Overview
Look around
Loading the ground…
Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
Counting who skied it…
Vinings Ridge Ski Area offered skiing without snow in Vinings, a suburb just northwest of Atlanta. Its slope, 780 feet long and about 60 feet wide, was laid with white synthetic turf and small plastic pellets that rolled under the skis, and sprinklers wet the surface to keep it fast.1,2,3,4,5
Read the whole historyTodayThe site is a residential neighborhood, with no trace of the slope. (2025)2,3
Timeline
2 events · swipe
Memories
Skied Vinings Ridge, 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 Vinings Ridge
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- 1969–2004 · 101.5 mi away · GeorgiaGeorgia's only ski area: five runs and a chairlift at the Sky Valley resort in Rabun County, from about 1969 until 2004 or 2005.
- Closed 2004 · 104.1 mi away · North CarolinaA small family-run ski hill in Scaly Mountain, western North Carolina, that ended downhill skiing after 2003–04 and turned to snow tubing.
- 1969–1978 · 142 mi away · TennesseeA ski area on Renegade Mountain, off the Crab Orchard exit of Interstate 40 east of Crossville, that ran from 1969 to 1978.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 6 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Vinings Ridge Ski Area offered skiing without snow in Vinings, a suburb just northwest of Atlanta. Its slope, 780 feet long and about 60 feet wide, was laid with white synthetic turf and small plastic pellets that rolled under the skis, and sprinklers wet the surface to keep it fast. A three-story lodge held a ski shop and a rooftop restaurant, and the slope looked out over the Atlanta skyline.1,2,3,4,5
It lasted only a few years in the late 1970s; a trail map from 1978 survives. Later accounts say the novelty faded, the artificial surface cost too much to keep up, and many skiers chose to drive to real snow in the southern Appalachians instead.2,3,5,6
TodayThe site is a residential neighborhood, with no trace of the slope. (2025)2,3
Sources for this history (6)
- 1The Atlanta 100 · Vinings' Ski Slope (Caroline Parsley, April 26, 2016)
- 2PJ Media · The Quintessentially '70s Story of Atlanta's Ski Slope (Chris Queen, January 23, 2025)
- 3SnowBrains · Did You Know There Used to Be an Unconventional Ski Area in the Suburbs of Atlanta, GA? (Brent Glogau, June 30, 2025)
- 4The Atlanta Journal-Constitution · A 780-foot ski slope in Vinings? That's right (Gwyn Herbein, July 29, 2015)
- 5SnowBrains · 5 American States You Can't Ski in Anymore (July 20, 2026)
- 6Skimap.org · Vinings Ridge
Photos
No photographs of Vinings Ridge 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 Vinings Ridge, in their own words.
Facts
Location
33.8628° N · 84.4727° W · Georgia
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
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.
No figures from its operating years are collected yet.
Terrain contours: USGS 3D Elevation Program, public domain