Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
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Mont Bleu, also written Mount Bleu or Mont Bleau, was on Blue Mound, a hill just east of Lawrence and south of Highway K-10. The Midwest Lost Ski Areas Project counts it as Kansas's first ski area and dates it from 1965; a 1978 newspaper put its opening in the early 1960s, and a 1994 skiers' newsletter and SnowBrains say about 1968.1,2,3,4
Read the whole historyTimeline
5 events · swipe
Memories
Skied Mont Bleau, 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 Mont Bleau
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- 1988–2000 · 142.4 mi away · MissouriA small ski area on bluffs above the Sac River near Brighton, north of Springfield, built by a local couple and open from 1988 to 2000.
- Opened 1964 · 144.5 mi away · MissouriA small resort ski area at Tan-Tar-A on the Lake of the Ozarks, opened in 1964 with snowmaking and last advertised around 1981.
- 1980–1996 · 158.8 mi away · NebraskaA small chairlift ski area by Interstate 80 near Gretna, between Omaha and Lincoln, open from 1980 as Trail Ridge and later as NebraSki until 1996.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 6 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Mont Bleu, also written Mount Bleu or Mont Bleau, was on Blue Mound, a hill just east of Lawrence and south of Highway K-10. The Midwest Lost Ski Areas Project counts it as Kansas's first ski area and dates it from 1965; a 1978 newspaper put its opening in the early 1960s, and a 1994 skiers' newsletter and SnowBrains say about 1968. It had 230 feet of vertical, a T-bar and a rope tow.1,2,3,4
It never turned a profit. Walter Klammer, a Kansas City engineer, bought it in 1975 and leased about 15 acres with a building for a ski lounge and restaurant. Short of financing, he could not stay open a full season: in 1977 the area ran from January 15 to February 21 and drew 1,000 to 1,300 skiers, and in early 1978 seven snow guns built a base on its 1,500-foot run.3
Sources agree it closed in 1983; SnowBrains points to unreliable snow and rising costs. In 1986 K.C. Ski Co. drew up plans for a new $1 million area on the same hill, with four trails and two lifts, won a county permit and sought Wakarusa River water for snowmaking. No source read says it was built.1,2,4,5,6
Sources for this history (6)
- 1Midwest Lost Ski Areas Project · Kansas Lost Ski Areas
- 2Colorado Ski History · Colorado Skiers Newsletter, Lost Areas #14 (March 24, 1994)
- 3The Wichita Beacon · Engineer takes 'Ski Kansas' seriously (The Wichita Beacon, February 6, 1978; scan on MWLSAP)
- 4SnowBrains · 4 American States You Can't Ski in Anymore (Joseph Kaufmann, SnowBrains, July 20, 2026)
- 5United Press International · Ski Kansas? (UPI, June 27, 1986)
- 6Lawrence Journal-World · 25 years ago: Lawrence ski resort seeks water source for snow machines (Lawrence Journal-World, August 2, 2011)
Photos
No photographs of Mont Bleau 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 Mont Bleau, in their own words.
Facts
Location
38.9080° N · 95.1816° W · Kansas
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
1965–1983
Closed after the 1983 season. It stays here as part of the record of U.S. ski areas.
Its numbers
all 4all 4, in one list
Terrain contours: USGS 3D Elevation Program, public domain