Ski Watatic

Mount Watatic Ski Area in Ashby, Massachusetts, sat on the north-facing side of a 1,832-foot mountain just south of the New Hampshire line, about ten miles west of Fitchburg on Route 119. Lift skiing here may go back to the 1930s, when a rope tow is thought to have run near the base, but almost nothing is recorded about that first operation. The area that people remember was organized in 1964, when Mt. Watatic, Inc. took title to land on the mountain under Joseph DeGrace. The company advertised 2,750 shares at $100 each in May 1965, and the ski area opened for the 1965-66 season under general manager Al DeGrace.

It started with two trails, one slope, a T-bar and two rope tows, and it kept adding. A second T-bar followed around 1966-67, and night skiing began in 1967-68. By the early 1970s the area had snowmaking and called itself the largest night skiing area in eastern Massachusetts. A 1973 guide listed a 550-foot vertical drop, four lifts (two T-bars and two rope tows), six trails and parking for 500 cars. School and business groups filled the slopes on weeknights, the Snow Drift Lounge had a fireplace, and the area sold stock to skiers, with a free season pass for owners of 40 shares. The 1970s ads dropped the Mt. and used just the name Watatic, set in heavy sans type beside a mark of stacked triangles shaped like a peak, with a TM beside the name.

The last expansion came around 1980-81, when a beginner double chairlift replaced two rope tows, and in the early 1980s the summit T-bar was reportedly replaced by a double chair. Competition from a growing ski area nearby and a spot off the main roads wore the business down. New England Ski History gives 1982-83 as the last season, while the New England Lost Ski Areas Project says the area closed in 1984. The property seems to have changed hands in 1983.

Two attempts to reopen it in 1988 and 1989 failed. A developer printed a brochure for a 1988-89 season under the name Ski Adventure at Watatic, with a skiing squirrel for a logo, but the town did not allow the reopening. A lodge fire in 1997 and an ice storm in 1998 did more damage. About 281 acres including the summit were protected in 2002 and are now the Mount Watatic Reservation, where hikers on the Wapack Trail still pass the old lift lines and trails.