Tag Archive for: Blandford Ski Area

Harriet Wallis

Butternut Buys Blandford Ski Area; Rushes To Upgrade For New Season

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Family-friendly Blandford in southern Massachusetts was poised for extinction or development, but Ski Butternut and its owner Jeffrey Murdock bought it Sept. 1 and saved it.

Here comes the snow making. Blandford’s lodges get facelifts and the slopes get upgrades in grooming and snow making.

It’s a rescue mission of historic proportions. Right now, crews are working furiously to renovate Blandford’s base lodges, upgrade the grooming equipment, and install new snowmaking to help smooth out fickle weather cycles that have troubled the family-style ski area in the Berkshire Mountains.

The timing is tight. Renovations couldn’t start until Sept. 1 when the purchase was finalized.

“We’re putting a lot of resources into Blandford,” said Dick McCann, general manager of Ski Butternut. “We want to build the skier base back up. And we care very much about making skiing affordable.”

“We think the ski industry is better for having these small ski areas,” McCann said.

In reality, no one needs a mega resort to learn to ski and have family fun. Yet mega resorts across the country are gobbling up smaller areas.

Historically, Blandford Ski Area was founded in 1936 by members of the Springfield Ski Club, and it was owned by the members. At that time, hardy skiers drove to the end of the road and then hiked to ski the rolling hills.

It’s surmised that Blandford might be the oldest member-owned ski area in North America. It’s located about 20 miles west of Springfield, Mass.

By the 1970s, the popular day ski area had many rope tows and one double chair lift. Families loved the area and spent many volunteer hours doing maintenance and especially picking up stones from the slopes and tossing them into the woods. That made the slopes skiable even if natural snowfall was skimpy.

That’s where I learned to ski and I loved the place. The snow was often thin, but it was groomed to perfection with no stones poking through.

Today, it has 25 trails, three double chairlifts and two base lodges. But snowfall became erratic during recent years and families drifted off to do other things in winter. Blandford was on the brink of extinction.

Ski Butternut’s owner Jeffrey Murdock now owns three ski areas in the Berkshires: Ski Butternut, Otis Ridge, and now Blandford Ski Area.

Ski area management runs in his family, and it started with Butternut. Its first trails were cut by the Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) in the late 1930s, but that was followed by many rocky years. Finally in 1962, Channing and Jane Murdock, Jeffrey Murdock’s parents, bought the state-of-the-art chairlift and the ski area that went with it.

Ski Butternut now has one of the largest uphill capacities in Southern New England.

As to Blandford Ski Area, Murdock is breathing new life into it. Massive renovations are underway and they’ll be ready for this winter. A season pass is $199 for adults, $169 for kids 7 to 13, and $79 for kids 6 and under.

To read more from Harriet click here for her stories on SkiUtah.

 

Harriet Wallis

Historic Blandford Ski Area Poised To Bite The Dust

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This Wonderful Family Area Is Simply Out Of Money.

[Editor Note: According to the Westfield News, Springfield Ski Club’s members will be meeting on July 18 to approve the sale of assets to the owners of Ski Butternut. If two thirds of the total membership do not specifically vote yes, the ski area will close.]

Volunteers kept Blandford going and gave the small area a community feel.
Credit: New England Ski Industry

The website says: “May 28, 2017 – Ski Blandford Financially Insolvent. Could Be Sold or Closed.” The Board of Directors and the skiers are on the brink of making a gut wrenching decision soon about their ski area that’s been going for 81 years.

Harriet visited Blandford on a recent visit, finding a welcoming sign at the base lodge.
Credit: Harriet Wallis

As background, recreational skiing spiked after WWII when 10th Mountain Division veterans returned and inspired city folk to take up skiing.

But before that, in the 20s and 30s, hardy skiers skinned up mountains, built primitive lifts and were already into downhill skiing.

And so it was for the Springfield Ski Club. In 1936 it got permission to build a ski slope on a hilly farm in southern Massachusetts. It installed a 1,000 foot long rope tow and used a nearby schoolhouse as a warming hut. A few years later the club bought the land and named it Blandford Ski Area.

Today, about 60 ski areas that started before WWII are still in operation, according to data collected by New England Ski Museum Director Jeff Leich.

But it hasn’t been easy for this small, family-oriented ski area. Modernization from rope tows to chairlifts was costly. Updating to snowmaking was a necessity. But then, interstate highways whisked skiers past Blandford to bigger, destination resorts.

