Mount Snow celebrated its 70th anniversary on December 12th! Several readers recognized the chain driven chairlifts in last week’s trivia question as part of Mount Snow’s history!
David Carter had the answer and also knew how Mount Snow got its name. The mountain was originally named Mount Pisgah and was part of a farm owned by Reuben Snow. Walter Schoenknecht bought the land to build a ski area and renamed Mount Pisgah to Mount Snow both in honor of Reuben Snow and because it is a much more marketable name.
Glen Findholt also identified Mount Snow as the area celebrating its 70th. Both he and David Carter mentioned one of the drawbacks of those chain driven chairs. Glen says, “Riding them was quite special in the spring when grease dripped from the chains onto unsuspecting riders.” By the way, eventually metal shields were installed on each chair to alleviate that situation.
On December 12, 1954 Mount Snow opened with two rope tows, those two chair lifts, and seven trails. Walter Schoenknecht had founded Mohawk ski area in Connecticut, but wanted to go further north hoping for better snow. But not too far north since he wanted to still be relatively close to population centers.
I’ll refer to Schoenknecht as Walt from here on since it’s easier to type. Walt was an innovator who had experimented with the first snowmaking equipment at Mohawk. Those Mount Snow chairlifts were chain-driven mono-rails run by conveyor belts on the towers. They had a capacity of 1200 skiers per hour while most other chairs of that era only achieved a maximum of 600 skiers per hour. He also cut the trails wider than other areas and made them concave so they would hold snow better.
Walt became “the Walt Disney of Vermont” with some of his other innovations. Walt realized that it was the entire experience that would bring guests back and not just the skiing. He built a skating rink inside the base lodge and the first outdoor swimming pool at an eastern ski area. In 1962 Walt built a hotel, the Snow Lake Lodge, with, of course, a man-made lake. So how do you get guests over the lake to the lifts? With the strangest UFO-looking gondola anyone had seen! The gondolas were called “Air Cars” and I think that they inspired the Jetson’s vehicles or vice versa. He also added more unconventional lifts such as a gondola that did not require you to take your skis off.
In 1965 Walt visited Lake Geneva in Switzerland and saw a large fountain. He came back and added a fountain to Snow Lake – a fountain that sent water 350 feet in the air! The fountain ran year round so in the winter the ice would build up and form a mountain – a Fountain Mountain! And indeed they even held ski races on it in the spring. Some years the ice “mountain” lasted until June.
Its demise made news as well since the fountain suddenly started pumping sewage! That resulted in the Deer River running red and the State of Vermont shutting down the fountain mountain. That incident is credited with the state enacting stricter laws regarding development above certain elevations.
My personal experience with Mount Snow was when I was in college in the late 1960s. At that time I was not an expert skier, but I was trying to be. That led me to the expert trails on Mount Snow’s North Face and one in particular called the Jaws of Death! For me that was an apt name. I don’t think I ever skied that trail without falling. If you review a trail map of Mount Snow today, the name of that trail is just “Jaws.” I’m not sure whether it was renamed due to sensitivity or as a tribute to the movie! I’m planning on a trip down to Mount Snow this year and I look forward to getting even with that trail … I hope!
Starting in the 1970s financial problems led to bankruptcy. Walt Schoenknecht left Mount Snow and returned to Mohawk Mountain. A long sequence of acquisitions followed, starting with the Sherburne Corporation (Killington) in 1977 which morphed into S-K-I, Ltd, then the American Ski Company (1996) and Peak Resorts (2007.) In 2019 Vail Resorts purchased Peak Resorts including Mount Snow.
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