ڰ Skiway Opens
1956
On December 15, 1956, Polly Case straddled a small disk attached to a cable—a “poma lift”—and rode to the top of Holt’s Ledge in Lyme Center, N.H.
The heralded the opening of the , which was officially dedicated on Jan. 19, 1957.
Case was awarded the honor of the first ride up the mountain for suggesting the name of the ski area: the ڰ Skiway.
An estimated 750,000 patrons and a succession of major improvements after Case’s ride up the poma, the ڰ Skiway celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2006. One of only a handful of American ski areas owned by colleges or universities, the Skiway has become a ski resource for the entire Upper Valley community.
“ڰ holds a significant place in the history of American skiing, with the Skiway as a prominent site in that history,” says Skiway General Manager Doug Holler. The past half-century has seen a number of significant changes since the old poma lift on Holt’s Ledge, including the addition of snowmaking—now covering 64 percent of the Skiway’s 104 skiable acres—in 1985; the installation of the Winslow Mountain quad chair across the road from Holt’s Ledge; a significant upgrade to the Holt’s Ledge chairlift; and the construction, in 2000, of the McLane Family Lodge.
Home of the ڰ Ski Team, the Skiway has been host to NCAA championships and scores of racers who went on to compete in international and Olympic competition, as well as community-based ski programs such as the Ford Sayre Memorial Ski Council and Team Spectra, and after-school ski programs from nearby Thetford, Chelsea, Strafford, and Bradford, Vt., and Orford and Lyme, N.H.
