Lost ski areaIdahoBlackfoot MountainsRocky Mountains
Taylor Mountain
Closed after the 1979 season. A 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.
Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
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Skiers used tows on Taylor Mountain, southeast of Idaho Falls, by the late 1940s: a December 1947 article named two men running them and local skiers pressing for a road. One Idaho Falls family recalled helping build a rope tow that climbed the hill in four stages, with no charge to ride.1,2
Read the whole historyTimeline
5 events · swipe
Memories
Skied Taylor Mountain, 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 Taylor Mountain
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- Closed 1971 · 33.1 mi away · IdahoA 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.
- Closed 1986 · 38 mi away · IdahoA small ski area just east of Pocatello that shut down in 1986.
- Closed 1985 · 65.2 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.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 3 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Skiers used tows on Taylor Mountain, southeast of Idaho Falls, by the late 1940s: a December 1947 article named two men running them and local skiers pressing for a road. One Idaho Falls family recalled helping build a rope tow that climbed the hill in four stages, with no charge to ride.1,2
Rex Meikle built the ski area proper in 1959, with a Poma lift, a rope tow, a lodge and rentals, and the local paper photographed it as a new area in January 1960. Vandals damaged it in 1972 and it closed. Lou Miniver bought it in 1975, rebuilt the day lodge and added two double chairlifts, two more rope tows and night skiing. Ski the Great Potato lists a 5,040-foot base, 800 feet of vertical and a last season in 1979. By 1993 the Associated Press counted it among Idaho's closed small hills.1,3
Sources for this history (3)
- 1Ski the Great Potato (Trailguide Books) · Taylor Mountain
- 2Teton Valley Magazine · A Skiing Heritage (Karen Russell, November 1, 2015)
- 3The Lewiston Tribune · Small skiing operations closing (Associated Press, December 12, 1993)
Photos
No photographs of Taylor Mountain 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 Taylor Mountain, in their own words.
Facts
Location
43.3294° N · 111.9292° W · Idaho · Blackfoot Mountains
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
until 1979 · the year it opened is not yet collected
Closed after the 1979 season. It stays here as part of the record of U.S. ski areas.
Its numbers
all 2all 2, in one list
Terrain contours: USGS 3D Elevation Program, public domain