Smallest most obscure Ski hill you've been to?

[jamesdeluxe]

Forget about the size of the hill -- check out the top-to-bottom red/black color coordination on Patrick! =D>

That said, Admin is correct. I deserve some compensation for putting a Biglines watermark on top of those pix. Maybe some high-priced goggles gathering dust in his garage?

 

[whertzing56]

In 1966, I had my first skiing experience, in Mentone, Alabama - yep, Alabama! Back then, the owner rented hang gliders off the hill in the summer, and put up a rope tow and a couple of snow guns in the winter. Outstanding for a 10-year old from Tennessee! The area around the hill has grown a bit since then, but this picture (from their site) is just as I remember it. I actually met someone in a gondola years decades later who had heard of it, but that's the only time I've met anyone else who's skiied there!

http://www.skisoutheast.com/cloudmont/default.php

 

[Admin]

Yeah, the importance of the Mats to Twin Cities' music scene is hard to overstate, even decades later.

I just scored a copy of the new EP, "Songs for Slim". Check it out.

 

[otisdelarosa]

Didn't we have this discussion last season or two years ago?

Yes: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=9730

As to smallest, my answer remains the same.

These days, I regularly ski Buck Hill with my daughter, who just turned 7. Its 310 vertical feet, next to a freeway and otherwise surrounded by a forest of suburban condos. On the other hand, it's super friendly, 20 minutes from our home in South Minneapolis, cheap and convenient (a morning lift ticket is $20 and kids ski free through the winter of their 6th birthday), and because it is a training ground of champions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_hill), my daughter has learned a great deal just by imitating the kids in the racing program. Buck Hill was also the title a Replacements song, making the place just that much cooler in my estimation.

As to most obscure

Define obscure. I've skied some pretty weird places in the snowbelt of the south shore of Lake Superior like Whitecap (http://www.skiwhitecap.com - check out the trail map, they have one of the strangest chairlifts I've ever seen) or the Porkies (http://www.porkiesfun.com), a state-owned ski area on the U.P. As a kid, I skied at least a couple days each at Hogback and Haystack, Vt. in the 70s. Mt. Bohemia is probably the most remote area I have skied. viewtopic.php?f=4&t=9389

Agree! For me,so far the lowest hill I'd been too also was the Buck Hill.

 

[otisdelarosa]

quite a number of now defunct ski hills that no longer exist (including where I first learned to ski).

A sampling of some of mine (wow, I've been to a lot of tiny places):
Brantling, NY - 250 verts; all surface lifts and a literal cow pasture in summer.
Holiday Mtn, NY - all 350 verts or so.
Addison Pinnacle, NY - now defunct; all surface lifts including a poma with a 90 bend in the middle.
Mystic Mtn, NY - now defunct. 1 chair and several surface lifts
McCauley Mtn, NY - Freeze your #$% off in Old Forge, NY.
Cazenovia, NY - private club; pretty sure the rope tow was/is worlds fastest...
Scotch Valley, NY - now defunct; OK hill and hey there was bowling in the base lodge... Welcome to the Catskills.
Highmont, NY - now defunct; not really all that obscure since Belleayre wants to expand onto it's old footprint...
Blue Mash, PA; another 300 vert knob.
Bryce. VA - 400 verts of flat with 4 runs
Howleson Hill, CO - Surprisingly steep for such a tiny bump on the edge of town.
Sky Valley, GA - Now defunct I believe; Couple hundred verts and 2 runs
Iron Mtn, CA - now defunct; surprisingly 5 (very slow) chairs and maybe 1200 verts? Well, it was small for California.

OK, I've listed far too many - even though my tiny operations list above is very incomplete. But you get the idea.[/quote]

Smallest Ski HIll that I've been too was only in Brantling, NY and Addison Pinnacle, NY.. Really obscure!

 

[lono]

Currie Park Wauwatosa Wi. 2 rope tows.60 vertical.Colder than I've ever been.It was my first time. Side- step,herringbone,kick-turn.My life changed.

 

[New England Skier 13]

smallest that i've been to: Abenaki Ski Area (http://www.wolfeboronh.us/Pages/Wolfebo ... on/abenaki)
most obscure that i've been to: Veterans Memorial Ski Area (http://franklinskiarea.com/)

 

[jamesdeluxe]

I could post this in the Eastern Forum, but it probably fits this thread better.

