Recreating a long-lost Milwaukee ski hill, as the snow comes and goes
Blazing a solitary trail, where skiers once skied at Dretzka Park in northwest Milwaukee County.
WISCO 100: This is the third in a series of reports on 100 outdoor adventures across Wisconsin, spanning every corner of the state and embracing the broadest possible definition of adventure.
Climate scientists say an increase in the average global temperature of 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels would mean we’d finally reached the point of no return from our doomsday glide toward catastrophe of unknown proportions. Scientists also say we are well on our way to passing that 1.5-degree threshold, if we haven’t passed it already.
But I don’t recall any scientists eager to join me Feb. 11 as my fingers were turning to ice cubes inside my thick winter gloves. The temperature was in the teens but felt much colder on my winter walk around a portion of Dretzka Park in Milwaukee County’s far northwest corner. The National Weather Service informs me the day’s average (shifting to the Fahrenheit scale now) registered about seven degrees colder than the day’s norm for Milwaukee. Cold, colder. Normal, abnormal.
And yet, if this day was abnormal, it wasn’t just because of the cold. The ground was brown and bare. In most respects, this had been another mild winter like we’ve been having in recent years. Little snow had fallen so far, and none of it remained here on the shaggy hillside that formed part of Dretzka Park’s disc golf course. With sunset less than an hour away, I walked from the parking lot across a field and watched as a couple winter golfers had no problem hurling their discs up to one of the target baskets at the hilltop, framed by a stand of trees. A dark-eyed junco hopped around the tawny grass as I followed a path that curved to the left of the hill.
Dretzka Park, part of the chronically underfunded Milwaukee County Parks system, is named for Jerome Dretzka, a long-time parks commissioner from the mid-20th century. The park is probably best known, if it is known at all, for its 18-hole golf course (the dimpled ball kind, not the disc kind). But this park is different things to different people. Yes, there are the golf and disc golf courses. There’s also a driving range that looks across Interstate 41 to the Menomonee Falls landfill. On another field at Dretzka, a couple of uprights are an invitation to football practice, if anyone needs it. Dretzka is home to the Bus Shimek Championship Cross Country Course, which hosted the 1985 NCAA championship race and is still used for local high school meets. Cyclists can link from the park to the Oak Leaf Trail. And a rustic chalet is available to rent yearround for events of up to 100 people.
I had come here for none of those reasons. My interest was in what Dretzka didn’t offer — or rather what it no longer offered: a ski area.
“Four runs with longest 800 feet, 75-foot drop and four rope tows,” was the entirety of Dretzka Park’s description in a roundup of Wisconsin ski areas published by the Appleton Post-Crescent in January 1981. At that time, Milwaukee County also had diminutive ski hills at Currie Park and Whitnall Park, according to the newspaper clipping, which has been preserved and archived on a website called the Midwest Lost Ski Area Project. This intrigued me as a possible outdoor adventure. Could I find and recreate some of these long-lost downhill runs?
The tee at hole 20 of the Dretzka Park disc golf course offers a view down what once was a ski slope in the 1970s and 1980s.
Finding the former location of Dretzka Park’s ski area is super easy, especially when aided by another unofficial preservation and archival operation known as the Skiers and Snowboarders of the Midwest page on Facebook.
“I know when people think of Milwaukee you don't really think of ski areas. But the city actually ran a small ski hill at Dretzka Park,” the page’s administrator, Peter Brooks, posted back in 2022. “I know my parents skied there when they lived in Milwaukee. I'm thinking mid 70s.”
Other commenters posted present-day photos of the former ski slope, which appeared to have been sandwiched between the greens and fairways of the golf course. Some of the rope tows’ towers were still in tact, though ropeless, and a dilapidated shack at the top once served as the “wheel house.” You started at the top, skied down, caught the rope back up. Repeat, repeat, repeat.
Except I saw nothing of the sort on my frigid visit, no such evidence of a former ski area. No rope tow towers. No wheel house. Only the gentle contours of a potentially skiable slope. I still held out hope of skiing it myself. I own skis and boots but don’t use them nearly enough. With snow, one could get a bit of fun out of a downhill run at Dretzka. Maybe just a bit.
The real problem was Dretzka had no snow. At least not yet.
