The story of Valley Schuss really starts with two men: Lloyd Edwards and Harold Carefoot Senior. After a ski trip in the Hockley Valley back in 1960, the pair decided to try to get into the ski area business. To start, they bought 100 acres of land on the upper half of what would become Valley Schuss. The lower 100 acres were leased from a local couple for the first two years of operation, and eventually Valley Schuss bought 96 of those acres from the couple, who retained four for their home.
In May of 1960, the contract for a Poma detachable platter was signed. Edwards and Carefoot walked up the mountain to pick the best spot for where to install the Poma. This lift was very unique for the time as it featured a mid-turn around a third of the way up the line. This bend in the platter caused Valley Schuss many headaches over the years and it frequently suffered from mechanical issues.
In 1960 the ski hill officially opened. There were only three runs for that first year: Murray's Run, Windigo, and Caribou. Unfortunately, the first season was a disaster. There was limited snowfall and the upper part of the ski area was prone to wind blowing all the snow away. To combat this, Murray Edwards along with Ross Lennox and Jane Lennox Wilson planted over 20,000 trees over the span of three years to help protect the snow from the wind. These trees are now still at Valley Schuss and are very mature.
The ski area hired Hans Hinderseer, an Austrian, as the general manager. Hans came up with the name Valley Schuss, as Hockley Valley had already been taken as another ski resort name. Hans helped lead the ski area in its early days and left his mark on the resort by overseeing the construction of a small ski jump. Though this jump was removed later on, the ski area continued to bear the name "the Jump" until its closure.
In 1962, Valley Schuss constructed a T-bar next to the parking lot, servicing additional beginner terrain. The T-bar was more for public exposure as the main ski resort was mostly hidden from the road. This T-bar was custom built by Lloyd Edwards, who worked with a local machine shop to fabricate the lift. In the latter 1960s much of the lift was overhauled by Skyway, with the top terminal remaining the same for many years.
The original lodge was a simple building with insulation showing on the ceilings and steel truss beams supporting the roof. The interior was simply painted sheets of plywood, cut thin. However, the lodge had a massive fireplace with the rocks coming from an old barn that used to stand on the property. This lodge was continually expanded throughout the ski area's operation and proved to be the perfect base of operations for the resort.
Valley Schuss had a Bombardier snow remover with two tracks, with a roller attached on the back of the machine to provide a groomed snow surface. This machine was not designed to crawl up and down ski slopes and suffered from many mechanical issues. It was eventually replaced in the 1970s with a newer Tucker groomer.
In the late 1960s, Lloyd Edwards built a homemade snowmaking system to help the hill open more reliably. This homemade system eventually gave way in 1970 to a more modern SMI system. It was a small system with only around 5 guns and around 12 pumps, but it was able to cover critical trails and did help the ski area operate during lean years.
1970 was also when Valley Schuss replaced the old Poma with a modern Skyway T-bar. The Poma had been suffering from many mechanical issues thanks to the turn station and only had a capacity of 800 skiers per hour. The new Skyway T-bar traveled in a straight line and had a capacity of 1,200 people per hour. Because this lift traveled up a side hill, significant terrain movement was required as well as the construction of a skier bridge under the T-bar.
1974 saw the construction of a second T-bar, relocated from the defunct Twin Hearth ski area. This T-bar was homemade and provided a secondary out-of-base option for skiers wishing to ski the harder runs of Valley Schuss. Additionally, a wire handle tow was installed that serviced a new black run called Cheetah. The wire tow was also relocated from the defunct Twin Hearth ski area.
While Valley Schuss was a good ski area, the hill was not financially solid. By the mid-1970s, both Lloyd Edwards and Harold Carefoot Senior had realized that either they needed to sell the hill or face bankruptcy. The Toronto Ski Club had increasingly been utilizing Valley Schuss as a quieter hill for members only. Thus in 1980 the Toronto Ski Club bought out Valley Schuss and privatized the mountain to be membership only, ending the public's access to Valley Schuss.
In November of 1980, a fire started in the base lodge. This fire was caused by a plumber who left a blowtorch on while completing base lodge renovations. The ski lodge had been recently expanded, with the Toronto Ski Club planning to build a massive new lodge on the site. Unfortunately, the fire gutted most of the building, causing over $500,000 worth of damage. This was a massive loss for Valley Schuss. The ski area put up a temporary trailer serving small drinks and snacks and even managed to open for the 1980-81 ski season. However, after that they permanently closed the ski area. The lifts were removed by Lloyd Edwards, who sold them off to other ski areas.
While the runs have all grown in quite a bit today, those 20,000 pine trees planted by Murray Edwards still stand as a testament to the history of the land. Valley Schuss was a part of the vibrant Orangeville ski scene and for many years it served its area well. If events had unfolded differently, perhaps Valley Schuss would still be around today, but it is inspiring to understand the legacy of these two men who took a deep dive into the unknown to build a ski hill from nothing.
Source: Skimap.org
Year: 2023 (Recreation by Harold Carefoot)
Valley Schuss featured a 325-foot vertical drop and around 15 ski runs. Despite the limited vertical drop, it skied like a bigger mountain than it was thanks to the many small ridges and gullies that varied the experience. Generally the east side of the resort was easier to ski than the west, with the four main intermediate runs off the Skyway T-bar featuring an open bowl-like feel near the top before dropping into a gladed forest near the bottom. Murray's Run and Windigo were among the most recognizable trails at the resort, starting with a solid intermediate pitch before descending into steeper and more narrow woods near the bottom. By far the most interesting trail was Cheetah, a steep and wooded black run that left no room for error and was so challenging it had its own dedicated rope tow to access it, with no easy way down.