Thorn Mt. Ski Area

Thorn Mountain Ski Area in Jackson, New Hampshire, climbed the slopes of Thorn and Middle Mountains about half a mile from the village, with Mt. Washington in full view across the valley. It was built by Charles C. Plumb, a Providence, Rhode Island road contractor, with a Providence lawyer, C. Bird Keach, as his partner. Neither man skied. They bought more than 1,000 acres of old hill farms and announced a cable railway on rails to haul skiers up the mountain, with rope tows above it. The railway never got built. Its start was held up in early 1948, and three temporary rope tows served the Jackson winter carnival that February instead.

For the 1948-49 season Plumb put in two single chairlifts on wooden towers, built by Walter Stadig of Soldier Pond, Maine, and set end to end: a lower lift to a halfway station and an upper lift to the top of Middle Mountain, about 4,000 feet of ride in all. The lower chair opened on December 26, 1948. The ads claimed 1,300 feet of vertical, later brochures said 1,110, and a modern estimate puts it closer to 850. Warming huts stood at the base, at halfway and at the summit, where a log cabin met the upper chair. A paving contractor to the end, Plumb had the access road and parking lot tarred in the summer of 1949.

The trail map listed the Q.B., named for the Quiet Birdmen pilots' club Plumb belonged to, along with Porcupine, Bobcat, Big Birch, Cub, Shady Lane and Plumb Line, a pun on the owner's name. The Hogback and Plummet slopes dropped steeply to the base, and the Cozy Canyon and Panorama slopes had their own rope tows. In summer the chairlift carried diners to clambakes at the halfway house.

Snowless early winters hurt from the first season, and there was no snowmaking to fall back on. The chairlifts were judged unsafe around the time Thorn Mountain closed, about 1956, and some of its staff moved on to the new Wildcat area up the road. In 1963 a developer bought the land, and the Tyrol ski area was later built on Thorn Mountain itself. Homes and roads now cover the old slopes, though lift cable, foundations and a paved patch of the old parking lot can still be found in the woods.