Channing Brown Murdock, 91, passed away peacefully on July 8th, 2026, with his two sons by his side. 

"He dreamed it and he did it!" These are the words of his late wife Jane Murdock, describing how they converted a defunct dude ranch into a ski area called Butternut Basin. Channing had the vision, the drive and the confidence to turn three rope tows and five short trails into a modern, successful ski area. When Butternut opened in December 1963, Channing and Jane were both 28 years old, the nation's youngest ski area owners. Since its inception 62 years ago, Butternut has enriched the lives, and livelihoods, of many in the region.

Channing was born in New York City on February 27th, 1935, to Margaret Brown and Robert M. Murdock. He was the youngest of two sons and was raised in Hastings-on-Hudson in Westchester, NY. He was a rambunctious boy who loved music and had an insatiable appetite for the outdoors. His initiation to skiing came at the Woodbound Inn in New Hampshire where his family spent their holidays. His mother took him skiing to nearby Fahnestock State Park, which had a rope tow and a T-Bar at the time. At the age of twelve, skiing became such a passion that he cut his own ski trail on a small hill above the Sawmill Parkway at the end of his street, his first of many ski runs.  

Channing's love for the outdoors took him on many adventures in his early years which fostered his enthusiasm and hands-on approach to life. As part of Camp Keewayden in Canada he paddled a canoe northward to the Hudson Bay with his fellow campers and counselors, learning how to fish from local indigenous people along the way. As a young adult he worked two summers in the White Mountains as a ‘hut boy' ferrying loads of lumber to build the Appalachian Mountain Club huts on Mount Washington. Channing always spoke wistfully of his time spent in the White Mountains. His hob nail boots and his wood and canvas packboard were kept as cherished possessions. He was proud to tell of the time he carried a potbelly stove on his back all day, arriving at dusk at the hut.  

Channing attended Middlebury College and majored in Geology, and this is where he met his future wife Jane Hoge, of Landgrove, VT. Not only was he an active adventurous young man, but he also loved to sing and was in several all-male acapella groups during high school and college. So, when he met Jane, a Music Appreciation major, who skied, played tennis and loved the outdoors, he was smitten. She was his perfect match. They married soon after graduation in 1956 and headed off to El Paso, Texas where Channing served as a First Lieutenant in the Army. During these years he took weekend trips to Taos, New Mexico to ski, learned photography and was a trampoline instructor for the Army. While in El Paso, he became a father for the first time when their son Jef was born in 1958.   

Channing enjoyed the Army, he was well suited to it. He liked the order, hierarchy and discipline. Jane, however, was not at all happy with Army life. So, as new parents, they packed up and moved back east to Watervliet, NY where Channing took a job as a junior executive at a sandpaper company. Quickly bored by the job and convinced that a "desk job" was not for him, he began looking for work opportunities in the ski industry. He found that opportunity in 1960 with Walt Schoenknecht at Mohawk Ski Area in Cornwall, CT. At 25 years old, Channing was hired as the General Manager and Walt set out to teach him the "guts of the business". One of his first jobs there was shoveling out the old-fashioned outhouses, as the area had no toilets yet. They conducted experiments with early snowmaking equipment, and he installed Mohawk's first chairlift, made by the Italian company Carlevaro & Savio. It was the first chairlift erected at a southern New England ski area and it was the first chairlift Channing built. He did his best to follow the instructions which were all written in Italian. Channing thrived there, he was challenged and invigorated by this kind of work. 

After two years at Mohawk, and with Jane's support, he decided he was ready to build a ski area of his own and they started their search for a mountain. On a drive through the Berkshires in 1962, while passing through the small town of Great Barrington, Jane and Channing came upon the G-BAR-S Ranch property for sale. They decided to purchase it, and with a shared vision they set out to build Butternut Basin Ski Area. Initially, he was turned down by a local bank for a loan to buy the property, but Channing would not give up. He was persuasive and convincing, and a week later he met with the same bank and got their full support. With the purchase of the land complete, Channing drove to Boston and convinced the state to lease him the upper half of Warner Mountain. In 1963, to raise money to purchase a chairlift and build the base lodge, he went door-to-door selling Butternut stock, ultimately selling 136 shares at $1000 a piece. In lieu of dividends, every share owner received an annual season pass. At every turn he connected with people: bankers, state officials, shareholders and customers. They believed in his vision, and he did not disappoint them.

With a Nikon transit and using high school trigonometry he established a line through the trees to the mountaintop and determined where to pour the footings for the chairlift towers. Chainsaws in hand, he and a small crew cleared all the trees for the new lift line and several new ski trails. In October of that year, Channing and Jane celebrated the birth of their second son Timothy. A mere two months later, on the day before Christmas, they opened the doors for their first ski season. They had a chairlift to the top of the mountain, a few trails, a base lodge and a ticket booth. The lift ticket cost $6. 

There was never any question who was the boss at Butternut. Channing was hands on and he was everywhere. Waking at 4:30am to call in the ski report to local newspapers and radio stations and making snow both day and night at the start, he worked himself to exhaustion. He would catnap on the trail, laying lengthwise on the warm snowmaking pipes, fast asleep amidst the drone of the snow guns. The busy season never stopped. As the years passed, he was seen in all facets of the operation: cooking hamburgers, leading the crews cutting trails, building the snowmaking system, creating the logo, touring politicians, driving the school bus for campers at the summer day camp, welding the chairlifts, hosting wine and cheese parties on the lodge deck, creating his own magazine ads, building the areas own electric generator plant for snowmaking, etc. There was no part of the business that he didn't touch.  

