Franconia Notch, NH – New Hampshire Governor John Lynch yesterday broke ground for the new Mittersill double chairlift to culminate the lengthy process that will integrate Cannon Mountain ski area and Mittersill, the historic New Hampshire ski area adjacent to Cannon that has been closed since the 1980s.nState and federal officials in 2009 signed an agreement for a land exchange that transferred ownership of Mittersill to the state, facilitating a $4 million expansion of the Cannon Ski Area into Mittersill’s terrain. Mittersill is believed to be the earliest ski area in the country to incorporate a “ski village” within a ski area, and homeowners there have been shuttling next door to ski at Cannon since Mittersill’s closure.

During Friday’s ceremony, Ivar Dahl, a local Blizzard ski rep, presented a Mittersill flag sent by the mayor of Mittersill, Austria, home of the Blizzard factory, to Governor Lynch. After the ceremony Dahl remarked that the city officials of Mittersill still recall Baron Hubert von Pantz, once owner of the Mittersill Club in Austria, who moved to the U.S. in the 1930s and subsequently founded Mittersill in Franconia.

The dismantling of the old Mittersill double chairlift began in early August, and the new lift, on the footprint of the old chair, is expected to be operational by late December or early January.