What goes down must hike up
It takes three things to ski. You need skis. Duh. And unless you create some sort of human slingshot, you will need gravity. Most importantly, you need a snowy downward-angled surface — so gravity can work its magic on you and your skis.
The gravity is free and plentiful, always.
The skis will cost you, and for most skiers, the necessary gear extends beyond the planks below your feet. A few years ago, I took the plunge and bought new skis for about $600, the boots for maybe $300. Helmets run about $100. I economized on the poles, finding them used. (My goggles were left over from a former life, and I still have yet to invest in snow pants.) Anyway, I justified the cost by telling myself this could be the last set of skis and boots I ever buy, and surely the money saved on rentals will pay off eventually. Because even rentals are expensive! And to rent, you need a ski area. That’s where the costs really ratchet up.
Lift tickets are what make ours a rich man’s sport. There are creative ways to trim costs, but only to a degree. You can buy discounted tickets online in advance. You can decide to ski only on Tuesdays or only at night. Or you can spend more money up front on a season pass, calculating that greater frequency will lower the average cost of each visit. If you are really serious about skiing, you can invest in an Indy Pass, which gets you “free” tickets and discounts on a lot of different ski areas. Or an Epic Pass or an Ikon Pass, which get you “free” tickets and discounts on a lot of other different ski areas. Restrictions apply, of course.
The many economical considerations are bound to make a skier dizzy enough to fall off the side of a double-black-diamond cliff! And then you’ve also got to pay for the ambulance trip to the hospital.
But pay you will. You can’t avoid the costs. You need a snowy downward-angled surface (see above) to ski, and most skiers settle for the snowy downward-angled surfaces that commercial ski areas maintain and sometimes have to create themselves with artificial snow.
Most ski hills in southeastern Wisconsin are of the modest 200-foot variety. Our family is most familiar with Sunburst Ski Area about 45 minutes north in Kewaskum. It’s completely adequate, not huge, and lift tickets max out at $70 if you wait and buy them on the day you ski. My three boys had a Monday off school in late January, which created an opportunity for a less-expensive ski outing. By buying tickets in advance online, I was able to get passes for the four of us plus three of their friends for $30 each, or $210. It was fun for that one Monday but not something I could afford to repeat on a regular basis.
Riding the rope tow at Sunburst Ski Area in late January.
I live by what you might call the Fugazi rule of skiing, in which any ticket that costs more than $5 feels like a ripoff. This may sound unrealistic, but growing up in western Massachusetts, I was on our high school ski team one winter, and for practices, our team got discounted evening tickets at Pittsfield’s Bousquet Ski Area. The team member cost: $5.
What if there was an even cheaper option — skiing for free? It exists. My mother and her siblings did it. They are the original inspiration for my outdoor adventure at Dretzka Park.
They grew up in western Massachusetts too and used to race with their ski team down Mount Greylock, the state’s tallest mountain, on a backcountry trail known as the Thunderbolt. I’ve hiked up the Thunderbolt in the summer, and it is brutally steep. In the winter, it becomes a snowy surface with an extreme downward angle and no easy way to the top, no ski lifts or rope tows. To ski it, they had to hike up in the snow.
I asked them about this recently in a family text thread.
“That was a time when ski-packing was our only option,” my Aunt Laurie said. “I can’t remember if we ever really got much skiing in, but we loved the whole experience.”
Even hiking up the Thunderbolt in the snow?!
“We did have to hike back up!” she said. “Don’t remember much about that part, but if you have enough people hiking up, you end up with a packed out staircase.”
“Yeah, Dave, I’m trying to recall,” my Uncle Pete said. “I haven’t thought about those days much. We did have to hike up. One year, Dad decided to try driving up. He was lucky. Normally the road wasn’t plowed in the winter.” This time it was, Pete said.
So on that day, while the rest of their ski team was still climbing up the hill, they were making their first pass down the Thunderbolt on their skis. A band of merry ski-packers.
Skiable, if you’re willing to work for it
Skiing for free appealed to my inner cheapskate and provided a motivation nearly as strong as my curiosity about the former ski hill at Dretzka Park. Unlike my mother’s family, I didn’t have to hike up the Thunderbolt to do it.
I just needed snow. The wait wasn’t long.
On Feb. 12, we got our first major storm of the season, 7.5 inches of the fresh stuff. Two days later, Valentine’s Day, 4 inches more snow fell. Perfect!
