Pieces of metro Atlanta are emerging from the next storm this month. My companion Sarah Anderson wrote on Wednesday about how strange this past wind was. Snow is very unusual around here, and we get two winter activities in two weeks about after a century or so.
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Looking out at the winter in my garden reminded me of a day when Atlanta had its own mountain slope— and low, I’m not making this up. Lots of people in Atlanta like to go snowboarding. Church youth organizations take little skiing trips most times, and I know people who make journeys to places like Breckenridge, Colo. , and Winterplace, W. Va. , to reach the cliffs. But riding in Atlanta? For a small, shining time in the ‘70s, it was feasible.
Some daring folks put a false snow slope on a hill in Vinings, an upward mobile suburb north of Atlanta. The issue about Vinings Ridge Ski Area was that it did n’t depended on Atlanta’s unique winters. A 1978 outline of the snow hill explains:
Sultry 70 education conditions no longer brings tears to the eye of the deep South skier: He is often mountain cheap.
This year-round challenge awaits at Vinings Ridge, tucked into a condominium’s backyard just inside Atlanta’s perimeter highway. No snow worries here-skiing is done on a semi-soft Astroturf surface covered with small polyethylene beads. If nature doesn’t provide periodic moisture, management turns on the sprinklers and the beads become ball bearings. The more water, the faster you can ski.
That’s right: people skied on synthetic turf and plastic. That’s about as ‘70s as you can get. Atop the hill was a three-story ski lodge including the Cuckoo’s Nest restaurant on the top floor.
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Moisture would turn these plastic pellets into ball bearings, making skiing more exciting. If it did n’t rain, the management would simply turn on the sprinklers to wet the pellets. Best of all, skiers did n’t have to wait for sub-freezing temperatures; they could ski all year long. Unfortunately, employees would have to rake the pellets back up the hill a few times each week.
“The Vinings Ridge area was already known for its natural spring, making it a popular weekend escape, ” writes Brent Thomas at Snow Brains. “ When the ski slope was added, it offered an even more enticing attraction. Though unconventional, the synthetic slope allowed Atlanta residents to ski without the drive to more distant resorts. ”
At 780 feet, Vinings Ridge created challenges for experienced skiers, but it was also a good way for novices to learn how to ski without booking an expensive trip to the mountains. The lodge offered a place for people to gather and have fun. It was inexpensive as well. For$ 6 adults could rent equipment and get a lift ticket, and if you were 15 or younger, it only cost$ 4.
Flashback: Atlanta’s’Snowpocalypse ‘: 10 Years Ago This Weekend
Stories of Vinings Ridge Ski area abound on places like Reddit, but I asked some friends and family for personal stories. My cousin Kevin did n’t disappoint.
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“ I only went over there one time, ” Kevin said. “We snuck in. I mean it wasn’t open. We went over there. It was like I guess 10 or 11o’clock at night. And we took some cardboard. ”
Does n’t that sound like a simpler time? You could n’t get away with anything like that today.
Kevin continued:
I guess there were four or five of us. There may have been six. Anyhow, we’re sliding down those silicone balls. And so then the next day I spent the night at a friend’s house. And the next morning I still had on those clothes.
I went over to an apartment complex to see a girl and I’m going back to where her apartment was. And so I get ready to turn into my parking space. And I was using my right arm, you know, like you turn the wheels, and I went slow flying across the car into the passenger seat. And all of a sudden, it was like I was still on those ski slopes. I flew over to the passenger seat.
And I hit this truck that was parked there. I hit it hard enough to knock the transmission loose. I wasn’t flying. I was only turning in there about three or four miles an hour, whipping into that parking place. I thought it probably did$ 1,500 worth of damage to that truck. And$ 500 or$ 600 damage to my car.
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A few days later when talking to his friends, Kevin realized that the plastic pellets had made his clothes slick enough to slide around on the vinyl car seat.
The novelty of Vining Ridge Ski Area waned, and interest dwindled. The ski slope only stayed in business for a few years. The area is a neighborhood now in a bustling commercial area.
The area has grown so much that Vinings and a couple of other suburbs have bled together that it ’s hard to tell where one city ends and another begins. But for a brief period in the ‘70s, Vinings was home to a bourgeoning ski scene in Atlanta.
