“People are a little nervous,” Wallowa Lake Lodge general manager Madeline Lau told me last March while giving me an offseason tour of the century-old hotel, which is closed in winter except for a few year-round cabins. I’d just mentioned I was planning to finally check out Ferguson Ridge, the ski hill that’s just a 25-minute drive away, and the “people” in her comment refers to Joseph locals who don’t want the whole world knowing about what Lau calls “our little baby treasure.” The ski hill’s bumper-sticker slogan, “Where two inches feels like six,” is honest but still a deliberate undersell. When we reached out for photos to go with this story, the reply was two words: “not interested.” Fergi, as it’s known locally, is not pursuing fame.

“If I write anything, it will be short,” I assured Lau. “I’m not really much of a skier.”

And I’m not. But it turns out this volunteer-run hill, an inconvenient 340 miles from Portland, is just my speed.

The Skiing. It’s a mere eight runs (640 vertical feet), mostly beginner and intermediate, with a few very short black diamond drops—though any run notches up in difficulty if it’s not on the groomed list that day. Cleared in the early ’80s by members of a loose-knit, half-century-old community ski club, the white runs of the ski area look like a peace sign from the road. There’s a rope tow and a T-bar, plus a day lodge with a snack bar and picnic tables outside, and a woodstove-warmed rental shop. The hill is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekends and some holidays, all weather permitting. Last season it opened in early December and had its last ski day April 1; this season it didn’t open until January 14.

The Skiers. The whole operation is staffed by volunteers from the Eagle Cap Ski Club, who pay annual dues and sign up for at least four volunteer days each season in order to ski for free on the community hill. When I tell the volunteer at the base of the T-bar that I haven’t been on this kind of lift in about 35 years, she calls over a regular to join me on my first ascent. I wave and nod to my tutor the rest of the day, and after a couple of runs I’m pretty sure I’ve seen everyone else here, including a woman in a tutu and another in a macrame poncho over a bikini. (Recall that this was a March visit.)

The Cost. Lift tickets are just $20, cash or check—there’s no running water on the hill, and there’s certainly no Square setup for cards—so it doesn’t take a lot to get your money’s worth. You could knock off early to squeeze in the 45-minute drive to the Imnaha Tavern while it’s still daylight, grab a late lunch in Joseph or Enterprise, or just go exploring in Wallowa County, and have no regrets.

The Bootstraps Feel. The history page on Fergi’s website includes the phrases “a pulley he manufactured out of melted beer cans,” “not big spenders,” and “an old but good ex-chicken house.” A picture of Johnny Cash hangs in the rental shop; even though his “One Piece at a Time” is about assembling a car from cast-off parts, it would make a good anthem for the ski area, home to hand-me-downs from Anthony Lakes and the Wallowa Lake gondola operation, donations from county construction projects, and Portland junkyard finds.

There’s also a picture of a lion on the wall in the rental shop, with lyrics from Counting Crows’ “Round Here” underneath it, but I don’t have a ready parallel for that one. Or do I? At Fergi, something radiates, that for sure. But I told Lau I’d keep this short, so we’ll just leave it there.