BELLOWS FALLS-One of Bellows Falls’ many unique features is its ski trail, complete with an old-school rope tow, a warming hut with a wood stove, and lights for night skiing.
The Bellows Falls Municipal Snow Tow — a 200-foot-tall hill with two trails, a 950-foot rope tow, and lights for night skiing — has been a part of the town for over 70 years, making it one of the oldest continually operating ski slopes in Vermont.
The Recreation Department and its various facilities — including the ski area —sit on the forest and pastureland that the town purchased from James Williams in 1914. Williams Terrace, the street to the Rec Area, is named after this family.
Keeping the ski hill operational has always been a challenge, but this year, after opening on Feb. 4, it has already been up and running for more days than the last several winters combined.
Last year, it opened for two or three days, but was unable to open from 2022 to 2024 due to snow conditions and the pandemic.
The Rec Area, also known locally as the Playground, is centrally located in the village. With an outdoor pool, playground, picnic area, ball fields, two basketball courts, two tennis courts, and two pickleball courts, in addition to the ski and sledding hills, people can easily walk from the Village for seasonal swimming, basketball, tennis, ball games, and more.
Back to regular operation
Rockingham Parks and Recreation Director Jarrod James, who oversees the entire Rec Area, said he plans to have the ski tow open this winter on a regular schedule — Fridays under the lights from 4 to 8 p.m., and Sundays from noon to 4 p.m. — as long as there is sufficient snow.
James just took the interim recreation director position in late November and hopes to have the job permanently.
He is one of many local residents who as kids worked as lifeguards or helped run the rec center and ski tow when they grew up. A lot of them, now with their own families, come back to volunteer with the Recreation Department and provide adult supervision.
James hopes to get the winter recreation programs going as fully as possible. This year’s exceptionally cold winter with a few good early snowstorms, including one with well over a foot of snow, has the winter skiing program off to a good start.
A hill for sledding next to the ski slope is also open. For many years, the town has set up a skating rink as well. James says he didn’t have time to do so this year, but he plans on having an operating skating rink in the years to come.
Another big plus for the small mountain is the cost. With a typical day-pass lift ticket for one of the big ski resorts in Vermont averaging $100 to $200, skiing here, while a bit more primitive, is free, with donations accepted.
Volunteer Torben Larsen, of Westminster, an avid Scandinavian skier, says that, for him, the relaxed atmosphere at the Bellows Falls Ski Tow is priceless.
At the big mountains, he said, “there are big crowds, long lines and people cutting in line. People aren’t always so happy. But here, there is a sense of community. There is niceness. Instead of cutting in line, people wave you to get in front of them! Here, it is all smiles.”
Larsen also laughed about the fact that it is old school skiing, with one of the volunteers noting that learning to take the rope tow up the hill can require as much skill as knowing how to ski down it.
James said that having ski equipment and proper instructions is often a deterrent for young people learning to ski. He said that the Recreation Department is looking for skiers and businesses to donate skis, snowboards, poles, and boots so that they will be available for kids to use. Volunteer instructors are also needed.
Anyone with equipment or instruction skills they are willing to donate to the community should contact the department at 802-463-9732 or email recreation@rockbf.org.
A century of community making it work
Two things control whether the trails are open and the tow is running. The first, of course, is snow. A snowless winter, which happens from time to time and with increasing frequency in recent years, means no skiing.
To address that, James said he has heard that the larger ski areas might have snow-making machinery available to loan to community ski areas like the one in Bellows Falls. He said he’ll be investigating that possibility.
The second factor is finding staff and volunteers to operate the tow and warming hut.
Generations of parents and other volunteers have been the backbone of much of the work of the Recreation Department, including running the ski tow. Volunteers, some now in their older years, also pass on a great deal of institutional knowledge about how to keep things running smoothly and well-maintained.
The skiing area portion of the Rockingham Recreation Center has been associated with winter sports for over a century — a decade before the invention of the ski tow and the advent of downhill skiing.
A section of the Bellows Falls ski hill known as The Knoll had a ski jump built there as early as 1922, very near the time of the creation of the historic Harris Hill ski jump in Brattleboro, which is considered the oldest in the state and is still in operation. In the 1920s, people seeing skiing and ski jumping take off in Brattleboro were inspired to create similar opportunities in Bellows Falls.
Ski jumping was a much more common sport in the U.S. in the 1920s than it is today. The first Winter Olympics in 1924 included ski jumping competitions. Many Vermont towns built ski jumps. Several were in Windham County, with at least two in Rockingham. In addition to the one at the Recreation Area in Bellows Falls, by 1925 Vermont Academy in Saxtons River also had one.
Ski jumping became so popular that, in 1923, Bellows Falls formed its own ski club, the Polar Bears. The group hosted a three-day winter carnival in the village that year, complete with ski jumping events, snowshoe races, and hockey games, held at the Bellows Falls Ski Bowl at the Recreation Area.
That first winter carnival drew 700 people to a dance one night at the Armory building on Westminster Street. In 1924, the Polar Bears — by that time with more than 100 members — hosted what The History of the Town of Rockingham, Vermont, Including the Villages of Bellows Falls, Saxtons River, Rockingham, Cambridgeport and Bartonsville, 1907–1957 calls “the biggest ski meet ever held up to that time.”
