Skiing and the NFS

According to U.S. Forest Service Visitor Use Monitoring Surveys the number one reason people visit National Forests is to hike. But guess what activity is a close second? Of course, downhill skiing! Each year about 57 million people visit U.S. ski areas and of those, almost half, visit ski areas that operate on U.S. Forest Service land.

Congress entrusts the National Forest Service (NFS) to “make such rules and regulations and establish such service as will insure the objects of the [national forests], namely to regulate their occupancy and use and to preserve the forests thereon from destruction.” According to a recent “water clause directive”(a strategy for providing adequate water to ski areas described in the Federal Register) issued by the NFS “there are 122 ski areas that encompass about 180,000 acres of lands managed by the Forest Service. [Those] ski areas receive roughly 23 million visitors annually, who contribute $3 billion yearly to local economies and support approximately 64,000 full- and part-time jobs in rural communities.” NHSC members are regularly skiing in the mix—both out west and in the east.


The first eastern ski area on federal reserve land was Wildcat, in New Hampshire. The ski area maintains a park-like setting with no on-site lodging and plenty of brown-bag lunches in the base lodge. The slopes here are steep and fast and the view from the summit (at over 4,000 feet nose level with Mt Washington’s 6,000’ summit) is consistently voted among the most scenic in all North American ski resorts by readers of Ski magazine. Many NFS areas are like slopes in a time capsule—except for the fact that modern high speed lifts now bring skiers and boarders uphill.


The first ski trail at Wildcat was cut by the Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) in the summer of 1933. With no lift at that time, skiers would hike up most of the day in order to ski down the mile and a half trail. It was 60 feet wide in places and dropped 2,000 vertical feet. In the winter of 1957-58 Wildcat introduced a top-to bottom gondola that provided access to a trail network that included the original CCC trail. It is still skiable today—and with a $10 trail pass one can skip the liftline and hike up the mountain to access it--just like they did in the old days.