Mount Watatic
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Massachusetts, United States and Ashby,
Massachusetts, United States
| Mount Watatic | |
|---|---|
 Summit of Mount Watatic. | |
| Highest point | |
| Elevation | 1,831 ft (558 m) |
| Prominence | 502 ft (153 m) |
| Coordinates | 42°41′48″N 71°53′33″W / 42.69667°N 71.89250°W |
| Geography | |
 | |
| Location | Ashburnham, Massachusetts, United States and Ashby, Massachusetts, United States |
| Parent range | The Wapack Range |
| Geology | |
| Rock age | 400 million years |
| Mountain type(s) | monadnock; metamorphic rock |
Mount Watatic is a 1,832-foot (558 m) monadnock located just south of the Massachusetts–New Hampshire border, in the United States, at the southern end of the Wapack Range. It lies in Ashburnham, Massachusetts and Ashby, Massachusetts. The 22-mile (35 km) Wapack Trail and the 92-mile (148 km) Midstate Trail both cross the mountain.
The name is probably a corruption of the Native American term Wetu-tick, "wigwam brook", and probably applied first to the nearby large stream and thereafter to the mountain and the pond.[1]
The east and south side of the mountain drains into the Souhegan River watershed, to the Merrimack River thence the Atlantic Ocean; the west and north sides drain into the Millers River watershed, to the Connecticut River, thence into Long Island Sound.
Mount Watatic was the site of a ski area that operated from the 1930s until 1984.[2] An attempt to reopen the ski area in 1988 failed.
Mount Watatic was also once home to state fire tower #31 that looked out over central Massachusetts, until its removal in 1996. Phone lines to the tower ran up the Ashby and Ashburnham sides of the mountain over the years.[3]
In 2000, the summit of the mountain was sold to Industrial Communications and Electronics for the development of a 150-foot (46 m) cellular telephone tower and a road to the summit. In 2002, prior to development of the communications tower, the mountain was purchased for $2,500,000 by the Ashby Land Trust, the Town of Ashby, the Ashburnham Conservation Trust, the Town of Ashburnham, Mass Dept of Fish and Wildlife and Mass Dept of Conservation and Recreation.[4] Unfortunately by this point a road had already been blasted into the ski area (back) side of the mountain, making several of the still maintained ski trails unusable. The purchase resulted in the permanent protection of approximately 281 acres (1.14 km2) of the mountain, including the summit, as conservation land. In July 2010, Mount Watatic was named one of the "1000 Great Places in Massachusetts" by the State Commission of Massachusetts.[5] On September 21, 2022, North County Land Trust[6] acquired 186 acres of the south slope of Watatic. The Division of Fisheries and Wildlife (MassWildlife) then purchased it from them for $995,000 in July 2022.[7]
