Moon Valley Ski Area

Moon Valley Ski Area near Shakopee, Minnesota, sat on the north bluffs of the Minnesota River, directly across the river from Shakopee on the highway toward Minneapolis. In November 1937 the Minneapolis Star named it as one of two downhill courses being set up around Minneapolis that winter, each with an endless rope tow to pull skiers up the hill, and Moon Valley's tow was running by early 1938. MWLSAP gives the south-facing hill about 200 feet of vertical. Later listings gave its town as Chaska.

The hill grew up around its own club. By December 1938 the Moon Valley Ski Club met there every Monday night, held tests to sort members by ability, and planned to open the racing season with a slalom and downhill in January. That winter the area added lights over the whole valley, a new tow, and a chalet that served coffee and doughnuts, with Sepp Benedikter as instructor. In January 1941 the Moon Valley club swept the slalom races at a Ski Racing Council meet held on its own hill.

The chalet sat on top of the hill. A 1946 newspaper photo shows it with scalloped trim along the eaves and MOON VALLEY painted across the gable. The area was quiet during the war, and that winter the Minneapolis Tribune called it perhaps the best known of the Twin Cities ski clubs, with an open race for every club in the area, a costume party and a Hollywood producer coming to film the racing. Marjorie Benedikter Bailey taught there. Skiers rode rope tows only, and a lodge sign by the stone fireplace once priced tow service at 50 cents for adults and 25 cents for children.

Moon Valley was still running in the 1960s. In 1964 skiers there tried out a new Minnesota-made bobsled, and a January 1967 snow report listed Moon Valley at Chaska with three inches of base and fair skiing. It did not last the decade: a November 1969 Minneapolis Tribune roundup of area ski hills reported that Moon Valley, near Shakopee, had closed the season before.