Can You Name The State And The Ski Area Where This First T-bar In The State Appeared?
Hint: It’s 1951.
Last Week
The National Ski Patrol expanded rapidly after its 1938 organization. One well-known and famously crusty patroller from Massachusetts was Henry “Swampy” Paris of Woburn. He and William Putnam organized the Mount Washington Volunteer Ski Patrol in 1948, and for decades Swampy was the ubiquitous patrol director in Tuckerman Ravine during spring ski season.
We had one successful contribution from Dr. Gretchen Rous Besser who nailed it, calling Swampy a “legend in his time.”
Special thanks to Jeff Leich, Executive Director of The New England Ski Museum for suggesting this photograph.
I took one look at the picture and thought of two harrowing tbars. Suicide Six (although that may have been a poma) and Pico. In the 80s, Pico could deliver 2 things with regularity. Overflowing toilets and a very sketchy, extremely steep face on the tbar ride.
By the road cutting the lake it looks like Pleasant Mtn. in Maine which is now called Shawnee Peak.
Shawnee Peak/Mt Pleasant Maine. I used to ski there in 1946 while my dad ran a lunch truck down from the old Presidential Inn in Conway. I was only 8 years old. I remember my old hand-me-down WWII 10th Mtn Division Skis and boots, Bamboo Pole with huge baskets. My gear probably weighed half as much as I did in those days.
I agree with Joe and John. I went to Bridgton Acad. back in 59-60 and this area we skied the most.
The first T-bar lift in the United States was installed in 1940 at the Pico Mountain ski area. I don’t know which resort is in the photo, but it’s definitely in the spring!!
Definitely not Pico’s T-bar as the photo shows a J-bar. The T-bar installed on Little Pico in 1940 was the first Constam Alpine lift to be installed in America. The base lodge below the T didn’t look like the more modern and larger lodge in the photo.
A wild guess. How about Snow Valley in Manchester Vermont?
Look closer , you will see one person riding in the left side of the bar and another riding on the right. The “T” is hard to see but it definitely is there
T-Bar? No, its a J Bar! Reminds me of Bromley Mtn in Manchester, Vt. In the 50s and early 60s. Bromley had 5 home-made J Bar tows and then replaced a rope tow with a Poma disk tow. They finally added their first double chair which went to the top in the very early 60s.
Sorry the double was added in 1958. Fred Pabst ran a contest at the Hartford CT travel show to celebrate the new Number One double chair and the question was how many rides can Bromley’s seven lifts deliver in one hour? Bromley had 5 J-Bars, a Pomalift, and the new double chair so I had read a lift could deliver 700 rides per hour and added 700 for the two seater chair. One day I came home from school and there was a brand new season pass to Bromley. I was 12 and Dad took me up for a snowy weekend and what fun we had. The chair was a 5700 foot Riblet that ran from the base to summit. It was named the Number One chair after its designation as the first two-seat chairlift to be licensed by the Stare of Vermont.
If it’s Dave Irons, this is Sunday River, Maine.
Could be Mt Telemark, Cable, Wi