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Lodge Fire at Mt. Tom

bdfreetuna

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Welp, that sucks. At least I have memories suiting up for race/practice in high school in that lodge.

I'm not 100% sure but I know at least some of the land up there is owned by Eric Suher, who owns Mountain Park as well as Iron Horse Entertainment Group (includes Pearl St, Calvin, The Basement, other venues) + half the real estate in Northampton area
 

Glenn

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Similar here. Spent some weeknights there in grade school and jr high for after school ski programs. Then weekends here and there for racing in jr high. Sad to see it go away the way it has.

Thanks for the info on the ownership. It's too bad someone wasn't able to revive the area in some capacity.
 

rocks860

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Never skied there but went to the water park plenty in the summer


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Pez

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Had my first "ski date" with a girl I was seeing there. She was my first GF if i remember.

really sucks what happened to the place. I feel like it should have been preserved as a national historical landmark or something.
 

bdfreetuna

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Had my first "ski date" with a girl I was seeing there. She was my first GF if i remember.

really sucks what happened to the place. I feel like it should have been preserved as a national historical landmark or something.

Thankfully it's still a nice mountain to hike, which I do at least a few times each year due to being 15 minutes away and quick/scenic. The "long side" up on the ridge is one of the better trails around IMO.

Mountain Park, the old amusement park, was the priority "preservation". Although I have not been there since opening as a music venue about 10 years ago (that's where Eric Suher puts the crappy expensive lamestream acts and they search your bags so no cheap beer for you), from what I hear that has some reminiscent features of the olden days.

I have little doubt that Eric Suher had to purchase the Mt Tom ski area land as part of a bundle and had no intention of doing anything with it. At least from what I hear people can hike it freely, as opposed to hiring security to keep people off his private wasted land.
 

Brewbeer

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The lodge is on property owned by the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Holyoke, Inc.

Interestingly, the corporation that owned the Mt. Tom Ski Area while it was operating, still exists, and has been re-named Mt. Tom Companies, Inc.

Eric Suher owns the land along the road up to the former ski area property.
 

mbedle

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The lodge is on property owned by the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Holyoke, Inc.

Interestingly, the corporation that owned the Mt. Tom Ski Area while it was operating, still exists, and has been re-named Mt. Tom Companies, Inc.

Eric Suher owns the land along the road up to the former ski area property.

The former owners of the ski area still own the parcel with the quarry on it. After they closed the ski area, they chose to focus on that business, which I think is officially done.
 

Newpylong

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I skied there many times as a youth as part of the Tristate race program. Always will remember the quarry (next to the race trail), the red chairs, and tbars on the far left.
 

SkiingInABlueDream

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I skied there many times as a youth as part of the Tristate race program. Always will remember the quarry (next to the race trail), the red chairs, and tbars on the far left.

J Bar was the farthest left actually, at least it was when I made my very first turns.
Always makes me a bit sad seeing news blips like this about the place, which seems to happen every 3-5 yrs. [emoji53]
 

Glenn

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The lodge is on property owned by the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Holyoke, Inc.

Interestingly, the corporation that owned the Mt. Tom Ski Area while it was operating, still exists, and has been re-named Mt. Tom Companies, Inc.

Eric Suher owns the land along the road up to the former ski area property.

Thanks for the info! I remeber back in the day when the O'Connell's owned it.
 

Newpylong

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J Bar was the farthest left actually, at least it was when I made my very first turns.
Always makes me a bit sad seeing news blips like this about the place, which seems to happen every 3-5 yrs. [emoji53]

You're right was there a J all the way to the left with a lower and upper Tbar to their right? That's what I remember.
 

skiur

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Is Mt Tom the ski area you can see to the east as your driving on 91 thru Mass?
 

SkiingInABlueDream

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You're right was there a J all the way to the left with a lower and upper Tbar to their right? That's what I remember.

Yep, the lower T bar was directly lookers right from the Jbar. As Moose's map shows. And iirc the T bar was on a slightly steeper slope than the J so you had an increasing slope on your right as you rode the J. (I rode that J maaaany times my first season.)
Also iirc the T got converted to a double chair eventually, but that was after I had stopped skiing there. Moose's map predates the 2nd summit chair.
 

SkiingInABlueDream

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Is Mt Tom the ski area you can see to the east as your driving on 91 thru Mass?
Mt Tom is on the west side of 91. The only way I remember ever seeing Tom from 91 was when it was lit up at night, and iirc only the top maybe 1/3 of it was visible. These are all pretty young memories for me (<10 yrs old) but I grew up in the Hartford CT area and my dad and I did many trips up 91 to Tom and VT. Apologies if I'm rambling too much. Mt Tom always invokes nostalgia fo me[emoji53]
 

twinplanx

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I had the same question as Skiur. I've often wondered what those trials were and have heard the name, Mt Tom kicked around. This thread inspired me to look into it again using Google Maps. I think the area we are thinking of is closer to Deerfield and it must belong to that school...

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Vaughn

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I had the same question as Skiur. I've often wondered what those trials were and have heard the name, Mt Tom kicked around. This thread inspired me to look into it again using Google Maps. I think the area we are thinking of is closer to Deerfield and it must belong to that school...

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The ski slope you can see to the east of 91 right below Greenfield is for the Eaglebrook K-8 Prep school.

The old Deerfield Academy ski runs were on the other side of the hill, above the Connecticut and can't be seen from 91. They even had a ski-jump over there but it closed in the early 90s as I recall.
 

Newpylong

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Yep, the lower T bar was directly lookers right from the Jbar. As Moose's map shows. And iirc the T bar was on a slightly steeper slope than the J so you had an increasing slope on your right as you rode the J. (I rode that J maaaany times my first season.)
Also iirc the T got converted to a double chair eventually, but that was after I had stopped skiing there. Moose's map predates the 2nd summit chair.

The Ts were still in when they added the second summit double, but I just went back into the skimaps and it appears the Upper T DID go away at some point. They did not share the same liftline though. By the time I was skiing there in the early 90s, from left to right it was J, Lower T, Upper T, Summit Double, Summit Double, Race Hill Double.
 
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