Overview
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Lonesome Pines Ski Area stood on Big Black Mountain near the town of Lynch in eastern Kentucky. SnowBrains, in an article on states where skiing has disappeared, says it opened in 1972, had a vertical drop of 250 feet and ran for about ten years before closing around 1982, and calls it Kentucky's first ski area.1,2
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Photos
Memories
Skied Lonesome Pines Ski area, 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 Lonesome Pines Ski area
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- Years not yet collected · 85 mi away · North CarolinaA small chairlift ski area off Highway 105 between Boone and Linville, remembered from the late 1960s to about 1990, whose slopes are now community trails.
- Opened 1964 · 85.9 mi away · North CarolinaTwo small ski slopes at the Hound Ears Club near Boone, opened by the Robbins brothers in 1964 alongside a golf course.
- 1979–1982 · 102.1 mi away · KentuckyA small ski resort with three slopes and A-frame homes near Catlettsburg in Boyd County, Kentucky, that ran from 1979 through the 1982 season.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 2 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Lonesome Pines Ski Area stood on Big Black Mountain near the town of Lynch in eastern Kentucky. SnowBrains, in an article on states where skiing has disappeared, says it opened in 1972, had a vertical drop of 250 feet and ran for about ten years before closing around 1982, and calls it Kentucky's first ski area. Much of its history has been lost; warm, humid winters and unreliable snow are thought to have ended it. Skimap.org lists a Lonesome Pines ski area in Kentucky, with no maps.1,2
Sources for this history (2)
- 1SnowBrains · 5 American States You Can't Ski in Anymore (Joseph Kaufmann, SnowBrains, July 20, 2026)
- 2Skimap.org · Lonesome Pines Ski area
Photos
No photographs of Lonesome Pines Ski area 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 Lonesome Pines Ski area, in their own words.
Facts
Location
36.9671° N · 82.9287° W · Kentucky · Cumberland Mountains
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
from 1972 · 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 1all 1, in one list
Terrain contours: USGS 3D Elevation Program, public domain