Overview
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In December 1940 the Baraboo-Devils Lake Recreation Club was building a ski slide on Alpine Hill near Devil's Lake State Park: a slope 1,000 feet long with a 176-foot drop, a rope tow driven by an electric motor, and a shelter house on a stone foundation. The Northwestern railway planned ski trains from Chicago.1,2,4
Read the whole historyTodayNear the top of the old run, by the Johnson Moraine trail, a pulley from the rope tow still hangs on a leaning tree.1,3
Timeline
4 events · swipe
Memories
Skied Windy City Ski Club/Devil's Lake, 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 Windy City Ski Club/Devil's Lake
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- Opened 1954 · 7.1 mi away · WisconsinA small ski hill between Sauk City and Baraboo, first called Suicide Hill, that opened in 1954 and was gone by about 1971.
- Years not yet collected · 12.1 mi away · WisconsinA small ski hill with a J-bar on the Lakeland Hills golf course in Lodi, which MWLSAP dates, with question marks, to about 1972–1974.
- 1966–1982 · 23.1 mi away · WisconsinA ski area two miles west of Arena, about 30 miles northwest of Madison, that MWLSAP dates from 1966 to 1982.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 4 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
In December 1940 the Baraboo-Devils Lake Recreation Club was building a ski slide on Alpine Hill near Devil's Lake State Park: a slope 1,000 feet long with a 176-foot drop, a rope tow driven by an electric motor, and a shelter house on a stone foundation. The Northwestern railway planned ski trains from Chicago. By February 1941 the new slide was drawing hundreds of skiers, many brought by a snow train from Chicago and Milwaukee.1,2,4
A geocache page about the site says the club's members were Baraboo businessmen who leased the land, and that the lease later passed to the Windy City Ski Club, a Chicago group. The Midwest Lost Ski Areas Project's last mention of skiing there is from 1963; it puts the drop at 300 to 350 feet, probably 230. The Windy City lease ran out in 1970. The land was then bought under the Devil's Lake master plan, and the buildings and equipment were removed.1,3
TodayNear the top of the old run, by the Johnson Moraine trail, a pulley from the rope tow still hangs on a leaning tree.1,3
Sources for this history (4)
- 1Midwest Lost Ski Areas Project · Windy City Hill (also called Devil's Lake - Windy City Ski Club and Alpine Hill) — Wisconsin
- 2Baraboo News Republic (via Midwest Lost Ski Areas Project) · Winter Sports Abound Here Over Week-end
- 3Geocaching.com · Devil's Lake Downhill (GC2RK8J)
- 4Baraboo News Republic (via Midwest Lost Ski Areas Project) · Ski Slide To Be Ready Soon
Photos
No photographs of Windy City Ski Club/Devil's Lake 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 Windy City Ski Club/Devil's Lake, in their own words.
Facts
Location
43.4359° N · 89.7168° W · Wisconsin
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
from 1941 · 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 2all 2, in one list
Terrain contours: USGS 3D Elevation Program, public domain