Mt. Le'Bett Ski Area

Mt. Le'Bett Ski Area near Coleman, Wisconsin, sat on Brown's Hill above Rost Lake in Oconto County, five miles west of Coleman on County Trunk B and about 40 miles north of Green Bay. The name sounds French but is a contraction of the owners' first names, Leland and Betty Webster of Two Rivers, where Leland was a vice president of the family's Crescent Woolen Mills. Their children took up downhill skiing in 1963, and in 1964 the Websters bought the hill during a summer stay at the lake. They opened for skiing in 1965.

The family did the work themselves, with help from friends back in Two Rivers. They bulldozed ravines into runs, groomed the main hill, strung rope tows and built an A-frame chalet at the base that later grew to hold a ski shop, a bar and an open circular firepit. The hill started with five runs and two tows and grew to ten runs on three rope tows, with a 300-foot vertical by the area's own count and runs up to 1,500 feet long. Narrow ravines, some only 14 feet wide, branched off the open slopes. The trail map named runs Dragon's Tail, Logger's Lane, Wizard's Run, Old 64 and Cannon Bowl and promised Slopes to Challenge the Expert.

Night skiing lit some of the slopes, and the trail map said skiers could see the lights of Lena, Coleman and Pound from the hill. The Websters added a toboggan run and sledding hill on a smaller hill next door, an ice rink, ski touring on a second 60 acres, and a 5-kilometer groomed trail that joined a loop around Rost Lake. In 1982 adults paid $8 for a day ticket.

The family ran Mt. Le'Bett until 1985, and Leland and Betty then retired. The land is private property today. The A-frame chalet still stands, and the old runs remain clear enough to pick out from the air, especially after the leaves drop.