Trestle Valley Ski Area
Minot, North Dakota1974-1983
Order Trestle Valley Ski Area tees, long sleeve tees, hoodies and crewnecks. The hill took its name from the steel trestle next door, which stands more than 100 feet above the creek in Gassman Coulee and still carries trains. Its trail map gave the runs playful cartoon-style names, and in 1982 a weekday lift ticket was $6. Pick a style below, then read the full Trestle Valley history further down. Down Home Apparel is an American small business remembering the best places and teams of yesteryear, and every shirt is printed to order in the USA.
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Trestle Valley Ski Area History
Trestle Valley Ski Area near Minot, North Dakota, sat about five miles west of town, south of Highway 2-52 at County Road 17, in the hills along Gassman Coulee. It took its name from the steel railroad trestle that crosses the coulee next door, built in 1899 to replace a wooden span the wind knocked down the year before. The trestle runs about a third of a mile and stands more than 100 feet above the creek, and trains still cross it.
The ski area started when Minot leaders let it be known the city wanted someone to build and run a winter recreation business, and a group of local men answered. Two of them did most of the pushing: Dudley Zimmerman, a Minot businessman, and Gary Leslie, the gymnastics coach at Minot State. They formed a corporation in 1974. Zimmerman looked over hills near Donnybrook and Sawyer from an airplane before settling on the coulee, where the slopes gave close to 200 feet of vertical, and the group leased the land.
They built a $70,000 two-story chalet with a big fireplace, a snack bar and windows facing the hill, plus a rental shop, a ski patrol room and a certified ski school. A high-speed T-bar and a Poma lift served the main slopes, a rope tow ran in the beginner area, and snowmaking covered most of the runs. There was night skiing, and about 10 miles of cross-country trails wound through the coulees behind the hill. The trail map listed runs called Sunnyside, Bunny, Boogie, Hot Dog, Ridge Run, Cutoff, Cat's Meow and Red Baron. In 1982 an all-lift ticket was $6 on weekdays and $8 on weekends, and skiers came from Minot, Minot Air Force Base and as far as Bismarck.
Weather decided the rest. In 1978 a warm spell melted the whole base within a week and drained the investors, and more mild winters followed. Trestle Valley closed in 1983. A Minot newspaperman writing in 1986 counted it as a costly letdown, though plenty of people around Minot learned to ski there.