Paine Mountain before and after

Brothers Stuart and Steve Deane walked to school with their father in the stormy winters of the 1950's. This was a normal routine for both brothers who lived in the weather bureau, which is now known as Ainsworth Hall on the Norwich campus.

Lybrand ski area (which is now Paine Mountain) is where the two brothers learned to ski. Some of Stuart's fondest memories are "skiing down that little hill. There was a rope tow there and we have (home) movies of us skiing on that very hill."

Stuart's father, Pete Deane, was the ski coach at Norwich for almost three years.

Paine Mountain has been used for skiing and other recreational activities since the early 1900's. A new recreational facility will be created there after alumnus Larry Costa pledged $1.4 million.

Many students would use Paine Mountain, which used to be known as Goodrich Ski Area.

Before the tow rope was brought in many students from NU used to "walk up and get lots of exercise" in order to ski, said Gary Lord, a Charles A. Dana professor of history.

"In 1936 the Northfield Ski Club installed an electrically operated rope ski tow, 1,150 feet in length," which was open for use to the Corps of Cadets, according to the administration of Ernest Nason Harmon in the Norwich University archives.

Lybrand Ski Area, on the north side of the mountain, not only had a ski area but also a ski jump.

Students used to jump there at the beginning of the 1920s.

"There might have been a ski club organized, I know that there was an outing club in the 1920s, (I'm unsure) if there was a separate ski club or not," Lord said.

"It was always a ski slope, but way back there was a ski jump there (at Paine Mountain) and different university's organizations have always used it to climb," said Paul Bova, Norwich class of 1988 and assistant vice president of development and alumni relations. The Mountain Cold Weather unit used to use the ski slope years ago for repelling and other outdoor tasks.

In "1936 Mr. Morse (a graduate from NU class of 1930) developed and opened the third rope-pulled ski tow in Vermont on the north side of Shaw's wood (also part of Paine Mountain)," according to a news article in the NU archives.

According to material in the NU archives, "Mr. William Lybrand, a member of the Board of Trustees, purchased this ski tow (from Northfield Ski Club) in 1939 and presented it to the university." Before the purchase of Goodrich Ski Area, the ski jump had been constructed years before by NU who had a lease on the land.

In 1954, "Mr. Lybrand donated funds for the development of another ski area for Norwich on the extension of Slate Avenue leading to Paine Mountain," according to the archives.

This new location, which was officially named Lybrand Ski Area, was said to be more protected from the sun than the slopes adjacent to the campus and had better trails and terrain.

Lybrand Ski Area remained the same for many years until necessary changes were made to improve the ski area.

According to a news release in the NU archives, one of the largest "on-campus ski facility in the country" was to be constructed on the NU campus in the summer of 1970.

"Norwich trustees have authorized the purchase of a 4,200-foot double-chair lift that will carry skiers far beyond the limits of the present ski area on the Norwich campus."

According to a news article in the NU archives, one of the trails in the construction will "cover a distance of nearly two miles and will run north and northwest through the university's Lybrand Ski Area." Another major trail will connect at Stage Coach Road which runs more than a mile long.

Years of skiing at the NU Lybrand Ski Area came to an abrupt stop, according to another news article in the NU archives, because "The school year of 1979 and 1980 will be remembered as the time when Vermont had a winter with virtually no snow."

Lybrand Ski Area was closed in 1993.

According to a news article in the NU archives, in February 1993, "for the first time in over 40 years, Norwich University's ski lift will not be in operation during this winter's ski season." The students were not happy about the decision to shut down the ski hill and officials tried to meet "student demands by providing free busing services to Sugarbush and Stowe, local skiing resorts."

The ski area was shut down for a number of reasons. "It was an expensive money-losing proposition and the university needed to save the money of the cost of operation," said Dave Magida, chief administrative officer.

The ski area was also "oriented completely in the wrong direction," which meant that the sun would hit the snow and melt it, according to Magida.

Lord agreed. "(The ski area) got a lot of afternoon sun, and while in the early years the snow fall might have been good but later on there were some lean or sparse years in terms of snow fall and which meant that the ski area was closed a lot of the time."

"It was closed because the cost of the overhead for the university was far greater than the benefit that it provided," Bova said.

 Making snow was not a possibility because the school didn't have an adequate water supply.

"We just didn't have the consistent snow base that we needed," Bova said.

"The primary reason (for the ski area closing) was financial," Lord said.

Since the ski area closed the mountain has still been used.

 "It's been used for a hawk watch up at the top for example. People have been hiking there and snow shoeing and some of the ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps)groups use it periodically for exercises, some of the professors use it for field labs," Magida said.

But a new project has been in planning for over a year, which will be called the Shaw Outdoor Center.

"The plans were to convert that area to a outdoor recreation and outdoor education complex that would have a series of trails as well as a building that could support that," Magida said.

There is a building committee and a project committee and meetings where about 500 students contributed their ideas for this recreational facility.

There was so much interested in this project that "it was included on the fundraising campaign that's on the plan (on NU campus) now called Bearing the Torch," Magida said.

At homecoming, Larry Costa said he was going to donate all the money associated with doing that project.

"Larry Costa graduated in 1980 (from NU); he co-founded a company called World Wide Language Resources. It's a company that provides multilingual interpreters and translators for organizations around the world. He wanted to give back as part of his class of 80 reunion gift," Bova said.

According to a news release on the Norwich website, "Per Costa's wishes, the project will be named after his mentor, friend and business partner, the late SFC John Shaw. A 20-year Army veteran and former Mountain Cold Weather (MCW) instructor at Norwich, SFC Shaw died in 2006."

The Shaw Outdoor Center on Paine Mountain is designed so that people of all abilities can use the different equipment. "We are going to have a 5k trail that will be for cross-country running, walking, mountain biking, snow shoeing and cross-country skiing," Magida said. All of these activities will take place towards the bottom of mountain.

Another trail is being created that will be "wide enough to be used for the cadets marching trail"; that trail will be for "an intermediate level of hiking of mountain biking and snow shoeing then we will get up higher and it will become more advance and it will be steeper so people then again can do the snow shoeing, hiking, and skiing they want," Magida continued.

The Shaw Outdoor Center gives students an opportunity to do more outside in all seasons and also could be used for other purposes, such as classes.

There is also going to be an area for paintball; "It will be enclosed; it will be isolated from the trails and it will be enclosed with mesh netting so it will protect people from the paintballs," Magida said.

The project is expected to be done by next October.