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Al Jenks showing where the stage used to be in the lodge. -
The exterior of the former Windblown warming hut. -
The kitchen of the new unit. -
Windblown’s two-bedroom, two-bath unit. -
The living room with fireplace. -
The unit’s kitchen. -
Al Jenks indicating the beams he cut by hand in the cathedral ceiling of the lodge. -
Al Jenks on the back deck of the second-floor apartment. -
Al Jenks shows off the kitchen cabinets that were repurposed from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. -
A corner of the commercial kitchen. -
Al Jenks stands underneath some of the beams in the lodge. -
The brick fireplace in the corner of the main room. -
The picnic table at the back of the old ski lodge at Windblown.
For nearly 50 years, the Windblown Nordic Ski Area in New Ipswich was known for its views, open fields and winding network of trails.
Now, a tenant will be the first to live in the apartment Windblown founder Al Jenks has created on the second floor of the old ski lodge. The apartment has a commercial kitchen, two bathrooms, one with a shower; original woodwork; a classic brick chimney fireplace; and cathedral ceilings made from the heavy beams Jenks cut on the land back in 1970.
The apartment is two bedrooms and has three entryways, two of them on the wide deck in the back of the unit. It includes a laundry hookup, and a water fountain.
“Lot of memories in here,” Jenks said, pausing in the doorway as he walks in the unit. “I can just see it, packed with skiers on a busy day.”
The bedrooms are built into the northwestern corner of the space. Jenks smiled as he pointed out the area on the floor that used to be occupied by the stage.
“The musicians would stand right here,” he said.
Jenks purchased the 300 acres in New Ipswich in 1963. An avid skier who grew up in Acton, Mass., Jenks had originally planned to open a downhill ski area, but small ski areas were already disappearing in the late 1960s.
“There used to be small ski areas all over the place — in northern Mass., all over the Monadnock region. We grew up with rope tows or T-bars or J-bars, but then everyone wanted chair lifts, and the insurance got to be too expensive. They had to put in snowmaking; there had to be reliable and consistent snow and grooming, and the little ski areas just couldn’t make it, ” Jenks recalled.
Jenks attended Paul Smith’s College in the Adirondack region of New York, where he tried out for the downhill ski team. He ended up on Paul Smith’s Nordic team, where he developed his lifelong passion for cross-country skiing. In the spring of 1970, after graduating with a forestry degree and then serving a tour in Vietnam with the Army, Jenks moved to New Ipswich permanently. Over the next two years, he cut all the ski trails, a “spaghetti pile” of paths through the woods, by hand. Jenks designed the trails to offer skiers a variety of terrain and difficulty level and avoiding steep slopes.
In the early days, Jenks groomed all the trails himself, on foot.
“It was really different back then. We didn’t have a lot of grooming equipment, and then when I did get grooming equipment, it was very rudimentary. It wasn’t until the 1980s when we started to get snowcats and attachments to pull behind them. Then in the ’90s, I switched over to the PistenBully groomer. ”
Jenks said the peak of skier visits was in the 1980s, when Windblown see 15,000 in a winter. Jenks employed a full staff in those days, including his son Andy, who lives on the property and helped with grooming, equipment and maintenance.
“The environmental movement was kind of starting then, and there were a lot of years with a lot of snow,” Jenks said. “And back then, people would go away for the whole weekend. People would come up to the Monadnock region from outside Boston and spend two nights. Now, they don’t even come ski for a whole day – it’s maybe a few hours.”
The deck surrounding the second-floor apartment still has a picnic table and is accessible by a ramp.
“This deck was the site of so many parties,” Jenks said.
Jenks notes that the large wood stove in the unit generates enough heat to keep the entire space toasty on the coldest days. For the convenience of tenants, Jenks has also added an efficient propane heater. Jenks built an enclosed woodshed off the rear deck for storing and drying wood.
Windblown lies directly on the Wapack Trail, with parking available in a public lot across Route 124.
“Back in 1970, I promised Marion Davies, who founded the Wapack Trail, that I would always allow access to the trail. Whatever happens in the future, there will always be an easement for the hikers to access the Wapack,” Jenks said.
Davies used to run the Wapack Lodge, which was short walk uphill to the east for hikers.
“One night I was sitting here in a lightning storm, and lightning struck three times around the lodge. The third strike was a direct hit, and it burned to the ground,” Jenks says.
The Wapack Trail was designed for cross-country skiers to start in Ashburnham, Mass., and ski through to North Pack in Greenfield, at the north end of the trail. The south-to-north route was designed so skiers would avoid the steep slopes coming down Temple Mountain. The apartment has views of Holt Peak and Temple Mountain through the woods, and a short hike away, views of surrounding mountains, including Monadnock.
Partly due to inconsistent weather caused by climate change in the previous 10 years, Jenks had already been planning to retire when COVID shut down public recreational facilities in 2020. He then closed the ski area.
“Everyone wants to come out when there’s fresh snow, and then we’re packed for the weekend, but then we would lose the snow and have to close for two weeks,” Jenks said. “I’ve seen the rain line move north in the past 50 years. How can I keep a staff with that level of inconsistency? How do you keep food in the kitchen to serve people when there is no steadiness to the business? It just got to be crazy.”
Jenkins still maintains about 25 miles of private trails for family and friends; and now, a new tenant will be able use them as well.