Big Bear Skateboard Park - Brookline NH

The second ski resort skatepark in New England.

Seeing the success of the skatepark at Yawgoo Valley Ski Resort in Rhode Island, Big Bear Ski Area owner Richard Varricchio added a similar asphalt park at his resort.

While the park was built in the interest of satisfying the local skateboard community, Varricchio’s real dream was to attract Boston skaters.  The rationale was that Massachusetts skiers were driving two hours to New Hampshire to ski, so Bostonians would be likely to drive 50 minutes to Brookline to skate.

The park had a 12 foot deep, 50 foot wide, 175 foot long bowl, and plans included slalom runs, a freestyle area and even a 20-foot diameter full pipe.

Unfortunately, the popularity of skateboarding collapsed in 1979, and  ski resorts were slammed with a “freak snowless winter” in 1980. To make matters worse, in the first week of 1980, small business loans were capped, and local ski resorts scrambled to secure enough to keep their doors open during the downtime.  Big Bear was already on the brink of foreclosure when the $100,000 loan cap was announced.

“We’re scared. We haven’t made the money we need to pay the bills and the bank isn’t willing to give us any help,” Varricchio said at the time, “Even if it snowed a yard tonight, we still couldn’t pull through. It’s just too little, too late.”