Summit Area at Ski Butternut
| Summit Area Details |
| | Status: | Open |
| First Season of Operation: | 1963-64 |
| Lifts: | 1 chairlift |
| Terrain: | Novice, intermediate, and expert terrain |
| Return to Ski Butternut Profile
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After a series of ownership changes involving G-Bar-S Dude Ranch, Jug End Barn, and the Barrington School, Channing and Jane Murdock purchased the defunct G-Bar-S Ranch ski area in 1962 and formed Butternut Basin, Inc. in 1963. That April, the Murdocks ordered a new Carlevaro & Savio double chairlift.
Climbing 926 vertical feet, the 3,837 foot long chairlift featured 18 towers and was designed to transport 1,000 people per hour. At a purchase price of $83,585, the lift would service top to bottom skiing (the original G-Bar-S ski area had rope tows on the lower half of the mountain) for the first official year of Butternut Basin, 1963-64.
Thirty years later, the chairlift was upgraded, reusing the original towers, to a Garaventa CTEC fixed grip quad, becoming at the time one of only three Southern New England ski areas which such a lift. Less than two years later the Top Flight Quad was severely damaged by a 1995 Memorial Day F4 tornado. Though the ski area suffered over $2,000,000 in damage, it was able to rebound and reopen the lift for the 1995-96 season.
The Top Flight Quad in 2002
The Top Flight Quad in 2003
The Top Flight Quad area on the 2009 trail map
Last updated: July 2, 2014
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