Lost ski areaUtahUinta MountainsRocky Mountains
Grizzly Ridge
A rope-tow and T-bar hill near Vernal, opened by a local family at Christmas 1960, closed in 1968 and run again from about 1982 into around 1990.
Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
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Grizzly Ridge was started by a Scandinavian family from Vernal and opened over the Christmas holidays of 1960, with one rope tow and one run. The founder, LaRell Anderson, cleared trees, built a road a mile long and put up a lodge.1,2
Read the whole historyTimeline
6 events · swipe
Photos
Memories
Skied Grizzly Ridge, 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 Grizzly Ridge
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- Years not yet collected · 76.3 mi away · WyomingA small ski area about 15 miles east of Evanston, off old U.S. 30, with a single chairlift and two rope tows.
- Closed 2011 · 107.4 mi away · UtahA private snowboard park near Glenwild, outside Park City, built by DC Shoes co-founder Ken Block, with a rope tow serving 10 runs.
- 1948–1953 · 109 mi away · ColoradoA volunteer-run tow hill on Rio Blanco Hill, 15 miles north of Rifle on Highway 13, started by local plant workers, that ran from 1948 to 1953.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 2 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Grizzly Ridge was started by a Scandinavian family from Vernal and opened over the Christmas holidays of 1960, with one rope tow and one run. The founder, LaRell Anderson, cleared trees, built a road a mile long and put up a lodge. In 1964 a T-bar about 2,000 feet long, which he built from war-surplus parts such as bomb-carrier wheels and towers from an old oil derrick, added uphill capacity; it was later converted to a Poma.1,2
The area was doing well, but its lift needed major repairs before the 1969 season, and it closed in 1968; it still sat abandoned, lodge standing, in 1976. It was running again by 1982, and in 1988 it became one of the first Utah ski areas to allow snowboarding. In the late 1980s skiers drifted to Park West, Alta and Snowbird, and the area most likely closed after the poor winter of 1990.1,2
Timeline
- 1960Opens over the Christmas holidays with one rope tow1,2
- 1964T-bar built from war-surplus parts installed2
- 1968First closure, with the lift needing major repairs1,2
- 1982Back in operation by this year2
- 1988Among the first Utah ski areas to allow snowboarding2
- c. 1990Most likely closes for good after a poor winter2
Sources for this history (2)
- 1Deseret News · Resorts that didn't quite make it (Ray Grass, April 7, 2005)
- 2Utah Lost Ski Area Project · Grizzly Ridge
Photos
No photographs of Grizzly Ridge 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 Grizzly Ridge, in their own words.
Facts
Location
40.7515° N · 109.4874° W · Utah · Uinta Mountains
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
from 1960 · 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