Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
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Ski Devil sat a quarter mile south of Fertile in Polk County, in the Red River valley. It was a community effort, backed by local investors: by March 1960 it offered an electrically heated chalet, six slopes and four rope tows.1,2,4
Read the whole historyTimeline
2 events · swipe
Memories
Skied Ski Devil, 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 Ski Devil
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- Years not yet collected · 25.2 mi away · MinnesotaA small rope-tow ski area northwest of Red Lake Falls in northwestern Minnesota, running from about 1960 until the late 1970s.
- 1953–1987 · 68.3 mi away · MinnesotaA family-run ski lodge resort on Deep Lake north of Park Rapids, with a hotel and restaurant, that offered skiing from 1953 to 1987.
- Closed 1973 · 70 mi away · MinnesotaA club-founded ski hill on South Lake Lida near Pelican Rapids, on land now in Maplewood State Park, that ran from the early 1950s into the early 1970s.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 4 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Ski Devil sat a quarter mile south of Fertile in Polk County, in the Red River valley. It was a community effort, backed by local investors: by March 1960 it offered an electrically heated chalet, six slopes and four rope tows. The Midwest Lost Ski Areas Project gives 1960 as its opening year.1,2,4
A statewide guide in the fall of 1971 still listed four rope tows, ten runs, a 700-foot longest run and a 150-foot vertical drop, open on weekends and holidays with a ski patrol and ski school. That is the last mention the project has found.1,3
Sources for this history (4)
- 1Midwest Lost Ski Areas Project · Ski Devil — Minnesota
- 2Star Tribune · Community Effort (ski item)
- 3Post-Bulletin · Skiing Variety Offered in Minnesota — Post-Bulletin (Rochester), November 12, 1971, p. 14 (clipping hosted by MWLSAP)
- 4Grand Forks Herald · Alf Eide obituary
Photos
No photographs of Ski Devil 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 Ski Devil, in their own words.
Facts
Location
47.5329° N · 96.3089° 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 3all 3, in one list
Terrain contours: USGS 3D Elevation Program, public domain