Lyme Center
For many, he was the face of the skiway, as comfortable repairing a trail grooming machine as he was mingling with skiers of all ages in the lodge or selling lift tickets.
“They all knew him by name. He was a fixture there,” said his daughter, Kathleen Boudreau, of Chelmsford, Mass., the youngest of the four Balch children of Ron and Barbara.
From helping to cut trails as a teenager with his father in the late 1950s to working as mountain manager until his retirement in 2007, there was nothing that Balch didn’t know about the operation, and few who would say they didn’t know him.
“He was a friend to all those people who skied,” said Barbara Balch. “He just didn’t repair lifts or put you in the chair.”
While manager was his official title, skiway ambassador might be a more apt moniker.
“Ronnie knew all the kids. He loved those kids,” said his close friend and distant relative, Charlie Garipay, a lifetime Dartmouth Skiway skier. “Whenever he came into the lodge, he would say hello to everyone. Ron was just one of these guys you just can’t help but like as soon as you meet him.”
Balch, who died on July 1, 2017, at age 76, after a period of failing health, was born and raised in Lyme Center, with an older sister and two younger brothers. He attended school in Hanover and later Orford.
When Dartmouth College began developing the ski area at Holt’s Ledge, Balch helped cut some of the area’s earliest trails, including the Papoose, with his father, John Balch, in 1958.
“He enjoyed being outside and was happy working with a chainsaw,” said Barbara, during an interview at the family home on Issac Perkins Road in Lyme Center where the couple, married in 1959, built a house in the early 1980s after first moving to a neighboring property in the 1960s.
Balch dug a large pond behind the house, stocked it with fish and could be called upon to clear the snow off in the winter so his children and their friends could ice skate.
He may not have known it as a teen, but Balch had found his life’s calling at the skiway. He worked winters in the early years and with Dartmouth College in the offseason, but eventually the skiway became a full-time job after the Winslow trails opened in the 1970s.
Those who remember him say Balch was all in at the skiway, doing whatever was needed to run the operation.
“He would work day and night, plowing snow on the trails half the night,” said his son Doug, who worked with his father along with Barbara and sons Mike and Kevin.
His wife said her husband didn’t come to the job with any of the skills one would normally associate with managing a ski area, but he was an eager and fast learner of all facets of the operation.
He also learned welding, became a plumber, and could run heavy equipment.
“He drove the snowcats and learned how to fix them, he operated the lifts and could fix them,” said Barbara. “He could climb the (lift) towers.”
When the ski area replaced its archaic Poma lift, which it donated to Arrowhead in Claremont, Balch watched and learned while the new chairlift was installed.
“He was very well-versed in the operation and was very gifted mechanically,” said Doug Holler, who came on board as director of the skiway in 2001 and worked with Balch until he retired. “He just understood how things worked.”
Holler remembers he came to the skiway with experience from other resorts but as the new guy on the block, he needed to prove his abilities to Balch and others.
It was after one experience grooming a trail and pushing snow around that Holler remembers Balch saying to him, “By God, you do know what you’re doing.”
The two established a strong working relationship, and as knowledgeable as Balch was, he never came across as having all the answers, Holler said.
“He was always willing to listen to other ideas to solve a problem. He may have the best solution but another time, somebody else might,” said Holler. “He was fun to work with.”
Balch’s willingness to learn, including taking classes to operate piston bully groomers, made him a jack-of-all-trades at the skiway.
“He could self-teach himself anything,” said daughter Kathleen. “He had a mechanical mind.”
His mechanical talents and other abilities stood out when keeping the skiway running smoothly but there was another side of Balch, who his wife said, was a “graceful skier and extremely good dancer,” that was not immediately evident with his gruff appearance and booming voice.
As a founder member of the Lyme Green men’s softball team, Balch was instrumental in creating a new ball field named in memory of his brother John, who went by Johnny Pat and died at age 20.
“He loved sports and went to all our games,” said son Mike, who remembered his father could “hit a ball a mile.
“He wasn’t big. He just knew how to hit.”
Balch also lobbied to allow all Lyme residents through college to ski for free at the skiway when initially free skiing was only granted for children up to high school.
The skiway was his pride and joy, but family and friends came first.
His sister-in-law Patty Jenks said Balch was never too busy to make sure they were enjoying their skiing and got home OK.
At one point, which Jenks, the town clerk in Lyme, described as a “series of most unpleasant and devastating events” Ron and Barbara took in Patty and Barbara’s younger sister, who was just 15, and their grandmother, to an “already full house of four kids, the constant visitors and menagerie of animals.”
“It was above and beyond and they did it,” Jenks wrote in a memoriam for Ron and his mother, Marion, who died just hours before him. “And it was hard and they opened their home regardless. I wonder if he knew he was appreciated for his support.”
Balch’s daughter, Kathleen, describes her dad as “definitely hard working but definitely a family man.”
“He and my son, (Sean) and daughter (Piper) were very close. My dad taught them a lot about hunting and fishing,” said Boudreau. “My son got his first bear, his first turkey and his first deer with my dad.”
When he received a moose permit through the lottery, he took another granddaughter, Sarah, as his “second” and let her take the shot.
Balch loved being out in the woods hunting or beside a stream fishing. Not even bypass surgery in 1988 after two heart attacks could keep him down for very long.
“After the surgery he was out hunting a few days after being released from the hospital,” said Barbara. “He used a pillow to protect his chest area and shot a deer with a muzzloader.”
Balch was diagnosed with cancer soon after his retirement, and though he eventually went into remission after five years, the chemotherapy treatments were difficult, said his daughter-in-law, Sherman Balch.
It was during that period that she was selected from the annual New Hampshire moose hunt lottery and her father-in-law along joined her as the “second,” meaning he could also shoot.
“I made him take the shot,” Sherman said about taking down the moose. “I think it gave him a second life. He got some energy back.”
As Balch’s health continued to deteriorate the last several years from heart problems, he kept up a spirited fight, continuing to enjoy his family, the outdoors and doing what he could for others, said his wife.
“He had a good heart and was always wanting to help people and willing to help people.” she
Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.
