Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
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Sylvan Hill grew out of Wausau parkland. WSAW's 2022 history says the parks department acquired 46 acres in 1964; a 2021 WSAW story says the city bought the land in 1969, hoping to build a ski hill.1,2,3
Read the whole historyTodaySylvan Hill runs as a tubing hill in winter and is also used for mountain biking.1,5
Timeline
4 events · swipe
Memories
Skied Sylvan Hill, 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 Sylvan Hill
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- 1968–1986 · 30.9 mi away · WisconsinA rope-tow ski area near Gleason in north central Wisconsin, later called Silver Valley, that ran from 1968 to 1986.
- 1963–1979 · 61.2 mi away · WisconsinA club-run rope-tow hill east of New London that Mo-Ski-Tow Inc. built to replace its Mosquito Hill slope; it closed after the 1978–79 season.
- 1954–1978 · 63.5 mi away · WisconsinA small ski area in the Nicolet National Forest east of Three Lakes, run with the Northernaire resort, that MWLSAP dates from 1954 to 1978.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 5 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Sylvan Hill grew out of Wausau parkland. WSAW's 2022 history says the parks department acquired 46 acres in 1964; a 2021 WSAW story says the city bought the land in 1969, hoping to build a ski hill. The chalet opened in 1971, and in 1973 the park opened for skiing, with a toboggan run. The Midwest Lost Ski Areas Project gives the hill a 90-foot vertical.1,2,3
The parks department's recreation superintendent told WSAW that Sylvan Hill held on through the mid-1970s to early 1980s, when a bill in the state Senate threatened insurance trouble and many Wisconsin hills shut down. The cost of running a ski hill later led to its conversion: crews reshaped the slope over a summer, and the Wausau Daily Herald reported the new tubing hill opening on January 24, 2003. WSAW dates the change to 2003, and MWLSAP marks that year with question marks.2,3,4
TodaySylvan Hill runs as a tubing hill in winter and is also used for mountain biking.1,5
Sources for this history (5)
- 1WSAW-TV · Your Town Greater Wausau Area: Sylvan Tubing Hill remains a winter staple in Wausau (Ben Helwig, December 10, 2021) — WSAW-TV
- 2WSAW-TV · Your Town Wausau: The history of Sylvan Hill (Tony Langfellow and Jade Flury, December 6, 2022) — WSAW-TV
- 3Midwest Lost Ski Areas Project · Sylvan Hill Park — Wisconsin
- 4Wausau Daily Herald (via Midwest Lost Ski Areas Project) · New tubing hill opens tonight (Jessica Bock)
- 5Skimap.org · Sylvan Hill
Photos
No photographs of Sylvan Hill 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 Sylvan Hill, in their own words.
Facts
Location
44.9869° N · 89.6075° W · Wisconsin
OpenStreetMap still maps 1 lift and 6 downhill runs here; OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
from 1973 · 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