Lost ski areaWyomingLaramie MountainsRocky Mountains
Happy Jack
Closed after the 1977 season. A small T-bar hill east of Laramie, skied from the 1930s until 1977 and used largely by the university.
Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
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Happy Jack was a small downhill area east of Laramie, off Highway 210. The county historical society traces its start to Fort Russell soldiers training on north-facing slopes by the Happy Jack Road.1,3,4
Read the whole historyTodayOnly the old ski runs still show; hiking, biking and cross-country ski trails at Happy Jack and Tie City took the hill's place. (2018)4
Timeline
8 events · swipe
Photos
Memories
Skied Happy Jack, 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 Happy Jack
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- Years not yet collected · 56 mi away · ColoradoA small ski area on the east side of Cameron Pass, Colorado, skied on foot from the 1930s and served by a rope tow from 1946 to about 1951.
- 1971–1986 · 64.3 mi away · ColoradoA one-slope ski hill on a bluff above the Poudre River just outside Greeley, the lowest ski area Colorado ever had, open from 1971 to 1986.
- Opened 1931 · 73.1 mi away · ColoradoA ski jumping and rope-tow hill on Shadow Mountain, across Grand Lake from the town, used from the early 1930s; accounts of when it ended differ.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 6 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Happy Jack was a small downhill area east of Laramie, off Highway 210. The county historical society traces its start to Fort Russell soldiers training on north-facing slopes by the Happy Jack Road. A Civilian Conservation Corps camp stood at Pole Mountain by 1933, and its workers improved the ski trails, built the lodge and probably installed the first rope tow. The Laramie Boomerang puts the opening in the 1930s.1,3,4
Dick and Pat Tobias of Laramie held the permit by 1954, and night skiing was offered in 1962. Vertical was a few hundred feet and snow unreliable; Colorado Ski History says the hill largely served the university. Its nine named runs had two T-bars and at least one rope tow. The lodge burned by 1969. New owners, People's Sporting Goods Ski Shalet of Cheyenne, were waiting for snow in November 1970, and a second T-bar, three runs and a warming hut followed.2,4
Happy Jack did not open for 1977–78, and the Forest Service revoked the permit in August 1978. With the caretaker's house burned and much equipment stolen, a later owner paid about $8,000 to clear the site, and the land was restored by 1982. The Colorado Skier newsletter guessed it was a renamed Summit, a rope tow on old U.S. 30; other sources call them two hills.1,2,3,4,5,6
TodayOnly the old ski runs still show; hiking, biking and cross-country ski trails at Happy Jack and Tie City took the hill's place. (2018)4
Timeline
- c. 1930Happy Jack Ski Area opens sometime in the 1930s1
- 1954Dick and Pat Tobias of Laramie hold the ski area's permit4
- 1969The lodge has been lost to fire by this year4
- 1970New owners from Cheyenne are ready in November, awaiting snow4
- 1977Last season; the area does not open for 1977–781,2,4
- 1978Forest Service revokes the ski area permit in August4
- 1979First cross-country trails cleared at Happy Jack over the summer1
- 1982Improvements removed and the land restored4
Sources for this history (6)
- 1Laramie Boomerang · How the Happy Jack Trails came to be (Amber Travsky, November 3, 2018)
- 2Colorado Ski History · Happy Jack Ski Area
- 3Albany County Historical Society · Albany County Ski Areas (December 20, 2017)
- 4Albany County Historical Society · "Happy Jack" Hollingsworth's Legacy—His name (Judy Knight, March 17, 2018)
- 5Colorado Ski History · Lost Areas #23 (24 February 1997)
- 6Colorado Ski History · Lost Areas #25 (15 January 1998)
Photos
No photographs of Happy Jack 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 Happy Jack, in their own words.
Facts
Location
41.2544° N · 105.4221° W · Wyoming · Laramie Mountains
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
until 1977 · the year it opened is not yet collected
Closed after the 1977 season. It stays here as part of the record of U.S. ski areas.
Its numbers
all 5all 5, in one list
Terrain contours: USGS 3D Elevation Program, public domain