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10 Ridiculous Ski Resort Names

Double entendres galore! These are better than you can ever imagine...

You couldn’t make it up…

Last week, we came across a cracking find while rooting through the Whitelines cupboards – a poster for the resort of Wank in Germany. No, it’s not a Photoshop job created as internet comedy gold. Yep, Wank is a real place. It’s just too good to be true, right?

Luckily for us, Wank is not the only resort with an absurd name. We conducted a little research of our own and found a whole wealth of inappropriately named mountain resorts for the sniggering teenager within to titter at. Think of it as pre-formed pub chat, handed to you on a silver platter.

As you can imagine, Googling some of these places was a bit like a game of Minesweeper. You never know what dubious content is going to appear on your screen. So, don’t say we didn’t warn you…

1) Blue Knob, Pennsylvania, USA

Makes us feel cold just thinking about it. Photo: Blue Knob All Seasons Resort

Any dude reading this is likely to wince at the thought of Blue Knob. It’s hard to believe but this really is the name of the highest skiable mountain in Pennsylvania.

You’ll be pleased to hear, this mountain sits alongside Spruce Knob, Cattle Knob, Round Knob, Pine Knob and Ritchey Knob. And the river that runs along the base? Beaverdam Creek. Double entendre heaven.

2) Fucking, Austria

Quote from local police chief: “It’s very amusing for you British, but F***ing is simply F***ing to us. What is this big F***ing joke?” Photo: AOL Travel

Yes, the 800-year-old village of Fucking in Austria really does exist.

It’s thought American and British soldiers based in Salzburg during World War Two began venturing there to have their photo taken with the town’s road sign – causing great confusion among the local Austrian residents.

Theft-proof road signs have unsurprisingly now been installed along with CCTV cameras nearby to stop pesky foreign tourists from, well, y’know…

N.B. Technically, Fucking isn’t a snowboarding resort – it’s an hour and a half from the nearest slope – but we just couldn’t resist.

3) Crap Bar, Laax, Switzerland

Crap Bar: famed for their excellent toilets. Photo: Swiss Winter Sports

If you’re handed the oppourtunity to name a bar, you don’t want to make it sound, well, crap. Yet that is exactly what happened to the owners of Crap Bar in the Swiss resort of Laax.

One evening in 1996, Helmut von Foofont was deciding what to name his new business venture. Intoxicated on a combination of schnapps and firewater known as Samichlaus, Helmut decided to name his joint the Crap Bar after the influential English toilet entrepreneur Thomas Crapper. The rest, they say, is history.

N.B. We cannot confirm nor deny that there is any truth in the above story – nor can we reveal that it wasn’t made up by *ahem* us.

(If you want the real story behind the name, it’s actually named after the base of the mountain on which it stands, namely Crap Sogn Gion. But that’s the boring version.)

4) Nub’s Nob, Michigan, USA

Enough double-entendre fodder to last you a lifetime. Photo: miskiresort.com

There actually was a bloke named Nub Sarns who founded the American resort Nub’s Nob. Unfortunately, it’s not named after his genitalia.

‘Nob’, we think, means ‘view’ in American (that strange adaptation of our native tongue that Yanks like to call ‘English’) – or something to that effect.

Bizarrely, Nub’s Nob has a superpipe that was named in Transworld Snowboarding Mag as one of the ‘Top Five East Coast Pipes’ back in 2009. So, there’s more to the resort than just a silly name.

5) Sugarbush, Vermont, USA

Sugarbush, Vermont with typically gnarly American piste names. Photo: Boston.com

For anyone aged 14 or over with an immature sense of humour, Sugarbush is only going to have one connotation.

It is also, happily, a fine example of what Chris Moran described in our 100th issue as a peculiarly North American tendency to give rather tame slopes death-defying names. For example, ‘Jaws of Death’, ‘Agony’ or ‘Exterminator’ (see above).

The French on the other hand take a rather different approach. As Chris noted: “There’s nothing quite like watching an elderly American couple rag-doll down a ‘Blue’ run named Bellecôte which is actually a rock-strewn 50-degree mogul field.”

6) Brokeback Mountain, Wyoming, USA

Photo: Skibrokeback.com

Brokeback Mountain has a history stretching back to the 1960s, with the resort described as “a guy-only rough and tumble place”. Apres consists of the Dude Ranch Lodge “where all the real cowboys go” with Clint Cocker the Country Rocker playing live country tunes and a mechanical bull to ride.

Oh, how we wished this one was for real. If the resort name didn’t give it away, then one look at the piste map with runs so aptly-named Ramrod and Glory Hole was enough to arose suspicions. Kudos to the fella who brought this half-convincing, highly entertaining spoof website into existence.

7) Wank, Germany

[Insert witty pun here]

Teenage boys across the world, rejoice! There honestly is a place in Germany called Wank with a cable car called the Wank Bahn. Almost worth going just to see the look on your relatives’ faces when you tell them you’re off to Wank on holiday.

8) Misery Mountain, Alberta, Canada

These crazy Canuks don’t look like their having such a bad time… Photo: Misery Mountain Ski Area.

With a name like this, Misery Mountain has to be a PR company’s worst nightmare. I mean really, who is going to book their winter break to Misery Mountain?

The name doesn’t exactly suggest wild party resort and good times for all. But, saying that, you could be heading to Suicide Six instead….

9) Suicide Six, Vermont, USA

Anyone for a family holiday to…. Suicide Six?

“DON’T LET THE NAME FOOL YOU! Suicide Six is one of the most family-friendly ski areas in Vermont,” claims the Vermont resort’s homepage.

It’s supposedly named after an off-the-cuff comment from resort founder Wallace “Bunny” Bertram. He was in the process of moving his ski lift to a steeper hill, named on the map as Hill No. 6. Legend has it, Bertram joked that to ski down Hill No. 6 would be suicide – and the name stuck.

Interestingly, Suicide Six has a prominent place in snowboarding history – the resort that hosted the first ever National Snow Surfing Championships in 1982!

10) Twatt, Orkney, Scotland

Stand next to that sign. You know you want to.

OK so this isn’t a resort or anything, but we had to throw a British classic in there for good measure.

It may surprise you to hear that there’s actually TWO Twatts in the UK, one in the Shetlands Islands and of course, the infamous Twatt of Orkney.

They’ve even got their own Twatt Appreciation Society which I’m fairly sure you’ll be keen to sign up to as soon as possible.

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