mohawk mountain ski area: the birth of snowmaking

While Mohawk Mountain is known as a small, family-friendly ski area, many are unaware of the large impact this mountain had on the sport. Its founder, Walt Schoenknecht, changed the face of modern skiing when he helped create the first snowmaking machine in 1950. That ＂artificial snow＂ machine, first tested at Mohawk, received the first U.S. patent for such a device. Today, Mohawk is one of the few surviving family-owned ski areas in the United States, and Schoenknecht’s daughter, Carol Lugar, remains its president. Mohawk has had to survive a devastating tornado, challenging weather and economic headwinds to compete with larger corporate-owned ski resorts. Today, the small mountain in Cornwall, Connecticut remains a favorite, with new lifts, expanded snowmaking, more ski school lessons, snowtubing and night skiing. Local author James Shay reveals the unique contributions of Mohawk and Walt Schoenknecht to the sport of skiing.

James Shay’s first experience skiing was about fifty years ago, when he went to the top of Vermont’s Killington Peak and fell more than twenty times on the way down. Shortly afterward, he enrolled in a ski school in St. Anton, Austria, and has been skiing ever since. A journalist for more than forty years, he got his first reporting job at the local newspaper, where he met his future wife. He retired from Hearst Connecticut Media in 2021. His snow sports writing has appeared in SKI magazine, Snow Country and national/regional ski guides and on digital news sites.