Middlebury names oldest base lodge for first college ski coachA renovated ski cabin — the oldest original base lodge in the nation — at the Middlebury College Snow Bowl in Hancock, Vermont, has been renamed the Hubbard Cabin in honor of Richard C. Hubbard, the college’s first ski coach.

In a ceremony on January 17, members of the Middlebury Ski Club, which supports junior ski racing at the Snow Bowl, joined members of the Middlebury College community in a dedication that included remarks by Rick and Pete Hubbard, sons of Richard “Dick” Hubbard, who was also one of the founding members of the club.

Snow Bowl employees who worked in the cabin when it was the base lodge for the ski area — including veterans Joe Doria, Roger Dragon and Howard Kelton — shared their memories of Snow Bowl history, as did past occupants of the cabin, which later served as a caretaker’s residence.

Those at the ceremony, em-ceed by current Snow Bowl manager Pete Mackey, heard first-hand from former caretakers Peter Burton and John Rubright, and were read a letter from Ken and Carolyn Perine, who also spent time in the caretakers’ role at the Snow Bowl.

The cabin was built in 1938 by members of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) with the help of local residents, including Dick Hubbard, using trees that CCC members, Hubbard and others cut in 1937 to clear the first ski trails at the Snow Bowl.

Serving as the base lodge for the Snow Bowl until the current lodge was completed in 1962, the cabin became a caretaker’s residence for about three decades. It has been vacant since the mid-1990s.

David Napier, organizer of the cabin’s renovation and a former Middlebury Ski Club board member, said the group had been seeking a space of its own and noticed that the cabin was unoccupied. With permission from Snow Bowl manager Peter Mackey and the college administration, Napier and other ski club members performed much of the renovation work themselves over the last two years, removing the living accommodations and returning the cabin to its original one-room design. With the addition of a new furnace, the cabin will now serve as a meeting place for the club. Members will also be able to use new lockers for storing equipment.

“This renovation process took place with volunteer labor and donations from local businesses, and it’s successfully stopped the deterioration of the building,” said Napier. “However, this cabin is historic so we’d like to apply for state and federal grants to continue the work on it.”

Napier, a professor of anthropology and art at Middlebury, is grateful to the college for allowing the club to renovate the cabin. “The fact that Middlebury College has allowed the local ski club to repair and use the cabin is a testament to the College’s commitment to the local community and to the sport of skiing,” he said.

According to Napier, dedicating the renovated cabin to Dick Hubbard is an appropriate recognition of the contributions Hubbard has made to the local ski community. “Dick was one of the founding fathers of skiing in the Middlebury area,” Napier said. “He was involved at every level — at the college as a skier and a coach, in the local Middlebury Ski Club as one of its earliest members and leaders, and in the founding of the Snow Bowl.”

Dick Hubbard, a member of the Middlebury College class of 1936, is a Middlebury native who arrived at the college in 1932. Since there was no ski coach, Hubbard and the other skiers coached themselves. Interest in competitive skiing at Middlebury College dates back to 1923, but skiing as a college-sanctioned sport began in 1933 with the creation of an official ski team.

Joining with other students and local residents, Hubbard helped create local ski slopes, and install a rope tow on the back slope of Chipman Hill in Middlebury. He also set in motion the clearing of cross-country ski trails at Bread Loaf in Ripton. At the Snow Bowl, Hubbard helped survey and lay out the Worth Mountain ski trail, the Voter trail and what is now the Allen trail and contributed to the construction of the first rope tow.

Hubbard went on to serve as Middlebury’s first ski coach from 1936-1939, coaching the men’s team for two years and the women’s team for one year. “It was largely through his efforts that Middlebury College was able to host the best collegiate skiers in the Eastern United States and Canada at the championship matches of the Intercollegiate Ski Union during the Middlebury Winter Carnival on February 18-19, 1938,” said Rick Hubbard.