The roots of MCSC began at the former Warner Lambert offices in Morris Plains. In 1957, a group of skiers formed a club for company employees, calling themselves the “201 Ski Club” – its name derived from the office location at 201 Tabor Road. After two seasons, the club dropped all ties with the company and changed its name to the “Morris County Ski Club”, officially incorporating on 4/16/59. Membership at the time was 22 people.
The early 60’s saw club members carpooling to Craigmeur (NJ), which only ran a rope tow at the time, North Creek (now Gore Mountain, NY), which operated a T-bar, and several Vermont resorts. MCSC’s first “Weekend Bus Trip” launched in 1974. From the start, members instinctively understood that this was more than just transportation – it was a mobile party! 1974 was also the year we took our first week-long trip out West, skiing at Park City, Utah.
Up until 1973, club meetings were held from December to March only. As social events were introduced to the club calendar, meetings were expanded to the other months as well. This marked our progression from ski club to “ski and social club.” Sometime during 1988, the required membership “ski test” was dropped. At the same time, Board members debated (and ultimately decided) allowing membership to go beyond 100 members.
In February, 1990, our famous “Alive After 5” happy hours were born, giving an even bigger boost to the club’s social life. The first “AAF” was held at The Office in Morristown. A variety of locations and atmospheres continue to make this our most popular event.
It wasn’t enough for the club to invade Western ski resorts. In 1998 over 50 MCSC-ers flew across the pond on our first European trip to Chamonix, France, with a 2-day extension to Paris. Our ski director was bombarded with faxes regarding our behavior while we were there, but half of it wasn’t true. No, really!
The club didn’t stop at Europe. Always in search of new snow and novel experiences, MCSC introduced our first summer ski trip in August, 2007, to Valle Nevado, Chile. In January, 2010, we headed to Japan.
Today our membership hovers around 110 members as we extend our reach through our website and MeetUp.com to attract new members. We offer a broad variety of social events year-round in addition to the usual well-planned ski trips. Theater, sports and restaurant outings, parties, rock-climbing, concerts, organized bike rides and spring bike weekends, sushi dinners and more, allow members to share the fun with old friends and new.