Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
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Hidden Valley lay a short way east of downtown Ely, in St. Louis County.1,2
Read the whole historyTimeline
3 events · swipe
Memories
Skied Hidden 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 Hidden Valley
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- 1958–1970 · 40.4 mi away · MinnesotaA ski area north of Virginia, Minnesota, that opened in 1958 with Minnesota's first chairlift and closed in 1970.
- Opened 1950 · 41.2 mi away · MinnesotaA ski tow at the Finland Air Force Station, a Cold War radar base on Lookout Mountain north of Finland in Lake County.
- 1965–1972 · 48 mi away · MinnesotaA small rope-tow ski area near Silver Bay in northeast Minnesota, opened by Frank Moschet in 1965 and closed after the 1971–72 season.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 2 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Hidden Valley lay a short way east of downtown Ely, in St. Louis County. Ely opened its $30,000 Hidden Valley Winter Sports Center in December 1960 as northeast Minnesota's newest ski area, paid for by contributions from local residents with much of the labor donated; the Duluth News-Tribune gave much of the credit to the Hidden Valley Association. The paper described five downhill runs in one account on the page and four in another, served by rope tows, along with a 90-foot ski jump, cross-country trails and a new chalet.1,2
MWLSAP lists a vertical of 165 feet and, in 1978, two rope tows and a J-bar. The last mention of the area it has found is from 1979.2
Sources for this history (2)
- 1Duluth News-Tribune · Ely Opens Ski Center; Ski Slopes Beckon to Everyone (Duluth News-Tribune, December 18, 1960), clipping on MWLSAP
- 2Midwest Lost Ski Areas Project · Hidden Valley (Ely)
Photos
No photographs of Hidden 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 Hidden Valley, in their own words.
Facts
Location
47.9039° N · 91.8158° W · Minnesota
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