Fans of small ski areas who have watched the resurrection of Crotched and Tenney mountains can pin their downhill hopes on another former New Hampshire site, although it’s a real long shot.

Mt. Whittier Ski Area in Ossipee, which had one of the strangest layouts of any ski area in the state, is on the market for $3.2 million, as first reported by the ski-oriented news site SnowBrains.

Although it closed almost 40 years ago, Whittier is still remembered by old-timers because of its gondola, which carried skiers over Route 25 from the lodge on the north side of the road to the trails on the south side. Remnants of that system can be seen today, most notably in a tower that stands in the parking lot of a McDonald’s restaurant.

Whittier had another transportation twist: It never installed chair lifts. If you didn’t take the gondola you had to use surface T-bars (or a Poma lift before that) from the lodge, which now holds a Post Office.

The ski area opened in the 1960s, although the site New England Lost Ski Areas says there was a rope tow on the hill in the 1940s, and it closed in the mid-1980s. The gondola continued for a time as a summer tourist ride.

Whittier’s biggest problem was that the area never installed snowmaking. This doomed it when skiers began to expect more consistent conditions than natural snow could provide, especially at a time when rising insurance rates drove many small mountains out of business.

The property has been largely vacant since. Now the land is for sale, having been divvied up into 14 parcels, according to the listing by NAINorwood Group.

The news comes as smaller ski areas are making something of a comeback. New Hampshire was once filled with small ski areas, often family-run, until costs and changing ski habits drove most out of business. The group New England Lost Ski Areas lists more than 150 places in New Hampshire that were once open to public skiing but are now gone.

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Something of a turnaround began in 2003 when Peak Resorts bought Crotched Mountain in Francestown, which had been closed for 13 years. The company completely rebuilt the area, even putting it on a different face of the mountain than the previous Crotched ski area, and it is still going strong, now owned by Vail Resorts.

Another rebirth story has happened in Plymouth where Tenney Mountain ski resort has been slowly returning to life after being shut from 2010 through 2018. The existing buildings, snowmaking equipment and lifts have been rebuilt and refurbished and the new owners are planning a grand opening celebration starting Dec. 22.

Realistically, however, neither of those scenarios seems likely for Whittier. Four-decade-old equipment probably isn’t usable – the listing notes “the seller is not making representations or warranties as to the conditions of the buildings and any of the former ski lifts that remain on site” – and the runs have long since grown in, so a gradual upgrade like that at Tenney or has happened at Whaleback in Enfield isn’t possible. A Crotched-like complete rebuild would cost tens of millions of dollars beyond buying the land.

That doesn’t mean downhill snowsports can’t return to Whittier, however.

The past decade has seen multiple efforts to reopen or keep open very small ski areas, usually served only by a tow rope, often owned by non-profits run by volunteers. Places like Veterans Memorial Recreation Area in Franklin, which has added snowmaking for the first time, Abenaki Ski Area in Wolfeboro and Mount Prospect Ski Tow in Lancaster have resurrected the model of hyper-local New England ski areas that thrived before corporate ownership became the norm.

That idea would certainly be a possibility for Whittier, although it would require some deep pockets to get started.

Then there is the surprising boom in back-country skiing, where snowboarders and skiers depend on their legs rather than machinery to get uphill. In the past decade this hike-up-and-ski-down practice has grown from a niche pastime to become a big part of ski equipment sales. Various groups have been forced to keep runs trimmed on otherwise unused slopes, and the Granite Backcountry Alliance lists a dozen places in New Hampshire where backcountry skiing is allowed.

This is the possibility that has the news site SnowBrains most excited, since it would be the cheapest and easiest to do.

“The rapid rise in backcountry skiing and riding might make this the perfect investment for those looking to create a place for low-traffic New England powder turns. Backcountry-specific resorts are popping up more frequently and might be the best chance of bringing this iconic mountain back from the dead,” the site said in its report on the sale.