Snow Bluff Ski & Fun Area

Snow Bluff Ski and Fun Area near Brighton, Missouri, first billed as Snow Bluff Ski Area, sat on Missouri 13 above the Sac River in Polk County, about 12 miles north of Springfield. Bill and Becki Durbin of Morrisville, who ran a contracting business, built it in 1988. They had taken up skiing a few years earlier, after a gift trip sent them to lessons near St. Louis before a vacation in Colorado. That summer bulldozers cut runs down a rocky, wooded hill, and the couple aimed to open in December.

A chairlift of about 600 feet, named Pony Express, carried skiers over the bluff the area was named for to a summit stop called Eagle Rock, and a rope tow served the beginner slopes. The Midwest Lost Ski Areas Project lists the vertical drop as 147 feet. Snowmaking covered the slopes, the hill was lit for night skiing, and the day lodge held rentals and a first aid station. The opening brochure named the runs Easy Way, Mom's Hope, Tumble Bug, Dreamer, Short Cut, Slippery Rock, Go For It and Overflow, and billed the place as the only downhill skiing in the Ozarks.

By the late 1990s the trail map showed a tube hill beside the ski runs, and summer brought go-carts, a driving range and miniature golf. In winter the area employed as many as 70 people. Three mild winters in a row ended the skiing. The Durbins told the Springfield Business Journal they were spending about $5,000 a month making snow that would not hold, and they closed the ski area in the spring of 2000 and put a paintball course in its place. The summer business carried on as the Snow Bluff Fun Area.