I’ve always taken ski chairlifts for granted. Maybe that was a mistake

From the point of view of New Hampshire ski area owners, this has been a good news/bad news season

The weather has been great, with none of the snowpack-killing warm rains that have bedeviled us in recent winters. But then there’s the chairlifts.

An aerial lift failed last week at Tenney Mountain, the independent ski area in Plymouth, in the wake of  four high-profile failures in the past month.

Tenney shut down its Hornet double chair, which carries skiers to the summit, because of a mechanical issue related to the gearbox, among the most complex and stressed parts of a chairlift system.

“The gearbox will undergo a full refurbishment to restore it to ‘like new’ condition, ensuring the lift operates safely and reliably. This process involves a complete teardown, inspection, and replacement of worn components,” the owners wrote on the resort’s Facebook page. They must ship the gearbox out and it won’t be completed until at least mid-March.

The Hornet runs almost 6,000 feet, rising 1,200 feet. It was built in 1964 and rebuilt in the mid-1980s, according to New England Ski History.

The closure leaves the Eclipse Triple as the mountain’s only aerial lift and effectively makes half of the mountain inaccessible unless people want to walk uphill on their skis. The resort has reduced the daily lift price to $50 and says it is “working on solutions” for those who hold season passes.

New Hampshire has seen a litany of aerial lift problems this year, from another gearbox failure that closed Gunstock Mountain Resort’s Panorama quad for a week to failures that stranded skiers mid-lift at Pats Peak and Cannon Mountain. In the most serious incident, a double chair at Attitash Mountain detached from its cable and fell some 20 feet on Feb. 3, injuring the skier who was riding in it.

The closure at Tenney Mountain is particularly painful because it interfered with school vacation week, a busy time for ski areas, and because Tenney got a late start to the season due to various issues, only opening Dec. 20. On the plus side, frequent snows and cold weather made for great conditions and allowed Tenney to advertise a special feature: It is connected to the state’s snowmobile network so people can ride their machines to the resort, park next to a lift and hit the slopes.

Tenney Mountain has had a fits-and-starts recent history. It closed in 2010 after operating for 45 years, during which time it was sold more than once. Eventually, local investors bought the operation with big plans for developing the property along Route 3A and reopened it in 2018, but COVID and the need for extensive upgrades kept the site from having a full season until last winter. 

Steven Kelly, the Massachusetts businessman and developer who bought the mountain in 2022, says he has “exciting plans for growth, investment, and improvements both on and off the   mountain” over the next five years.