Abandoned Brodie Mountain Ski Resort, Closed in 2002 (Western Massachusetts) скачать в хорошем качестве

Abandoned Brodie Mountain Ski Resort, Closed in 2002 (Western Massachusetts)

History of Brodie Mountain, courtesy of one of my favorite sites New England Lost Ski Areas (http://www.nelsap.org/ma/brodie.html): "Brodie, located on US 7, was one of the leading ski areas in all of New England for many years. Owned by the Kelly family, the ski area boasted world renowed snowmaking and night skiing for much of its early history. Beyond its early snowmaking and night skiing accomplishments, Brodie was particularly well known for its heavy Irish themes - including coloring its snow green each St. Patricks Day. Brodie made headlines at the start of the 1969-70 season when Johnny Cash filmed scenes for a made for television movie "Trail of Tears" at the ski area. Brodie was chosen for its ability to simulate a blizzard with its snowmaking system. In addition, the snowmaking system resulted in Brodie's first October opening, making it an early season force to be reckoned with for years to come. Later that season, Ted Kennedy made a splash by visiting Brodie in conjunction with the start of his Senate re-election campaign. Beyond alpine skiing, Brodie offered muliple kilometers of cross country ski trails. In the late 1990s, snow tubing was also added. In the off season, Brodie had a popular campground. At some point in the 1940s, Brodie was a rope tow only operation. It is unclear when this closed. Jim Kelly started the more well-known Brodie ski area in 1964-65. The initial start up consisted of of an 850' vertical Stadeli double chair (Gramp's Chair) and a small Stadeli T-Bar. A Poma T-Bar was added in 1967, connecting Gramp's Chair to the summit. A top to bottom Borvig double chair (Dot's Lift) was added in 1968, crossing over a pond shortly after the base terminal. Another Borvig double chair, Matt's Chair, was installed in 1970, serving the novice Harp's Hump area. Andy's Lift, a Stadeli double chair, was added in 1977. This would be the last chairlift installed at Brodie. By the time the mid 1990s rolled around, Brodie was quickly becoming left behind in the region - Berkshire East, Butternut, and Jiminy all had triple and/or quad chairlifts, which Brodie only had a fleet of older, cramped double chairlifts. While other areas were adding new trails, Brodie simply renamed some of their trails in order to boost their count from 33 to 40. Brian Fairbanks, General Manager and part owner of Jiminy Peak, would often somewhat-jokingly offer to buy Brodie from owner Jim Kelly. In 1999, Kelly stunned Fairbank by taking him up on his offer. By the time the 1999-2000 season started, Brodie was the sister ski area of Jiminy Peak. There was a lot of work to be done. The new owners quickly started to put together expansion and improvement plans, focusing initially on snowmaking. A few SMI fan guns were purchased and a new upper mountain snowmaking pond was constructed. Despite this, the owners were unable to attract the amount of skiers necessary to justify the operation. Faced with sizable maintenance needed on the aging facilities, they tried one last effort to keep the mountain going - by announcing the installation of a new high-speed detachable chairlift if 3,000 season passes were sold. Sales numbers were not met and the ownership decided to close up shop in 2002. " #abandoned #urbex #skiresort #brodiemountain #theberkshires #urbex