Temple Mountain
Peterborough, New Hampshire
| When Temple Mountain was open it was a popular, nice little family area. It had 16 trails and a vertical drop of 600ft on 40 skiable areas. Ski School was available as were rentals. While it was not overcrowded, there was usually a small line at the Quad lift. |
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Temple's Quad was a unique hybrid. It almost looked like two double chairs welded together. Though it was unusual to look at it gave a smooth ride. I recall one place where the lift went over a section of trail that curved, going straight on this curve would send you over a small cliff. It was always well marked and there was a snow fence there. |
| One time, in the early 90's, I took my niece there to teach her to ski. Unfortunately, my sister had tried to teach her before I attempted and fell on her, so my niece was afraid. She wanted to learn to ski, at least that's what she told me, so I decided to take her to teach her. We got rentals for her. I made sure that we got a short pair of skis that would be easier for her to turn. This was before shaped skis became the rule. We went to the rope tow. All seemed fine as we slowly skied to the bottom of the hill. She seemed to have the wedge down and was turning. The rope tow was designed so that you had to ski down before coming back up the hill and it was parallel to the road. All was fine, so I thought. |
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I was wrong. As she was getting off of the rope tow
she fell and started to cry. She wasn't very athletic, music was (and
still is) her thing. She took on for several minutes and then said "I
amn't going to do it". "Amn't", her own little word, kind of cute for
a 5 year old.
I gave in...I couldn't deal with her temper tantrum. We packed it in and went home. She cried half of the way home...I never attempted to teach her to ski again. |
| My last time skiing there was prior to the installation of the double lift. I was actually rather surprised to see it when I went by the area the year they closed. On my first visit I did not have my camera, so I went back a few days later and snapped some pictures. There were several people there looking around, taking pictures and hiking. I snapped a few pictures and continued on in my quest to find the other area that once existed in Temple, NH (unfortunately, that search was unsuccessful). |
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As reported in the Monadnock Ledger and later on SnowJournal.com, Temple Mountain has been sold. Many people in the southern New Hampshire area and in neighboring northern Massachusetts towns had hoped that it would reopen, but it's future is uncertain. It will be missed. It was a fun little family hill. Hopefully, the new owners will see the benefits of a ski area in the community and will once again reopen it. |
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Click here to view the Temple Mountain Brochure from it's last year of operation.
Click here to view a Temple Mountain Ski School Brochure early 90's
To view more ski area photos click here.
To return to the main page click here.
