Lost ski areaMontanaPioneer MountainsRocky Mountains
Deep Creek
A small ski area with a T-bar off Highway 274, about 43 miles southwest of Butte near Wise River, listed in guides and plans from 1967 to 1988.
Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
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Timeline
5 events · swipe
Photos
Memories
Skied Deep Creek, or worked there?
Tell us what you remember, or what this page has wrong. Memories show here, credited to you, after we read them; facts are checked against a source before they change a figure.
Lost near Deep Creek
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- Opened 1936 · 19 mi away · MontanaThe Anaconda Ski Club's hill up Lagger Gulch, about 15 miles west of Anaconda, opened in 1936 and known for early ski jumping, night skiing and a chairlift.
- Opened 1939 · 24.8 mi away · MontanaThe Butte Ski Club's volunteer-built ski area on a ridge southwest of Butte, opened in 1939 and closed in the late 1980s after snowless winters.
- Opened 1959 · 34.9 mi away · MontanaThe Wilson family's ski area east of Pipestone Pass, 16 miles southeast of Butte, which opened in 1959 or 1961 and ran until dry winters made it unprofitable.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 9 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Deep Creek stood off Highway 274 in rural Deer Lodge County. Guides gave its address as Wise River and put it 34 to 45 miles southwest of Butte. It was not on National Forest land: the Forest Service's 1973 regional guide listed it among other ski areas, and a 2017 forum post places it on Bureau of Land Management land south of Anaconda. The earliest mention found is a 1967 Forest Service report's list of western ski areas; no source gives the year it opened or closed.1,2,4,5,6,7,8
The 1974–75 state guide gave it a T-bar 3,000 feet long with a 1,000-foot rise, a 500-foot rope tow and five open runs from novice to expert, with a chalet, ski patrol and certified instructors, open Thursdays, weekends and holidays. Montana's winter guides for 1985–86 and 1986–87 listed one T-bar, a base at 6,080 feet, 837 feet of vertical, five miles of trails and a snack bar, with a season from mid-December to April 1. A July 1988 regional profile still named it among three downhill ski areas for Anaconda.1,3,5,9
Timeline
- 1967Listed among western ski areas in a Forest Service report2
- 1973Forest Service guide lists one T-bar and one rope tow7
- 1974State guide lists a 3,000-foot T-bar and five open runs5
- 1985Winter guide gives 837 feet of vertical and a single T-bar1
- 1988Regional profile still counts it among Anaconda's three downhill ski areas3
Sources for this history (9)
- 1Montana Promotion Division (Travel Montana) · 1985-1986 Winter Guide (full text, Internet Archive)
- 2U.S. Forest Service, Intermountain Forest and Range Experiment Station · Skiing trends and opportunities in the Western States (Roscoe B. Herrington), Forest Service Research Paper INT-34, 1967 (full text, Internet Archive)
- 3Headwaters Resource Conservation and Development Area, Inc. · Southwestern Montana Resource Assessment and Profile, July 1988 (full text, Internet Archive)
- 4Deer Lodge County Planning Board; Montana Department of Planning and Economic Development · Deer Lodge County comprehensive planning program: county-wide comprehensive plan, June 1973 (full text, Internet Archive)
- 5Montana Department of Highways, Travel Promotion Unit · Big snow country of Montana, 1974-75 season (full text, Internet Archive)
- 6Montana Fish and Game Commission · Montana statewide outdoor recreation plan, 1973 (full text, Internet Archive)
- 7U.S. Forest Service, Northern Region · National Forest ski guide, Northern Region, 1973: Other Ski Areas (full text, Internet Archive)
- 8Panhandle Backcountry · Anaconda
- 9Montana Promotion Division (Travel Montana) · Montana winter guide, 1986-87 season (printed September 1986; catalogued as 1988) (full text, Internet Archive)
Photos
No photographs of Deep Creek we may republish yet
Its old photos and trail maps live on the sites that collected them, and Google finds the rest.
Memories
What skiers remember of Deep Creek, in their own words.
Facts
Location
45.9074° N · 113.1149° W · Montana · Pioneer Mountains
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
not yet collected
Closed for good; the year it closed is not yet collected. It stays here as part of the record of U.S. ski areas.
Its numbers
all 4all 4, in one list
Terrain contours: USGS 3D Elevation Program, public domain