Mount Tom Ski Area was a ski resort in Holyoke, Massachusetts

Holyoke, Massachusetts

Holyoke is a city in Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States, between the western bank of the Connecticut River and the Mount Tom Range of mountains. As of the 2010 Census, the city had a population of 39,880...

, in the Mount Tom Range

Mount Tom Range

The Mount Tom Range is a traprock mountain range located in the Connecticut River Valley of Massachusetts. It is part of the Metacomet Ridge that extends from Long Island Sound near New Haven, Connecticut, north through the Connecticut River Valley of Massachusetts to nearly the Vermont border...

in the western part of Massachusetts about 10 miles north of Springfield. It opened in 1962 and closed in 1998. Mt Tom was located off Rt. 5 on the North side of Holyoke Massachusetts and was just up the road from Mountain Park, a local amusement park. Both Mountain Park and Mt. Tom were owned by the O'Connell Construction Company. It was rumored that Mt. Tom was created so that the Construction company could keep seasonal workers working during the winter and keep them available for the summer construction season.

Ski School

The Mt. Tom Ski School was staffed by Austrians primarily imported directly from Innsbruck to teach skiing in the US. One of its prominent Ski School Directors was Adi Scheidle who along with his brother Heinz Scheidle employed quite a few of the local skiers as Instructors. During the early years of Mt. Tom Adi spent a lot of time selling local schools and other groups on organized lessons at Mt. Tom. He was very successful and generated a lot of ski lesson business for Mt. Tom as well as increasing the local skier base.

Adi was so successful at sales that he was promoted to Director of Skiing. Heinz Scheidle was promoted to ski school director and Ed Ryan, one of the American Instructors was promoted to Asst. Ski School Director.

Ski Shop

The Mt. Tom Ski Shop had many general managers over the years. Among them were Walter Duval who was renowned for his knowledge of ski equipment. Robert "Bob" Burly was the assistant manager for a number of years also.

Snow Making

Mt. Tom was a leader in snow making in the United States. It made snow almost from its start with hand crafted snow machines. The snow machines were put together with several pieces of galvanized pipe and were little more that one piece of pipe connected to an air source with another pipe connected directly onto the side of the air pipe that fed water into the air stream.

In addition, the ski area constructed pipes set permanently on the side of many of the trails that fed water and air up the slopes so that the maximum amount of snow making could take place.

Night Skiing

Mt. Tom had extensive lighting allowing night skiing. The slopes were extremely well lit, and could be seen from many miles away to the east of the mountain. Large wooden Telephone poles were installed on the sides of the slopes with baseball stadium type lighting creating an almost daylight type of lighting with few shadows.

Prominent Local Skiers

John Truden, the World's Heavyweight Champ of Skiing lived in East Springfield, MA. He skied very regularly at Mt. Tom. John won the title of "World's Heavyweight Champ of Skiing" at Stratton Mountain Vermont. John weighted approximately 340 lbs in high school and even though very large for his age had very good technique and a great deal of athletic ability. He did however have to replace his equipment very regularly, particularly his skis and ski boots due to his weight.

Local High School Race League

The local high school had a race league at Mt. Tom and raced several times a season against each other. Holyoke High, Holyoke Catholic and South Hadley High School were regular participant in the league.

External links

• http://www.nelsap.org/ma/mttom.html
• http://thegoat.backcountry.com/2010/03/08/heavyweight-ski-championship/