Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
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Fun Valley sat outside Montezuma in south central Iowa. The Midwest Lost Ski Areas Project dates it from 1969 and gives 200 feet of vertical, with 240 feet as a second figure.1,2
Read the whole historyTimeline
5 events · swipe
Memories
Skied Fun Valley, 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 Fun Valley
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- Years not yet collected · 50.4 mi away · IowaA ski club's rope tow slope about 13 miles south of Waterloo, with 190 feet of vertical, recorded in newspapers from 1971 to 1977.
- Opened 1971 · 82.1 mi away · IowaA ski area just north of Waverly that opened as Ski Villa in 1971, became Oak Highlands in 1981 and closed in the late 1980s.
- Opened 1971 · 85.6 mi away · IowaA small ski area two miles north of Dexter, also called Dexfield Sports Area and Deer Run, with its lodge at the top, that ran from 1971 to about 1986.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 2 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Fun Valley sat outside Montezuma in south central Iowa. The Midwest Lost Ski Areas Project dates it from 1969 and gives 200 feet of vertical, with 240 feet as a second figure. In 1978 it ran six rope tows and a handle tow; by 1992 the lifts were three rope tows, two T-bars and two chairs. SKI Magazine wrote about its grass skiing in 1985, and Glen Plake visited in 1992. The project's last mention of it is from 2007, the year of the newest of its six trail maps on Skimap.org.1,2
Sources for this history (2)
- 1Midwest Lost Ski Areas Project · Iowa
- 2Skimap.org · Fun Valley
Photos
No photographs of Fun Valley 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 Fun Valley, in their own words.
Facts
Location
41.5651° N · 92.5726° W · Iowa
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
from 1969 · the year it closed is 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 2all 2, in one list
Terrain contours: USGS 3D Elevation Program, public domain