Twin Tows

Twin Tows has a small ski area with a fairly decent, though short, pitch. Located in on Rte 101 in Milford, the area operated from just after World War II thru the 1970's. There's a great article that was written in a Ski Museum newsletter a few years ago which tells the complete story of the area. I hope to post it on the web soon.

To the right is a view of the twin tows, unsure of year but likely taken in the 1950's. Picture provided to NELSAP by Dave Brooks who obtained the photo from the town of Milford's historical society.

Year	Lifts	Trails	Other Notes	Source
1947-1948, 1948-1949	Two 450' rope tows	450' slope	Located at Jones Crossing	1947-1948, 1948-1949 NH Winter Map
1951 and 1953	Same	10 acres of slopes	Slopes floodlighted. Open weekends and holidays and Tue/Thu nights from 7-10pm.	1951 and 1953 NH Winter Guide

Joshua Segal: Milford Twin Tows operated well into the 70s. It is now the site of a "Market Basket" Supermarket. It was used as a sledding hill for a while. You can still see the path where one of the rope tows went.

Patrick Sullivan: I have found another ski area - Twin Tows! To find it go to route 101 in Milford NH going west, & you will see a MARKET BASKET & it is right behind it.

Bill Clark: Saw this one this weekend, long after it closed. it's on Rte 101, where the bypass meets the old section of 101. This is about 11 miles east of Temple Mt. It's now right next to a group of stores, across rte 101 from an old iron bridge. far as I know it was rope tows only, ending probably in the 970's.

Ellen McEvoy: I skied Twin Tows exactly once. It was probably 1954 or thereabouts. I was in Junior High in Nashua, and for some reason I went on a trip to Twin Tows with the ski club. Mr. Greer, a science teacher, led the club. He had early-stage MS and couldn't ski himself, but parked his car in such a way that he could keep an eye on the slope. My skis were ancient, with "new" cable bindings replacing the leather toe straps. The boots and skis had, I think, both been found in the basement of the house we rented. I was a self-taught skier: I'd read books from the library, and I'd skied down hills at Greeley Park.

So here I was at Twin Tows, without a clue. I managed to ride the rope tow to the top, then turned around and did the only thing I knew: skied straight down the fall line (I seem to recall a couple of dips on the way down that made for a pretty exciting run!) and right up to Mr. Greer's car. With nothing left to prove, and quite shaken by what I'd just done, I asked if it would be OK with him if I sort of moseyed up the hill to the left, across the top, and back down on the right, and he agreed -- probably with relief! Thus I figure that I "invented" cross country skiing for myself, and from that day it's the only sort of skiing I've attempted.

Lee Youngman: I grew up in Milford, and attended high school in the 70s there. The ski area was closed, but it was the town's unofficial toboggan hill. In high seventies style, we'd skip school and head on out for a day in the snow, well before traffic and development hit that side of Milford. The hill was short but steep and every day saw another sledding accident. They say you can't go home. Particularly true of that piece of NE history.

Dirk Anderson: I skied Twin Tows around 1976-77, in what must have been one of its last years of operation. This was the height of the freestyle "hot dog" area. Cool people dressed in gaudy nylon windshirts like Scott Brooksbank and John Clendennin, and tried to emulate Wayne Wong when he worked up at Waterville Valley. The sunny Sunday I went to Twin Tows, I vividly remember one of the locals building a huge jump and working on his moebius flip, a move that filled me with awe at the time, and which would have instantly gotten him run off the mountain by the ski patrol at a "real" ski area. Great way to suffer permanent spinal injury. I also remember trying to huck a helicopter, with no real success. Today there is a huge supermarket where the warming hut and tow motor used to be. Sad indeed.

Jim Siergiewicz: I used to ski it in the mid 60's as a kid. This is where I learned to ski. It used to cost $1/day. I burned up more than one pair of gloves on the rope tows. There was a one room lodge at the bottom of the hill that had a wood stove in it and the snack bar was located at one end. I remember getting hot chocolate and watching other ski thru the windows in the lodge. If I remember right it even had outhouses. One of the slopes used to go right by the red barn that is still standing to the right as you face the hill. It was a great place as a kid. In the summer cow used to graze on the hill. Whenever I drive by the hill it brings back fond memories.

Ned Bolle visited the area during the summer of 2001 and took the following two pictures. Here's his description: I remember this area as a kid. I didn't ski it, and only vaguely remember seeing it operate as late as 1970, though I could be wrong. The area was located at the intersections of Jones and Savage in Milford. It is just West of the Western end of the 101 bypass (Jct. NH 101 and 101A) . The slope is East facing.

There is no sign of the tows, though the slope/field is clear. The pitch of the slope is a little deceiving from the pictures. It was pretty much solid "Blue Square" material. I can't remember the location of the second tow. (One followed the power lines on the right side of the pictures).