

Business grew, and for 1971-72 a Hall double chairlift went in, running up to a top terminal close to the top of Gunstock's old single chair and more than doubling the vertical. A 1973 skiers' guide listed 400 feet of vertical, a double chair, a pony lift and a rope tow, six trails, snowmaking, night skiing Tuesday through Saturday, a cocktail lounge and parking for 500 cars, with weekend tickets at six dollars. An ad from about that time sold Mt. Rowe as the closest skiing, easy to reach on less gas, with adult season passes for 75 dollars.

An alpine slide was added in the 1970s, and with it the hill became Alpine Ridge. Sources differ on the timing: one ties the new name to the slide around 1977, and another to a purchase by Attitash around 1980. The Alpine Ridge brochures carried Attitash's green and blue swoosh. The later trail map shows Upper and Lower Bombers Ridge, Sissy Ridge, Alpine Folly, Ridge's Revenge and Ed's Cut-Off, plus a waterslide at the base. The summer rides drew well, being close to Weirs Beach, while winters were weak.

Skiing ended in the mid-1980s, after the 1985-86 season by one account and about 1987 by another. The alpine slide and waterslides kept running for a few more summers, until about 1989. The chairlift was taken down around 1991, and the base lodge was burned in a fire department exercise. In 1997 the property was sold to Belknap County, which owns Gunstock, and Gunstock has since studied reopening the old slopes as an expansion. The trails have grown back in.