Big Tupper Thread

[Harvey]

A little background. Prior to ACR the owners bought the mountain at a foreclosure sale back in 1992 or so. 2 were bidding. The winner was a Communications outfit from Plattsburgh or maybe E-Town. The had no interest in the ski area, they just wanted the summit for the location. So they made a deal after the fact with the guys who ended up with the mountain. Just checked the tax map, the communication guys kept the summit itself with about 180 acres, they sold the lower part of the mountain. The summit owners have a ROW to get up to the top for maintenance etc. Supposedly the rents paid by all the communication companies is quite substantial. Further rumor is that if Big Tupper had been able to buy the whole mountain back in 1992 the rent generated by the summit would have likely been enough to subsidize the ski area and maybe would have been able to stay open, possibly to this day, but we will probably never know.
I think at the time of the foreclosure the guys who wanted the mountain for skiing had a limit as to how high they would bid and went to that and the communication guys only went another $10K or so and got it. After the sale I heard the that the guys who ended up with the mountain paid the Comm guys about what they bid at foreclosure.
All this is from memory and it was quite a while ago so I may have some info a little off but I think it's close.

Thanks for the intel @Endoftheline . I had a feeling you'd know.

When I was there in 2010 I took some pictures of the summit. It was so depressing I didn't include them in my piece:

Ski Big Tupper: The Summit

There are no guarantees that the ski hill will survive. I'd recommend you ski Big Tupper this year.

nyskiblog.com

Yea I admit I was drinking the cool-aid. I got over that, eventually.

 

[x10003q]

Why?

Liability

 

[x10003q]

Thanks for the intel @Endoftheline . I had a feeling you'd know.

When I was there in 2010 I took some pictures of the summit. It was so depressing I didn't include them in my piece:

Ski Big Tupper: The Summit

There are no guarantees that the ski hill will survive. I'd recommend you ski Big Tupper this year.

nyskiblog.com

Yea I admit I was drinking the cool-aid. I got over that, eventually.

You should post those pictures you took of the top.

 

[tirolski]

Liability

Yup.
In the recent Tupper Free Press article the word “liability” came up 21 times.

 

[Harvey]

You should post those pictures you took of the top.

I don't have them anymore. Some kind of computer meltdown. It's weird because I have some of them, but not all. Not those.

 

[Peter Minde]

This could be a model for Big Tupper. Steve at Prospect worked several years to organize a non profit that took over that mountain.

A Town That Saved a Mountain, and a Mountain That Saved a Town (Published 2022)

After the Ascutney ski resort in Vermont closed because of erratic snowfall and mismanagement, it threatened to take with it the nearby town of West Windsor. The community took the situation into its own hands.

www.nytimes.com

 

[x10003q]

This could be a model for Big Tupper. Steve at Prospect worked several years to organize a non profit that took over that mountain.

A Town That Saved a Mountain, and a Mountain That Saved a Town (Published 2022)

After the Ascutney ski resort in Vermont closed because of erratic snowfall and mismanagement, it threatened to take with it the nearby town of West Windsor. The community took the situation into its own hands.

www.nytimes.com

It is a great idea for Ascutney. It happened because it was easy to organize the large number of townhouses ( mostly 2nd home owners) at the base of Ascutney. These owners have the drive to do something at the ski area for their own enjoyment and to regain property value. As we all know, this does not exist at Big Tupper.

Of course there is always the location. Mt Ascutney is way closer to the NE population centers and is 35 minutes from Okemo, and 45 minutes from Sunapee and the Killington Skyeship base. Within 2 hours some of the options (there are more) are Stowe, Burke, Sugarbush, Cannon, Waterville Valley, and Loon.

Big Tupper is just north of nowhere.

 

[tirolski]

Big Tupper is just north of nowhere.

We drove south from Potsdam in college to ski it, so there’s that.
There’s folks who still live and study around there.
It’s a nice place.

 

[MC2]

We drove south from Potsdam in college to ski it, so there’s that.
There’s folks who still live and study around there.
It’s a nice place.

Beautiful place…. In the middle of nowhere.

I didn’t win the Powerball, so I can’t buy it yet, but I’m going to keep trying.

 

[Warp daddy]

It is a great idea for Ascutney. It happened because it was easy to organize the large number of townhouses ( mostly 2nd home owners) at the base of Ascutney. These owners have the drive to do something at the ski area for their own enjoyment and to regain property value. As we all know, this does not exist at Big Tupper.

Of course there is always the location. Mt Ascutney is way closer to the NE population centers and is 35 minutes from Okemo, and 45 minutes from Sunapee and the Killington Skyeship base. Within 2 hours some of the options (there are more) are Stowe, Burke, Sugarbush, Cannon, Waterville Valley, and Loon.

Big Tupper is just north of nowhere.

It is 80 minutes SOUTH of The River