VERMONT’S ROPE TOW HALL OF FAME

The oldest lift, the fastest lift, the lift that’s served the most Olympians — Vermont’s small ski areas can lay claim to all these firsts.

FIRST SKI LIFT IN THE U.S.

The first uphill ski lift in the U.S. was put up in 1934 on Gilbert’s Hill in Woodstock. The story goes that three New Yorkers who were staying at The White Cupboard Inn in Woodstock were complaining about having to walk uphill to ski down. According to The New England Historical Society, “Wallace “Bunny” Bertram, the Dartmouth ski team’s first coach, had been telling the New Yorkers about a tow rope he’d seen in Canada. He was in the room when they complained. Bertram asked the inn’s owners, the Royces, if they had a Montgomery Ward or Sears catalog, explaining he wanted to figure out how much it would cost to build a rope tow. In the meantime, Inn owners Elizabeth and Robert Royce got the New Yorkers to put down some seed money, bought some pulleys, an 1,800-foot rope, and Model T Ford engine to power it on Gilbert’s Hill. They charged $1 a day, or 50 cents for night skiing. But the tow broke down frequently.”

A year later, Bunny Bertram leased Gilbert’s Hill before Royce could renew his lease. Bertram figured out the mechanical problems and launched Suicide 6, the first ski area in the U.S. That old rope tow no longer exists, but Saskadena 6 (as the ski area has been renamed) is going strong.

OLDEST (AND FASTEST) ROPE TOW

In 1936, a skier named George Eaton spied a snowy field along Route 25 in East Corinth and based on a handshake agreement with the farmer who owned it, secured the land, put up a rope tow and opened Northeast Slopes. That tow is now housed in a red barn that was salvaged from the set of the 1980s cult film Beetlejuice and powered by a 1973 Dodge Dart. “Yankee ingenuity, that’s how we keep it going,” says Wade Pierson, who is following in his father’s footsteps in managing the ski hill. At the top, the summit shack has seen summer duty as the outhouse at the local ballfield. The ski area, now 35 acres, has made upgrades and added a second rope tow, a T-bar and night skiing. Lift tickets are $15 and leather work gloves (essential for grasping the rope as it whizzes by at speeds up to 27 mph) are sold at the base for $8.

The Tow That Trains Olympians

When Ginny and Mickey Cochran put up a rope tow behind their farmhouse in Richmond in 1961 so their kids could learn to ski, they could not have foretold what would happen. Since then, generations of Cochrans – children, grandchildren, cousins and more – have learned to ski there with more than a dozen going on to compete at the World Cup or Olympic level, including Ryan Cochran Siegle, who won silver in Beijing, 50 years after his mother, Barbara Ann, won an Olympic gold. “Riding surface lifts lets skiers spend more time with their skis on the snow and helps you get a feel for it,” says Jesse Hunt, the Vermonter who served as head coach for the U.S. Alpine Team for many years. Today, Cochran’s is a non-profit and their annual Rope-A-Thon helps generate funds so the ski area can offer lessons and access to children, regardless of their ability to pay. The 2022 Rope-A-Thon goal was 4 million vertical feet and 8,000 runs. They fell a little short but with 5,000 runs, 80 participants and 2,000 donors the tiny ski area still raised $147,212.

boards came out. As Angus McCusker put it, “We finally had to boot them out of the woods when it got too dark to see – or shoot video.”

I arrived at the McCuskers with a couple of friends who happen to own a modest Poma lift in Norwich, Vermont located at Grill Hill. We lapped the trail alongside the lower tow as the late afternoon sun faded into rosy twilight. The conditions were great, in no small part due to McCusker having bartered with the Trapp Family Lodge’s Outdoor Center for a used trail groomer.

Once built, rope tows seem to get passed on to new generations. Up north of Greensboro, one family-owned ski area has been pulling local skiers uphill since 1961. One of their three tows (powered the oldfashioned way by a diesel tractor drive), delivers you 1,200 feet up the hill in 40 seconds- about 20 mph. A dozen routes down beckon, some gentle, some black-diamond steep. On a Sunday, there were easily 25 or 30 people doing laps.

Pete is the guy that keeps the lifts running and the trails trimmed. Noting that everyone was on the fast tow, I asked Pete when and if the other tows run. Pete smiled and pointed across the meadow to a tow off in the distance. “See that one?” he asked. “It’s kind of steep and not for everyone, but we fire it up for the big powder days.”

Best of the best might just have been a spot that can be seen by the eagle-eyed as you head south along I-89. This one is located on a farm and it was started by Ross’ grandfather. A horse farmer and one of many generations of blacksmiths, the grandfather once hosted summer riding camps. Since winters are quiet times, he thought it would be fun to start a ski camp, so he installed a rope tow and bunked the kids from down south in the barn. Four generations of the family have learned to ski or ride on this set of slopes.

The 1,500-foot-long tow rope can deliver you to the top as fast as you dare. In the old days, a power takeoff on a tractor spun the rope but as, my host Ross put it, “Used to slip all the time and the more folks on the rope the more it bogged down.” (This is a common ailment with backyard tows.) “So, we came up with the idea of using a come-along to hook the front wheel of a car to the bull wheel. Worked good until the car died. So, then we got this Econoline Van. This was a big upgrade because it had cruise control! The more people on the tow line the more gas runs to the engine. Works great!”

Ross grinned and said, “We can run the line at 60 m.p.h.” No one has gone up the hill at that speed, but you can bet that farmers being farmers (and perhaps occasional car racers), someone has gone up that hill at better than 30 m.p.h.

Towing to Win

Reports of the demise of the rope tow are premature as it appears that Vermont is still home to at least 50, and by all reports that number is growing. Backyard rope tows are all about kids. Little kids love to ski and ride – the faster you get up the hill the quicker you get down.

Growing up in Burlington, Billy Kidd and I shared shared the joy of skiing off the steep face of the 9th tee at the Burlington Country Club and climbing up over and over to do it again. Kidd won his first race at one of those long-gone rope tows at the Underhill Snow Bowl. He went on to claim an Olympic silver medal in 1964 as America’s first male alpine medal-winner. Diane Roffe, Director of Junior Racing at Burke Mountain Academy, went from lapping a tow at tiny Brantling Ski Center near Rochester, N.Y. to capturing multiple Olympic medals. Today, she still talks about going lap after lap on the tow as a little kid.

At Cochran’s Ski Area, rope tows have built up the leg strength of dozens of World Cup racers and Olympians over the years. The Cochran’s tow is still going strong. And, like Northeast Slopes and the other ski areas mentioned at the beginning of this article, it’s open to the public. u