#63 MOUNT UNCANOONUC MEMORIES

This story will be a mixture of facts about Uncanoonuc Mountain combined with memories of my experiences there.

Uncanoonuc Mountain, 1321 feet, in Goffstown, New Hampshire, eight miles from my Bedford home, was historically, for a brief period, an important snow train ski area destination. In the 1930′s, many skiers from Massachusetts took a snow train from Boston, fifty miles to the mountain. After having arrived at the area, the eager skiers rode up one of skiing’s first incline railroads (built in 1905 as a summer resort attraction) to the summit.

The resort had been further developed to become a ski area in the early 1930’s. The vertical drop is 700 feet. The main ski trail was three-quarters of a mile long.

The maximum capacity of the train was 300 skiers an hour. In one day in 1935, 1100 skiers were taken to the summit. Uncanoonuc was the first mountain in the United States to be served by a lift other than a rope tow. The railroad did not operate during or after WWII; but skiers continued to use the trails, hiking up and skiing down.

The resort had been active with ski carnivals and ski races all through the 30′s, and then started up again after WWII in the late 40′s even though the railway was not then in use and ski racers had to climb. In fact, I remember, in 1949, being a spectator in a large crowd at the eastern USA downhill and slalom championship.

When Tony and I skied there with Daddy in the 40′s, along with groups of his friends, we had to side-step, with our skis on, packing the slope of the long, steep, wide section of the S-26 trail. I cannot remember the time duration of that chore, but I bet it took hours.

In my early teens, I recall skiing there with high school friends. These were the days we didn’t go ski jumping. A new road went to the top starting at the back side of the mountain. We took turns driving, picking up five or six skiers at the end of the trail, circling the mountain on an eight mile ride on back roads and then on up the mountain road to the top. If we timed it right, we could get three runs before dark after school got out.

Daddy, who was an expert skier, (an Olympian plus somersaults off jumps) had broken his arm when he was at Dartmouth. That had been his only sports injury. When he was about fifty, he was talking to friends at the top of Uncanoonuc as he was about ready to ski down. For some reason, his skis slipped out from underneath him and he fell down hard!  His collar bone was broken quite seriously.

During the summer, I would go with friends to Uncanoonuc Lake located near the bottom of the ski trail at the base of the mountain. At the near end was a clean, sandy beach with clear, cold water. As teenagers, we preferred the far end where there was a nine foot-dam from which we could dive. We never saw anybody else anywhere on the lake. I never understood why this beautiful lake was always deserted.

Years later, the children and I hiked up the mountain several times in the fall.

Occasionally Jonnie would drive all of us to Uncanoonuc to see the sunrise. The day would start before dawn when he would bring with us freshly baked, hot apple turnovers from the Granite Street Bakery. Our kids currently remember also going there in the late afternoon. Those times Jonnie always brought a large order of fried smelt from Newton’s Fish Market that we all would eat while we watched the evening city lights of Manchester come on.