The Bold History of Skiing at Tuckerman Ravine

Welcome to one of the oldest, coldest parties in New England: powder day on Tuckerman Ravine. Skiers from far and wide travel to the Pinkham Notch Visitor Center and skin (skiing with attached traction for going uphill) or hike towards the ravine’s precipice. They wait their turn to carve it up along the southeastern face of Mount Washington, New England’s highest peak. The energy is lively in line. The rush is unreal when it’s time to go. 

Tuckerman Ravine, affectionately nicknamed “Tux” or “Tucks,” is the ideal backcountry skiing destination. Its bowl-like shape holds deep snow drifts blown down from Mount Washington’s summit by famously high winds. Cooler temperatures can preserve snow into spring. Some years, it’s even skiable as late as July. 

“It’s like a little island of the Rockies transplanted to 60 miles from the New England coast. It’s unique in the region, and really in this half of the continent,” says Jeff Leich, former director of the New England Ski Museum and author of Over the Headwall: The Ski History of Tuckerman Ravine. 

Today Tuckerman Ravine is known as the “birthplace of extreme skiing in the U.S.” More than a century of skiers have put down tracks here. But it’s not just great conditions that turn a slope into a ski haven. In the 1920s and ‘30s, an unusual convergence of Appalachian Mountain Club members, Ivy League thrill seekers, and immigrants steeped in the ski tradition of the Alps discovered Tuckerman’s advantages. They shouted its praises and made skiing accessible to more people.  

Their efforts didn’t just put Tux on the map, they shaped Northeast skiing as we know it.  

Early Pioneers 

The Mount Washington Valley was already a tourist destination in the early 20th century. “Grand hotels” catering to the rich dotted the landscape. The Mt. Washington Auto Road had been open since the Civil War. But these were almost exclusively for summer use. When the Appalachian Mountain Club opened an outpost in the area, today’s Joe Dodge Lodge and Pinkham Notch Visitor Center, it did so seasonally. 

In 1913 Dartmouth students Fred Harris, Joseph Cheney, and Carl Shumway skinned partway up the Tuckerman Ravine bowl and then skied down. The next day they harnessed themselves together and skied to the summit of Mount Washington via the Auto Road. Afterwards they sat down with the Boston Evening Transcript and recounted the expedition. 

It was the first documented ski trip up Mount Washington or down Tuckerman Ravine. Dartmouth students also recorded the first ski descent of the ravine’s headwall (highest cliff) and hosted many early ski races there.

In 1926 a forester and AMC member named Henry Ives Baldwin skied through the ravine and took photographs for Appalachia, AMC’s long-running journal of mountaineering. Ironically, the thing that makes Tuckerman Ravine so unique—its late-season snow cover—got his photos rejected. 

“He took some pictures [and] sent them into the editor of Appalachia… This is, I think, toward the end of June of or at least in June. And the editor just rejected the photos because there was so much snow in the ravine. There was no contrast,” said Leich. 

Despite the setback, Baldwin continued to write articles about Tuckerman Ravine and take friends on ski trips there. As a forester he advocated for outdoor recreation on public land, especially skiing. 

“The aims of forestry work in the Northeast are entirely in harmony with skiing,” wrote Baldwin. 

Expanding Skiing 

It wasn’t long before others saw what Baldwin did in Tuckerman Ravine. In the 1930s many beginners picked up the sport for the first time, spurred by new education opportunities and transportation to the slopes.  

At the center of it all was the AMC and Tuckerman Ravine. 

“Anyone wanting to ski in the east in April in the days before snowmaking probably had to make the hike into Tuckerman Ravine,” wrote Leich in an essay for Backcountry Magazine. 

In 1931, AMC launched its weekly Ski Bulletin, which combined snow reports from around New England, sent in by telegram. The club also collaborated with the Boston & Maine Railroad for a series of “Snow Trains.” Trains did round trips on Sundays, going north in the morning and returning to Boston that evening. 

In the middle of each week, representatives from B&M and AMC would meet to go over snow reports and figure out where a train should go. AMC then released a Ski Bulletin with all the details. The system was a success. More than 8,000 people took a Snow Train in the first year alone, according to a 2006-2007 edition of the Journal of the New England Ski Museum. 

Between Ski Bulletins and Snow Trains, skiing in New England had never been more accessible. But where could a first-timer learn? A German immigrant named Otto Schniebs led the way. 

