Lost ski areaCaliforniaPacific Northwest
Horse Mountain
Humboldt County's rope-tow ski hill on Horse Mountain, near Berry Summit on Highway 299, used from the late 1930s until it shut in the early 1980s.
Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
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Horse Mountain, now in the Six Rivers National Forest near Berry Summit on Highway 299, drew Humboldt County skiers from the late 1930s into the early 1980s. The Humboldt Ski Club, formed in 1937, began skiing at New Prairie in 1948, with a lodge about two miles south of Berry Summit and two rope tows.1
Read the whole historyTimeline
7 events · swipe
Memories
Skied Horse Mountain, 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 Horse Mountain
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- 1958–1978 · 86.4 mi away · CaliforniaA ski area on Mount Shasta's south side, at the end of the Everitt Memorial Highway, that opened in 1958–59 and ended when an avalanche wrecked its chair in 1978.
- Closed 1994 · 118.7 mi away · CaliforniaThe ski area inside Lassen Volcanic National Park, near the southwest entrance and Sulphur Works, which grew from 1930s rope tows to a triple chair and closed in 1994.
- Years not yet collected · 137.2 mi away · OregonA small, low-elevation ski hill on Tomahawk Mountain near Rocky Point in Klamath County, whose slopes now carry a zipline course.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 2 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Horse Mountain, now in the Six Rivers National Forest near Berry Summit on Highway 299, drew Humboldt County skiers from the late 1930s into the early 1980s. The Humboldt Ski Club, formed in 1937, began skiing at New Prairie in 1948, with a lodge about two miles south of Berry Summit and two rope tows. Smaller groups, among them Bill Hilfiker and friends and Humboldt State students, rigged tows of their own.1
After the county began plowing the road to the top of Horse Mountain, the club moved up there in 1958. In 1962 Dr. Jack Walsh took over the permits and ran the area with his family. Its tows included his Ruby Creek tow, a quarter mile long, which the history calls the longest and steepest in the country. Power reached the mountain around 1966. With snow growing thin and too little income, the ski area shut down in the early 1980s.1
Timeline
- 1937Humboldt Ski Club founded as a nonprofit1
- 1948The club begins skiing at New Prairie, south of Berry Summit1
- 1958With the road plowed, the club moves to the mountaintop1
- 1962Dr. Jack Walsh takes over the permits and runs the area1
- c. 1966Electricity reaches the mountain1
- c. 1980The ski area shuts down in the early 1980s1
- 2024Approval given for an interpretive kiosk at Berry Summit2
Sources for this history (2)
- 1Lost Coast Outpost · HUMBOLDT HISTORY: Skiing Horse Mountain! (Deborah Baskette, from The Humboldt Historian, Summer 2016; reprinted January 13, 2024)
- 2Lost Coast Outpost · A New Monument at Berry Summit Will Honor the Horse Mountain Skiing Scene (September 11, 2024)
Photos
No photographs of Horse Mountain 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 Horse Mountain, in their own words.
Facts
Location
40.8747° N · 123.7309° W · California
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.
No figures from its operating years are collected yet.
Terrain contours: USGS 3D Elevation Program, public domain