MY SKI AREA PROJECT
I have always wanted to have my own little ski area, so I decided to build a portable rope tow this summer so I can take to whatever hill I want and ski for free!  I have found two small hills to start with this year and while I haven't found a way to make snow on them yet, I am working very hard to do it.  We have gotten our first snow, 10" in fact, and I just got back from testing the rope tow in my yard and riding at the hills.  The hills are great and my tow is almost ready to go!

THE ROPE TOW


Here I am getting a tow in my backyard on my homebuilt personal portable ropetow!
 
Heres the beast, powered by a 2hp motor and costing a total of about $75!

Heres a look down the tow, the rope blends in with the fence so its kinda hard to see but look closely and you can see the "A" frame of the other terminal in the distance.

Heres one of the pulleys on my makeshift towers.  I used these towers here but in the future they will be portable 10' tall foldable "A" frames with the pulley sticking off the top

Here I am riding the rope tow in my backyard on my "grass skis" I built especially for summer rope tow testing.

You can see that the tow is totally portable in this pic.  It rolls around like a wheel barrow.  In winter with skis!

Heres the bull wheel with a grove with the rope.  The groove is V shaped, the harder you pull, the harder it grips it!

Heres when I was building it in my garage.  Its wasn't quite yet mounted on the stand in the picture above.

Heres the rope tow setup over 100ft in my back yard.  It can be up to 300 ft long without tower on a good hill.

Heres testing it on my sloped driveway while riding my skateboard.  It was pretty sweet to see it finally work here.

THE HILLS


Heres a view of Hill #1, its perfect for a nice little jump about where that small tree is right in the center.  It also faces North and has trees to keep the snow for a long time.  Its tight up top but I have actually made some nice powder turns at the bottom after hitting the jump.

Heres a view of the upper Hill #1 more in the trees.  The tow will run along the right hand side and I will have my runway for the jump on the left!  Its hard to see but it actually goes quite a ways up there and is just wide enough to make small turns up high to control your speed.

Heres a view of Hill #2.  Its not that much of a drop but its a good place to take a few short (and I mean short, 200' total length) runs before the snow is melted.  The top is steeper and the bottom is gentle sloped till a little outside of the picture.

Heres a veiw from the top of Hill #2.  It faces South so any skiing is short lived but it does have some nice little features on the right side and a nice place for rails at the bottom.  There is even a little drop on the right side by the pavilion.  This picture was taken after the last good snowfall last year.

I will add more info as the winter progresses and I have a chance to snowboard at these spots and get some pictures up!

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