The next day, after clearing our driveway and sidewalk, I drove back up to Dretzka and parked the van in the mostly unplowed parking lot next to the disc golf course. No one was disc golfing in the snow, but several families were out sledding. I “ski-packed” up the hill with my skis, boots and poles. It felt warmer this time, despite the snow, and I had dressed in jeans and gray sweatshirt with comfort in mind and little thought of the conditions.
The county operated its ski hill at Dretzka during some or all of the 1970s and at least part of the 1980s. I wasn’t able to nail down more precise dates, but Allison Carlson with Milwaukee County Parks responded to my inquiry about Dretzka and provided a little more information. In particular, I had wondered about the decision to close the ski hill and the more recent removal of what was left of its infrastructure.
“The rope tow's motor building and towers were indeed still in place until last year,” Carlson said. “These structures were removed due to safety concerns as they were no longer viable and posed a danger to the public. The decision to discontinue the ski hill was influenced primarily by staffing constraints and budget considerations.”
An undated photo posted to Facebook by Milwaukee County Parks shows what the old ski hill looked like when it was a popular winter attraction equipped with rope tows.
It seems skiing is expensive at least partly because running a ski area is expensive. But I didn’t have that problem. Gravity required no season pass.
The sledders had taken over one of the former ski slopes, so after changing into my ski books and clicking into my skis, I pointed my tips away from them and another slope to the right. I began to glide, slowly. Without my poles, I might not have made it down the hill. This was a snowy downward-angled surface, yes, but its angle was rather shallow and the powdery snow wasn’t primed for speed. I coasted to a stop at the bottom and looked back wondering what to make of such a lackluster first run.
Clearly, groomed snow is a big benefit of skiing at a commercial ski area. And then there is the challenge of getting back to the top. I decided I would combine both challenges. I stomped up the hill sideways on my skis, trying to pack down the snow. Making slow, strenuous progress, I reached my starting point feeling physically depleted. But gravity now was in my favor once again. I followed the same path down, and with the snow somewhat packed, the glide felt at least somewhat faster.
This time, I hiked up the hill in my boots, lugging my skis on my shoulder. It still took a toll, and the Dretzka hill was only 75 feet. Had my aunt and uncle really climbed up the Thunderbolt this way? Was I doing something wrong? Should I have researched the uphill practice known as “skinning,” whatever that is?
By now, the sledders had gone home, so I tried skiing down their hill and in their well-packed tracks. That tactic allowed me to gain more velocity. No big thrill, but it was fun in its own way. If I had a groomer packing down the snow and a rope tow to haul me back up, I could imagine an afternoon of winter enjoyment here. Instead, I was ready to go home after a mere four runs in an hour.
When I was considering what uniquely Wisconsin outdoor adventures to pursue in the winter, skiing lost ski areas had an obvious appeal. I also had been keeping an eye on Bayfield’s tourism website, curious if and when the Lake Superior ice road to Madeline Island would open this season. The ferries to the island run as long as possible in the winter, until the ice gets too thick to break through. Then the ferries stop, and the solid ice becomes the road.
I checked Feb. 17 and found the ice road still closed, but a week later, the website had updated to say the road finally was open. Though I had no plans to drive up there, it was reassuring to see this winter finally becoming a bit more normal.
It didn’t last. On Feb. 27, the Madeline Island ice road was listed as closed again. Back here in the Milwaukee area, the temperatures were shifting to abnormally high numbers, and the snow was all gone, possibly never to return until next year.
On March 8, the Saturday afternoon sun felt like spring. I took out my bike for the first time. Temperature, 48. Abnormal.
On March 9, Liz and I drove with the boys to the lakefront for a three-mile walk with our dog. Some ice remained in the marina, and the wind was strong. But it again felt like spring. Temperature, 55. Abnormal.
On March 10, after work, I took the dog for another walk, this time around our neighborhood. Can you believe this weather we’re having?! Temperature, 65. Abnormal.
The same weekend, Sunburst Ski Area made an announcement: “As of today, we are officially closed for the season—but don’t worry, the countdown to the 25/26 Season starts now!”
I had spent part of that spring-like weekend cleaning out my garage. In the back corner, I hoisted my skis and hung them from a storage rack, feeling my ski season had ended before it ever really started.
— David Paulsen is a writer based in Wauwatosa. Drop him a note at dmpaulsen/at/gmail.com.