But Blandford—with its 450 feet of elevation, three chairlifts, snowmaking and night skiing—held on while other small ski areas in southern Massachusetts closed. Skiers simply love Blandford.

And they put in countless hours of volunteer work to keep the area ship shape. Work parties painted the picnic tables. And they walked up the slopes picking up stones pushed up by frost and tossed them into the woods so in winter they could ski on a minimal snow base.

During the 1960s and 70s, membership was capped at 5,000, and there was a waiting list to join. My family of four were all novice skiers, and we jumped at the opportunity to join when an opening occurred..

From that humble beginning at the small ski area, we all grew to love the sport. And we progressed to become instructors and ski patrol.

Blandford got us started in the right way. It inspired us with skiing. And it offered family values and great camaraderie with other families.

However, membership slowly dwindled over the years and dropped to just 1,426 in the 2014-15 season. Fickle weather and the economics of operation began to out weigh the camaraderie and the inspiration,

Blandford, like other small ski areas, is a grass roots feeder area that launches skiers into the sport. It’s sad that we might lose this icon of the ski industry. For a closer look, click here for the Ski Blanford site.

To read more from Harriet click here for her stories on SkiUtah.

Small areas like Blandford are where families grow up loving skiing.
Credit: Ski Blandford

Harriet Wallis

Fond Memories Of Blandford Ski Area

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Memories Live On Even If The Area Closes.

Blandford has three chairlifts. When I learned to ski, it had seven rope tows but only one chairlift. Credit: Harriet Wallis

Nothing can replace this family-based ski area in southern Massachusetts. But Blandford is now on the brink of being closed or sold. It has offered what mega resorts cannot offer.

If kids got tired of skiing, they’d go off trail with their friends and build snow caves and ski jumps. When my son broke the tip off a ski, we knew exactly how it happened. When my daughter needed a break, she discovered she could mooch cookies from skiers in the lodge.

It was all part of the ski experience. Something that doesn’t happen at the big resorts.

Adults had their fun too. In spring, we’d take a picnic lunch and a bottle of wine to the picnic tables at the summit.

The ski school bell rang when it was time for lessons. Credit: Harriet Wallis.

If it rained we put on garbage bags and did “worm turns” rolling on the soggy snow. One rainy day when no one was riding the T-bar, a group of us slalomed the T-bar line. The Ts were moving targets coming up, and we skied around them going down. Naughty but fun.

Après ski was a food fest. Families brought crockpots and plugged them in on the deck letting dinner simmer while they skied. Oh the glorious smells! At the end of the day, everybody shared.

We skied there every Saturday and Sunday during the 1960s and early 70s when my kids were growing up.

There were family races—our first race experience with gates and awards. My daughter didn’t yet understand the race concept. She stopped to chat with each gate keeper.

The Blandford race team won many competitions even though they trained mostly on dry land because early season snow was too skimpy. The kids honed their muscles and reflexes by quick stepping through an array of tires and other dry land exercises.

The race coach also gave ski tuning demonstrations, a skill I continue to use today.

And he demonstrated ski binding release. He careened down the hill in Olympic form, carving hard lefts and hard rights. Then he would stop, lift each foot and shake his skis off! If you ski technically correct, your binding don’t have to be cranked down, he said.

The ski patrollers found ways to busy themselves as there were few accidents. One day, a patroller watched a youngster cut the chairlift line, slithering through the long line up to the very front. Just before the child got onto the chair, the watchful patroller sent him to the back of the line. The child never cut the line again.

One spring, the patrollers decided to tap the many maple trees and make syrup. Their first morning duty was to gather the makeshift syrup buckets — #10 size cans – and carry them to the patrol’s dispatch shack at the summit. There the dispatcher kept the golden liquid stirred on the pot belly stove. The patrol bottled the syrup and invited everyone for après ski “syrup on snow.”

Then there were parties. In summer, we enjoyed the camaraderie of work parties, pitching in to help with lodge and slope maintenance. That was always followed by a corn husking contest and a giant BBQ.

In winter, there were celebrations with a caldron of gluehwein simmering over a fire, torchlight parades with real torches, and then dinner and dancing. Kids danced. Adults danced. Everybody danced. Everybody danced with everybody.

Small ski areas are the heart and soul of skiing. It’s sad that this could be the end of iconic Blandford Ski Area that’s been in operation since 1936.

To read more from Harriet click here for her stories on SkiUtah.