The event officially became the annual Winter Carnival and Vermont State Championship Ski Meet, held at the Bellows Falls Ski Bowl. Then-Gov. Redfield Proctor Jr. attended the three-day festival. Well-known skiers competed, including athletes from Dartmouth College and other parts of the country, some of whom were world champions in their sports.
There were juniors and men and women skating, skiing, and ski jumping competitions, snowshoe races, and hockey matches. Motorcycles pulled skiers through the streets of the village in a sport called skijoring.
That year, 800 people showed up for the Mah Jongg Ball, held again at the Armory’s large gymnasium. A full orchestra played, a Carnival Queen was elected, and the local history called it “the biggest affair of its kind that Bellows Falls had ever had.”
Building on their early success, in 1926 the Polar Bears held a four-day carnival at the ski jump, with a Tri-State Championship competition. That year’s events also included toboggan races and sleigh rides. Other winter carnivals were held in 1929 and 1931, with 14 regional high schools and academies participating.
But, by 1934, the Polar Bears Club was in tough financial straits, and, by 1938 the Ski Bowl, a more structured and larger downhill ski area between Bellows Falls and nearby Saxtons River Village, was operating.
It was one of the earliest and more sophisticated ski areas for the rapidly expanding Vermont downhill ski industry. It drew hundreds of skiers daily, bringing busloads to the town from as far away as Boston and New York City.
Started by Robert Hogarth on his farm off Route 121, it opened in 1937, offering four trails designed by Charles Proctor, who would go on to do the same for many major ski areas around New England. Many of the Ski Bowl’s trails and slopes used the former farm’s open pastureland.
A small bus with tire chains would shuttle skiers and their equipment from a large parking lot off Route 121 up the primitive Ski Bowl Road to the base of a 1,000-foot rope tow. Starting where the rope tow dropped them at the top of the mountain, several narrow trails cut through the woods.
There were also two beginner’s practice slopes with a ski instructor, and other wide slopes as well. A skier could go down to the bottom of the ski tow, or if there was sufficient snow, continue skiing down the mountain to the parking lot and take the shuttle bus back.
The Ski Bowl had a trail map, first aid hut, and a warming house that served food and drinks. Volunteers from the Polar Bears Club helped to create the trails there as well as their work at the Bellows Falls ski area.
Despite the sophistication of its operation for the time, the Ski Bowl lasted for only a few years, closing in 1941 when the Hogarth family moved.
Years of transition
By that time World War II had begun, and gas rationing made it much more difficult and expensive for skiers to travel from outside the area to Vermont.
The Ski Bowl is now considered one of the estimated 175 “lost” ski areas that once operated in Vermont but are now closed. In fewer than 50 years, this entire ski area disappeared under new forest growth and any remnants of it are hard to find.
During those years, older residents remember, it was not unusual for kids from Bellows Falls or Saxtons River to walk or ski the more than 2 miles from their villages to the ski area between the two villages.
The downhill skiing bug had taken hold among the locals, and after the Hogarths left, efforts were made to keep the Ski Bowl operating.
At the Bellows Falls Ski Club, revived in 1947 with more than 40 members, a jeep was used to shuttle skiers up Ski Bowl Road to the rope tow. But interest was difficult to sustain, money was tight, and the club again disbanded within a few years.
By 1953, local young people wanted to create their own ski area by expanding the trails where the ski jump had been at the public recreation area in Bellows Falls. They were able to get the municipality involved.
Volunteers helped to clear the slope, and the Model A motor that ran the Ski Bowl tow was brought down to Bellows Falls for its rope tow. Exactly 30 years after skiing first started up in Bellows Falls, the Bellows Falls Municipal Ski Tow began running in the same location.
From the beginning, the ski area has been a community project. In 1953, Municipal Manager Cecil Bissonnette was involved in the operation, as were nearby homeowners Thelma and Jack Bronk and Nat Morrison. A four-person ski patrol supervised the area with the help of Village Trustees.
Volunteer and local history enthusiast Lonnie Lisai, who is working on a history of area skiing with Ellen Howard Golec, said that the original Model A motor was replaced in 1960 with the current motor that powers the rope tow. Over 66 years, the motor has faithfully hauled thousands of area skiers up the slopes and continues working “just fine,” he said.
Lisai, who has volunteered at the ski tow for decades, described several ways in which the community has kept the operation going. Recent posts on social media regarding the history of the ski tow and its seasonal reopening last week got hundreds of comments from people reminiscing about their decades of memories of skiing, sledding, and skating at the Rec area.
In the early 1990s, the ski tow did not operate for a few years due to lack of snow. Then a large group of volunteers replaced lights, got the tow motor running, and groomed all the slopes. Skiers were able to hit the slopes there when decent snow arrived in the winter of 1994–95.
In 2000, operator Ross Martin and a large group of other local volunteers were able to get contributions from the town and support from a group of Ben & Jerry’s employees to tear down a no-longer-safe warming hut. The community volunteers then replaced it with the current 20-by-20-foot building.
On Feb. 4, the Ski Tow began its 73rd year of operation. Lisai noted that even after nearly three quarters of a century, “local officials and volunteers continue to be the lifeblood of the ski area.”
On the night of Jan. 31, he pointed to the handful of Recreation Department workers and volunteers at the ski tow.
“These are the people that keep this going,” Lisai said. “It’s a pretty special part of this community.”
This News item by Robert F. Smith was written for The Commons.