A lifelong ski enthusiast, Schniebs came to the U.S. in 1927 and worked as a watch designer in Waltham, Massachusetts. AMC hired him as a ski instructor after he got in trouble with law enforcement for creating a traffic jam on his skis (accounts vary on how and where). He began teaching lessons on snowy golf courses around Boston and taking groups to test their skills in New Hampshire.  

AMC continued to invest in ski education, including administering a European-style standardized ski test in New Hampshire. Schniebs went on to found the American Ski School and coach at Dartmouth and St. Lawrence University. An obituary in the New York Times called him “one of the nation’s first [ski] teachers.” 

Building the Winter Recreation Economy 

With a growing base of educated skiers in the Boston area and the infrastructure to bring them north, New Hampshire’s ski economy was ready to explode. The federal government provided a surprising boost. Officials saw an opportunity to put people to work during the Great Depression and add a winter tourism season. The investment paid off. 

In 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt established the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). A part of Roosevelt’s New Deal, the CCC employed young men for projects on public land, including many of the ski trails in the White Mountain National Forest.  

“Some of the big guns in skiing in New Hampshire and Massachusetts convinced the supervisor of the White Mountain National Forest to start some CCC projects cutting ski trails down 4,000-foot mountains… They created a lot of excitement and brought a lot of people up into New Hampshire,” said Leich. 

The CCC built eight trails in Pinkham Notch and Tuckerman Ravine, including the Sherburne Ski Trail, Tuckerman Ravine Trail, and also the Hermit Lakes Shelters. CCC members also did jobs outside the bounds of typical conservation and construction work. 

“Thousands of people would go into the ravine in the ‘30s and there needed to be some kind of first aid there. That was actually provided by workers from the Civilian Conservation Corps,” said Leich. 

The first CCC trails were walk-ups on public land, but mechanized lifts and private resorts weren’t far behind. Black Mountain, a ski area built from CCC trails in Jackson, New Hampshire, installed a rope tow in the winter of 1935-36. The nation’s first overhead cable lift and some of New England’s first snowmaking followed. Out west, Idaho’s Sun Valley claimed the mantle of “America’s first destination ski resort.” 

While AMC didn’t take part in the wave of commercialization, its impact is clear. Four ski resorts in the White Mountains—Attitash, Loon, Waterville Valley, and Wildcat—were founded with involvement from AMC employees, according to the Journal of the New England Ski Museum. 

Changing Times 

When I call Jeff Leich for this story, it’s early afternoon and he’s at home. That’s unusual for him. Now retired, Leich spends mornings on the slopes whenever possible. But back-to-back warm-weather days have left poor ski conditions in their wake. 

Leich’s odd morning is becoming the norm in the White Mountains. Research by AMC scientists, using historic weather data from Pinkham Notch and the Mount Washington Observatory, suggests that the White Mountain’s high peaks are significantly warming. Since 1917, Mount Washington has lost almost three weeks of snow cover. 

Leich points out that year-to-year snow variability is a constant, even if the trend is toward warming. Bad ski seasons happen.  

“You look back to these pictures of Tuckerman Ravine in the 1939 Inferno and the 1937 Memorial Race, and you see these unbelievable snowscapes. It’s easy to think that that’s what everything looked like in the ‘30s. But that’s just not the case.” 

While exact numbers are unavailable, he suspects climate change has shifted the months some skiers come to Tuckerman Ravine. Once exclusively a springtime phenomenon, warmer conditions are pushing some to ski Tux in the winter, when snowpack is less settled and the avalanche risk is higher.  

Backcountry skiing in the Northeast is at a crossroads. Participation is higher than ever, while the New York Times wonders if the sport can survive climate change. Through it all, does Tuckerman Ravine have the same mystique? 

Leich says yes. 

“It’s so unique to anything east of Denver. That’s what the mystique is. Always going to be there, I think. New generations discover it every three years, five years.” 

There may be fewer winters ahead with unbroken snowpack from November to July. But the good powder days, when the snow is settled and the winds are low, will be even more special. Stay the night at Joe Dodge Lodge. We’ll see you bright and early on the slopes. 

Need help planning your Tuckerman Ravine adventure? Grab a copy of AMC’s Best Backcountry Skiing in the Northeast guidebook.