He was hard-working, charismatic and he always had eyes for the next project to improve the area. He was frugal and resourceful, finding used snow grooming equipment and chairlifts, and moving them to Butternut. One evening, while having dinner at Alice's at Avaloch (now the Apple Tree Inn), he looked out the window, turned around with wide eyes, placed his napkin on the table and said, "I'll be back in a little bit". He came back 20 minutes later and announced, "I just bought a lift". It was a POMA lift he spotted in the back yard of the restaurant, covered in brush. Shortly after it was moved to Butternut and re-installed to serve the Racecourse Trail. He wanted to save a buck, so he found two used lifts and completely rebuilt Top Flight, the lift to the top of the mountain. This is how he became a skilled welder and fabricator.   

In 1969, when Channing was 34, he and his brother Rob bought Satan's Ridge Ski Area in New Hartford, Connecticut. They revamped everything: electricity, running water, lighting for night skiing and they rebuilt the base lodge. They changed the name to Ski Sundown and hired Rick Carter to be the General Manager. Channing and Rick became best of friends, and Rick later went on to become the owner of Ski Sundown.  

In the 1980's the price of electricity began to rise dramatically. Looking to reduce expenses, Channing built his own power plant. He found two diesel generators, older machines that had been generating electricity in the southwestern US. He did the research and found the detailed specifications and requirements. He engineered and built the concrete foundations and then supervised the construction of a complicated electrical generating plant. Channing found the experts, organized the project and led the job to successful completion, all without any civil or mechanical engineers. Channing found knowledgeable workmen, he read the plans and they figured it out. 

Channing had an exceptional ability to connect with people. He established close and meaningful relationships with customers, employees and friends. He had only the highest standards; if he was going to do something, he wanted it done right and the results needed to be perfect. He worked alongside his employees, earned their respect and built lasting, deep relationships. He considered those he worked with like family.  From the start, building Butternut was a partnership with his wife Jane. They worked tirelessly together, and he never hesitated to give her credit for the many hats she wore.       

Channing proved himself to be as capable in a boardroom as he was in a muddy ditch. He was a founding member and the President of the Massachusetts Ski Areas Association in its early days. In 1969, Channing and a group of New England ski area owners co-founded the New England Ski Areas Council (NESAC), an organization responsible for distributing ski reports to newspapers, radio and television throughout New England. He also served as the President of the Eastern Ski Operators Association, who awarded him the Sherman Adams Award for his "substantial contribution to skiing in the Eastern US". Eventually, in the 1980's, Channing rose to become the Chairman of the National Ski Areas Association (NSAA). He took regular trips to Washington, DC to help facilitate industry negotiations with the Bureau of Land Management and the Department of Environmental Protection. In 2002, he was awarded the National Ski Areas Association Lifetime Achievement Award having "demonstrated an extraordinary lifetime commitment to NSAA and the ski industry, and whose contribution will benefit the industry for decades to come." Additionally, Channing also served on the Board of Directors at the First Agricultural Bank in Pittsfield, MA and the Board of Youth Enrichment Services in Boston. He was a major supporter of Y.E.S., working collaboratively to bring Boston kids out every weekend to learn to ski at Butternut and enjoy the "great outdoors".  

Because he had installed and operated chairlifts for years, Channing was keenly aware of questionable safety and inspection practices he had seen in the industry. So, in 1968, along with other Massachusetts ski area operators, he advocated for a law creating the Massachusetts Recreational Tramway Board. This board developed chairlift operating and licensing requirements under the umbrella of the Massachusetts Department of Public Safety. In 1978, Channing hosted the first Lift Maintenance Seminar at Butternut. This was a hands-on, three-day educational seminar for lift mechanics from all over the east coast. Butternut hosted hundreds of attendees every year, for 30 years, and the program now continues at Jiminy Peak every Spring.   

Channing was known to play as hard as he worked, competing fiercely in tennis, slalom skiing, cycling and white-water kayaking. He was known to regularly compete in the local Josh Billings Runaground Triathlon. His love for cycling became a part of his daily routine. Every day after work he would go home, change from his dirty work clothes into his cycling kit and embark on a 25-mile bike ride. He regularly competed in bike races including Tour of Somerville, Tour of Nutley, Central Park Spring Race Series and many others.  

In May 1994, while vacationing in Maine, life changed drastically. Channing left for his daily bike ride just after lunch, but as dusk was falling, he had not returned. Jane phoned the police to learn that Channing crashed his bike and was taken to the hospital. When she arrived at the hospital, he was about to undergo brain surgery, and his survival was uncertain. After surgery, he was in a coma for two weeks. In the months that followed, he slowly started to regain his senses. His initial recovery took almost a year. Ultimately, the traumatic brain injury limited his speech, and he lived with lasting impairments.

Everyone who knew Channing understood that before the age of 60, he had lived the lives of 3 or 4 men. After his accident, his life changed significantly. Channing did manage to ski a year later, with assistance from his friends in the Butternut Ski School. Despite his extremely limited speech and being able to speak only a handful of words, Channing continued to enjoy friends he had known for years. He regularly made Irish Soda Bread and mailed it to his comrades around the globe. He pursued his artistic interests of drawing and photography and was cared for by Jane in their home for the next 20 years until he suffered a stroke and had to move to Mount Carmel Care Center in Lenox, MA. Much like everywhere he went, he formed meaningful relationships there and the staff cared for him exceptionally well. As with all those close to Channing, they too became familiar with his commanding spirit and his big heart.   

Channing is survived by his son Jef Murdock and wife Regina Wenzek, his son Tim Murdock and partner Tanya Beecher, his granddaughters Kira Murdock, Amber Naramore and Serena Naramore and his niece and nephew Leslie and Christopher Desmond. A memorial will be held at noon on Sunday, October 18th at Ski Butternut. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to Youth Enrichment Services in Boston, MA. Please donate at: YESkids.org