Lost ski areaOregonBlue MountainsPacific Northwest
Spout Springs
Closed after the 2018 season. A ski area in the Blue Mountains near Tollgate, in the Umatilla National Forest, with two double chairs; it has not run since the 2017–18 season.
Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
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Spout Springs lies beside Oregon Route 204 near Tollgate, in the Umatilla National Forest, midway between Weston and Elgin. The Blue Mountain Ski Club, founded in 1938 with members from southeastern Washington and northeastern Oregon, skied at Tollgate until 1946 and then moved to Spout Springs, where it helped put in a rope tow in the 1940s and a T-bar in 1959.1,3,4
Read the whole historyTimeline
7 events · swipe
Photos
Memories
Skied Spout Springs, 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 Spout Springs
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- Years not yet collected · 2.4 mi away · OregonThe Blue Mountain Ski Club's early rope-tow hill on Lookingglass Creek, about half a mile from Tollgate, used in the years before the club moved to Spout Springs.
- Years not yet collected · 27.7 mi away · OregonIts history isn’t written yet.
- 1948–1983 · 50.5 mi away · OregonThe Eagle Cap Ski Club's rope-tow hill on the west side of Wallowa Lake, at the end of today's Ski Run Road, used from 1948 until 1983.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 4 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Spout Springs lies beside Oregon Route 204 near Tollgate, in the Umatilla National Forest, midway between Weston and Elgin. The Blue Mountain Ski Club, founded in 1938 with members from southeastern Washington and northeastern Oregon, skied at Tollgate until 1946 and then moved to Spout Springs, where it helped put in a rope tow in the 1940s and a T-bar in 1959. The first public ski season came in 1956, and in 1959 the area's special use permit passed from the club to Spout Springs Lodge, Inc.1,3,4
Two fixed-grip double chairs served beginner and intermediate terrain with 530 feet of vertical; Wikipedia counts 17 trails, SnowBrains 13 runs and more than 20 miles of Nordic trails. John and Nancy Murray owned and ran it from 1999. It closed after the 2017–18 season, by Wikipedia's and SnowBrains' account (the Observer says 2016), in a dispute over snowmobilers parking in the ski area's lot, which Wikipedia says could not be insured. In November 2021 the Forest Service revoked the permit, and the facilities became federal property.1,2,4
On June 17, 2026, Umatilla County commissioners awarded the bid to redevelop the area to Trevor Abell, owner of Tollgate Crossing, whose plan aims to open some lifts and limited winter activities within about a year.2,4
Timeline
- c. 1940Blue Mountain Ski Club helps put in a rope tow1,3
- 1956First public ski season1,4
- 1959T-bar installed; permit passes to Spout Springs Lodge, Inc.1
- 1999John and Nancy Murray become owners and operators4
- 2018Closes after the 2017–18 season1,2
- 2021Forest Service revokes the permit in November1,4
- 2026County awards the redevelopment bid to Tollgate Crossing's owner2,4
Sources for this history (4)
- 1Wikipedia · Spout Springs Ski Area
- 2SnowBrains · New Operator Selected to Revive Spout Springs Ski Area, OR, With Plans for Year-Round Activities (Brent Glogau, June 21, 2026)
- 3Go! Magazine (Go Eastern Oregon) · Tollgate perches on top of the Blues (Jeff Petersen, April 19, 2023)
- 4The Observer (La Grande) · Tollgate Crossing owners look to breathe new life into Spout Springs Ski Area (Isabella Crowley, June 19, 2026)
Photos
No photographs of Spout Springs 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 Spout Springs, in their own words.
Facts
Location
45.7571° N · 118.0481° W · Oregon · Blue Mountains
OpenStreetMap still maps 2 lifts and 18 downhill runs here; OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
until 2018 · the year it opened is not yet collected
Closed after the 2018 season. It stays here as part of the record of U.S. ski areas.
Its numbers
all 5all 5, in one list
Terrain contours: USGS 3D Elevation Program, public domain