Campgaw, NJ is a well-run and popular feeder hill. Over the past six weeks, my wife and I have taken our son there several times because it's a short drive from our house, is very inexpensive (spring rates are $15/person), and he doesn't notice how short it is -- can't be more than a couple hundred verts -- so win/win. Our goal is to get him to use his poles more (moderate success) and to narrow his stance (still working on it).

There were a fair number of cars in the parking lot today, but very few people actually on the hill. I realized that most were there for a GS race.

Looking Out Over Bergen County

Through The Trees

This Lift Only Serves "Most Difficult" Terrain

Campgaw Chuck


While eating lunch, directly behind me I heard a voice I recognized. I turned around and it was everyone's favorite ski-area owner, Laszlo Vajtay from Plattekill. He was there with his son, who was taking part in the race.

 

[Admin]

Good to see Lazslo! And this is right along with Yawgoo Valley on the list of TRs that I never thought I'd see.

 

[New England Skier 13]

I don't think that you will be able to beat this one: This season I skiied at Arrowhead Ski Area in Claremont, NH. They have 1 slope 1 handle tow and about 100 vertical feet.

Looking Down from the Top of Arrowhead

Many More Photos: http://www.snowjournal.com/page.php?cid=gallery6853

 

[jimk]

Re:

I got to wondering...what tiny dilapidated hills the folks on the board have skied at?

Bryce. VA - 400 verts of flat with 4 runs.

Small and obscure is of course in the eye of the beholder
Bryce, VA is near me and one of the first places I ever skied back in the '60s. It's been surpassed in recent decades by larger hills, but to this day I always recommend it to skiing novices and low intermediates in the Wash DC area as the best place to go for modest crowds and prices in a friendly and well run environment. Has nice views of the Blue Ridge Mtns:

After four decades of skiing in mid-Atlantic I finally made it to ski The Homestead in Hot Springs, VA in 2005. It's hardly dilapidated, actually a world class four season resort/hotel most noted for great golf. Skiing is just another amenity for wintertime guests. Saw Eric Holder and his family there during our visit (pre Attorney General days).
stock Hotel photo:

The ski area is located a couple of fairways (Sam Snead is the patron saint of The Homestead's three 18 hole golf courses) uphill from the resort at a base elevation of 2,500 feet. I had never gone there before because the accommodations are very pricey and there are closer, better ski hills to my home near Wash DC. But this trip was to show my wife a good time. The vertical rise from the base to the top of the one and only double chair is 700 feet, quite respectable by mid-Atlantic standards. The double chair appeared to be roughly 3,500 feet in length. At the time of our visit one main slope was open from the top with three or four interweaving side runs no more than 4,200 feet in total length. There is actually about 500 more vertical feet of steepish terrain above the upper terminus of the chairlift, but it's public land and not to be developed for ski trails. They have a good snowmaking system and we enjoyed some nice "untracked chalk" :lol: one morning:

 

[mdskier]

Braddock Heights ski area close to Frederick MD
About 1980 when I skied it there was 1 T-Bar with 150 ft vertical.
and a rope tow with about 80 ft vertical thru apple trees up to a
house. People in the house (the tix office) sat around a bar laughing
at the skiers. Maybe 10 tickets sold on a good day

They did us all a favor and closed for good about 1990.
A funny story is my boss got married and the honeymoon was to be skiing in Austria.
After the bachelor party he was so drunk he fell into a large planter then would not
give his car keys up to several others. He went off the road into a tree wrecking his jeep.
He showed up the next day at his wedding with a cast on his arm(the only injury) , the bride
was pissed and the Austria trip was of course cancelled. His next ski day was at (drum roll)
Braddock Heights. !!

I returned in 2005 to see what was there. The old T-bar was still there covered with vines and trees

 

[mdskier]

3 more.

Cochrans ski area Richmond VT
I took my sister there about 1962 but did not ski.
A 91 foot vertical at that time ! in the Cochran family's back yard with one rope tow..
They are a storied family. Three of them were on the US Ski Team.
Barbara Ann Cochran got a gold medal in the 1972 Sapporo Japan Olympics.
I heard they've expanded to a whopping 350 ft vertical !

