Mt. Whittier Ski Area
West Ossipee, New Hampshire
Order Mt. Whittier Ski Area tees, long sleeve tees, hoodies and crewnecks. Mt. Whittier ran New Hampshire's first four-person gondola, 6,300 feet long, with its base station across Route 16 from the ski area, so riders crossed the highway in the cars. The lift doubled as a summer sightseeing ride to a snack bar at the summit. Browse the styles below, and the full Mt. Whittier history is further down. Down Home Apparel is an American small business remembering the best places and teams of yesteryear, and every shirt is printed to order in the USA.
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Mt. Whittier Ski Area History
Mt. Whittier Ski Area in West Ossipee, New Hampshire, sat at the junction of Routes 16 and 25, and it is remembered mostly for its gondola, which ran over Route 16 itself. The name goes back to the 1800s, when poet John Greenleaf Whittier visited the Bearcamp River House in West Ossipee and a nearby peak was named for him. The federal map makers later hung the Mt. Whittier label on a taller mountain to the west and called the ski hill's own peak Nickerson Mountain, so the ski hill carries a name that the maps give to a different peak.
Skiing began on Nickerson Mountain after World War II with rope tows. A 1949 ski guide listed three of them, 1,200, 1,000 and 300 feet long. A platter lift went in by the winter of 1956, and in the late 1950s the area added a lodge, an upper rope tow and a T-bar built with parts from the dismantled Thorn Mountain chairlift. New management started a $400,000 expansion in 1962, which brought the Bearcamp T-Bar, two new trails, a bigger base lodge and night skiing. Harry Baxter ran the ski school.
The gondola followed for 1963-64. It was the first four-person gondola in New Hampshire, 6,300 feet long. Its base station stood across Route 16 from the ski area, so riders crossed the highway and the river in the cars. That also meant skiers could not ski back to it, and the lift doubled as a summer sightseeing ride to a snack bar at the summit. No chairlift was ever installed, which left Whittier with a gondola, T-bars and rope tows. A 1967-68 trail map listed a 1,600 foot vertical drop and three T-bars, and a 1,300 foot figure appears in other sources.
Snowmaking arrived late and only in part, and the steep trails were hard on beginners. The bank began foreclosure proceedings in 1973, and a group of former ski instructors bought the area in 1974 and kept it running through the decade. Summer roller skiing and water slides did not rescue it. The area most likely closed after the 1984-85 season, the company voted in 1986 to sell its assets. Mt. Madness tubing and snowmobile racing used the base area after 2002, the property sold in 2017, and a tower from the old gondola still stands near the McDonald's on Route 16.