Human-Powered Skiing in the Borderlands
a Chapter of the Catamount Trail Association
Dutch Hill was one of Vermont's earliest ski areas, thriving from the 1940's through the 1960's. When larger ski areas began to dominate the ski business in the 1970's, Dutch Hill's dominance faded. It went out of business in the mid-1980's. Visit the New England Lost Ski Areas Project (NELSAP) website for a history of Dutch Hill with lots of great photos. This photo, courtesy of NELSAP, was contributed by Bud Kroll and shows his mother in 1944 or 1945.
Dutch Hill - the old ski area is why DHASH exists
The Dutch Hill ski area went out of business in the mid-1980's. In its day, the skiing was great at Dutch Hill, in the middle of an amazing snow belt and with some of the steepest pitches (for short stretches) on the East Coast. When the Forest Service began exploring ways to make public recreation available in this part of the Green Mountain National Forest, backcountry ski enthusiasts banded together to form DHASH, a non-profit, all-volunteer organization to collaborate with the Forest Service on the effort.
Thus the old ski area is why we exist, but our vision goes beyond the former ski area's boundaries. We want DHASH to include a wide variety of winter-loving, outdoor-recreating, slding-on-the-snow-under-their-own-power people, from those who love point-to-point cross-country ski trails to those who want to do laps up and down a challenging glade, and everyone in between. We offer free guided tours and treks at Dutch Hill and at Grout Pond. We provide the volunteer labor needed to develop and maintain (with approval from the Forest Service and other land managers) trails, slopes and glades. Join us and help bring more winter recreation opportunities to the Deerfield/Hoosic corner of Vermont/Mass/NY.
The view from the top of the former Windmill ski slope is still wide open and breathtaking.
The link above will take you to the Forest Service web page for the "South of Route 9 Integrated Resource Project." That page always opens showing the preliminary scoping documents. To get to the final plan, which defines what actions are going to be allowed to improve recreation at Dutch Hill, click on "Decision" in the tan-colored menu bar near the bottom of the page. The final plan documents are very hefty, covering plans for thousands and thousands of acres and many projects: soil and water improvement, timber harvest, wildlife support, etc. Open the document and try searching for "Dutch Hill" or "ski."
This map, by DHASH'er Jeff Nugent, shows some of the actions planned by the Forest Service for the Dutch Hill area. The former ski slopes shown in pink are the ones that have been approved for active management to support recreation. Click on the map to pull up a larger image.
