Lost ski areaIdahoSnake River RangeRocky Mountains
Pine Basin
Closed after the 1971 season. A ski area on the Swan Valley side of Pine Creek Pass, known for a radio station's ski school that bused in eastern Idaho children, which shut down in 1971.
Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
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Pine Basin sat just over Pine Creek Pass from Teton Valley, on the Swan Valley side. Teton Valley Magazine credits Dan Kelly and Jim Brady of KIFI Radio in Idaho Falls with building it, paid for by selling stock in a Pine Basin Corporation; a 2018 column, drawing on the book Ski the Great Potato, says a potato farmer founded it.1,2
Read the whole historyTodayThe lodge still stands at the base of the hill, and backcountry skiers occasionally ski the overgrown runs. (2018)1,2
Timeline
2 events · swipe
Photos
Memories
Skied Pine Basin, 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 Pine Basin
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- Closed 1979 · 33.1 mi away · IdahoA family ski hill about 16 miles southeast of Idaho Falls, with tows from the 1940s and a ski area that ran 1959–1972 and 1975–1979.
- Closed 1985 · 43.4 mi away · IdahoA small Forest Service ski hill east of Ashton, Idaho's second ski area after Sun Valley, that ran from about 1940 until the 1984–85 winter.
- Closed 1986 · 68.2 mi away · IdahoA small ski area just east of Pocatello that shut down in 1986.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 2 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Pine Basin sat just over Pine Creek Pass from Teton Valley, on the Swan Valley side. Teton Valley Magazine credits Dan Kelly and Jim Brady of KIFI Radio in Idaho Falls with building it, paid for by selling stock in a Pine Basin Corporation; a 2018 column, drawing on the book Ski the Great Potato, says a potato farmer founded it. Its runs included Trapper and Fools Paradise.1,2
For close to 20 years KIFI ran a ski school there, which grew through the 1950s; Teton Valley schoolchildren were also bused over for lessons. In its last season, 1971, more than a dozen buses brought up to 500 children a day to 20 to 35 instructors. It shut down that year, and saplings later grew over the cut runs.1,2
TodayThe lodge still stands at the base of the hill, and backcountry skiers occasionally ski the overgrown runs. (2018)1,2
Sources for this history (2)
- 1Teton Valley Magazine · A Skiing Heritage (Karen Russell, November 1, 2015)
- 2Jackson Hole News&Guide · Finding lively turns at a ghost ski resort (Cy Whitling, Mountain Mumbles, March 21, 2018)
Photos
No photographs of Pine Basin 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 Pine Basin, in their own words.
Facts
Location
43.5237° N · 111.3273° W · Idaho · Snake River Range
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
until 1971 · the year it opened is not yet collected
Closed after the 1971 season. 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