Minnesota's Buck Hill Making Improvements
The Gopher State's Buck Hill has been busy over the summer making a couple of upgrades for the coming season.
The biggest improvement is the addition of a new quad chairlift on the main slope replacing the ancient triple that was nearly a half-century old. It will improve uphill capacity greatly. It will also be able to take people back down the slope, which the old chairlift couldn't do. That will provide a big uplift to their off-season events, like weddings, that are held on top of the ski hill. The new chair is scheduled to be ready for the 2023/24 winter season. Another plus is that the support poles will take up less space than the old lift poles did, which will add additional terrain for skiing and snowboarding. They have also put a new ski patrol building on top of the hill, and it includes an area for visitors to overlook beautiful Crystal Lake.
They are in the process of auctioning off the old 52 triple chairs, which runs through Wednesday, October 25. The chairs are expected to be in high demand. They are part of the historic legacy of Buck Hill where World Cup ski racers Kristina Koznick and Lindsey Vonn learned to ski and race and spent a lot of time riding the old lift.
Buck Hill is known as the “Legendary Capital of American Ski Racing.” The ski hill with a 310-foot vertical, is well known throughout the Midwest. It offers 16 runs, three quad chairlifts counting the new lift, and seven surface lifts.
Skiers from Erich Sailer's legendary Buck Hill ski racing program, which he started in 1969, have won twelve World Cup Races, fifteen have made the U. S. Ski Team and four the U.S. Olympic Team. Today everyone knows of Buck Hills reputation and accomplishments. Sailer put the tiny ski area on the map.