Hidden Valley PA 310ft vertical. After yo-yo'ing up and down 30 times in 3 hours
I was bored stiff and never returned.

Alpine Lake Ski Area Terra Alta WV (long dead)
Very lame. 450 ft vertical one rope tow 2 T-bars. Existed only as an excuse to sell
Real estate. I was dragged there once in 1980's to do Ski Patrol.

 

[q]

A few during my extensive travels. Some obscure, some small, some a mix of both!

Bear Paw Ski Bowl, MT - 780ft, well out of the way
Little Ski Hill, ID - 405ft, just a bump to hike as the early morning sun rose one day
Magic Mountain, ID - 700ft, one of the smaller Idaho resorts I've visited, a powder day too
Deer Mountain and Terry Peak, SD - Just because it is obscure for people in the UK to ski in South Dakota
Hogadon, WY - 600ft, one of the smaller Wyoming hills
Sipapu, NM - 1055ft, Smaller out of the way place with a strange old lodge if I recall correctly
Kendall, CO - 240ft, small bump. Amazed to read that for 1 tow an adult season pass is $175. Makes my deal at Disco sound even better!
Howelsen Hill, CO - 440ft, as already mentioned pretty steep for the size of the bump
Granlibakken, CA - 300ft, obscure to say the least

Those stand out, coming from the UK and skiing over 100 places out west including Las Vegas means there were a lot of obscure places on my list to choose from!

 

[tseeb]

A few during my extensive travels. Some obscure, some small, some a mix of both!

Granlibakken, CA - 300ft, obscure to say the least

Granlibakken = Norwegian name meaning a hill sheltered by trees

q beat me to listing it, but I beat him to skiing as I did it in the 70s, hiking up it with a friend and then skiing down in over a foot of very crusted powder. I also worked there when I dropped out of college and moved to Tahoe in late 1975. My jobs included getting the winter's firewood under cover and putting plastic on leaky shake roofs on some of the condos. They had financial problems so I got laid off twice in about a month which qualified me for $34/week unemployment. Working there also allowed me to buy a Squaw pass for $225 instead of the going rate of $300.

I also skied Iron Mountain, 12 miles W of Kirkwood, under all three of its names: Sunlight, Iron Mountain and Carson. I had some great storm powder days there, even with the slow lifts. Once it was snowing so hard that I missed the turnoff to it and didn't notice until I go to gas station that was about 10 miles further downhill past Dew Drop. Over my girlfriend's objection, we went back and skied.

 

[q]

I also skied Iron Mountain, 12 miles W of Kirkwood, under all three of its names: Sunlight, Iron Mountain and Carson.

I've always been fascinated with old ski hills, I did'nt recall hearing about Sunlight so I had a dig around on the internet. Pretty interesting!

Interesting photos and info

 

[EMSC]

I skied it when it was Iron Mtn in the early 90's. It had two things NOT going for it. Very random remote location and horribly slow lifts. I though the terrain was actually pretty good on two of the lifts and solidly intermediate interesting on a couple of the other lifts (aka general public should have liked them).

The up-side-down layout was kind of different for the sierra too. I wonder if I still have the old trail map buried somewhere (I used to go out of my way to collect maps, but haven't gone any further recently than grabbing 2 or 3 at each place I ski each year).

 

[tseeb]

Following the link q posted (that I'd seen before) makes me think I got what I listed as name of Iron Mountain wrong - it was Ski Sundown, not Sunlight - and that was really the 2nd name. I'm not sure if I skied it when it was called Silver Mountain, the 1st name. I do remember that 1/2 price coupons where not hard to find in Tahoe papers so I skied it very inexpensively.

One day I was there (it may have been same day I missed the turn as it was snowing so hard), I almost got to downhill race. There were a couple of teams there and one was short due to members being unable to get there so they were going to let my try some of their 223 cm skis, but race got canceled.

Trail map below was copied from Epicski. I had some good powder days when the only good lift running was the one at upper left, Wildcat/#3. The lift at far right, Bruin/#5 was the steepest and I remember days when it was groomed and I skied each run at least 5 times. Eagles lift/#5 at bottom rarely ran - I only skied it a day or two.