Tourist Office
Cranmore Ski Area
PO Box 1640, Skimobile Road
North Conway
New Hampshire
USA
NH 03860
Telephone: (603) 3565544
Email: info@cranmore.com
Website: www.cranmore.com
Description
A key resort in the history of skiing in New Hampshire, with recent infrastructure improvements including a new quad chair and upgraded base buildings.
Review
Cranmore is a friendly family ski area with a long and illustrious history as a ski resort. It has well above average facilities for a ski area of its size and has spent recently on improved lifts and other infrastructure. The resort has been owned by several major ski groups in recent year and has now settled in as part of the Booth Creek group which owns ski areas across the USA, including fellow New Hampshire centres Loon and Waterville Valley – which are included on a joint lift ticket with Cranmore.
North Conway businessman Harvey Dow Gibson cleared the first trails on the slopes of Mount Cranmore during the summer of 1937. Two years later, Hannes Schneider, arguably the most important person in the development of downhill skiing around the world in the first half of the Twentieth century (He brought skiing to Japan as well as being known as “the father of American skiing”) made his first turns on the South Slope and began a skiing revolution.
Part of Cranmore’s history began in Austria, Schneider’s home. An outspoken critic of the Nazis, Schneider was stripped of his influential title as head of all of Austria ‘s ski instructors after Hitler annexed Austria in 1938. After being placed under house arrest, Schneider fled to America and his new home of North Conway .
Gibson worked hard to bring Schneider to the Mount Washington Valley and saw him as instrumental in establishing Cranmore as a world-class skiing destination. Schneider received a hero’s welcome upon arriving in North Conway . Schneider and his entire family left the train and walked under an archway of ski poles, held by 150 schoolchildren enrolled in the Eastern Slope Ski Club Junior Program. After lunch, Schneider made his first turns at his new home. Using his natural skill and vast knowledge acquired in his years of teaching in Austria , Schneider developed a ski school at Cranmore and taught his Arlberg technique to students from across the globe.
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Cranmore, New Hampshire, USA
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