Here in Minneapolis we have a really steep hill at a park that locals have dubbed “Suicide Hill” . Its a pretty good hill and named so for its steep drops and a good amount of trees that add obstacles. A lot of kids build snow ramp. I have broken at least one or two sleds from jumping off those ramps too high lol

But then I was talking to a friend in Kansas City cuz it just started snowing down there and she mentioned their local steep hill is called “Suicide Hill” which makes me question how common this name is across the US.

44 comments

  2. well it doesn’t snow here so idk. There are steep hills that kids go down on skateboards but I’ve never heard any of them referred as such.

  3. Lol I had this same thought recently. We have Suicide Hill that’s a giant steep sand dune we sled down in the winter and I wondered if it was just a here thing

  5. I’m in the mountains in Colorado. Everything can be a suicide hill if you don’t take the right precautions.

  7. I never thought about this being a common thing other places. But yeah, my home town definitely has a “suicide hill”

  9. We had a “deadman’s hill” near my neighborhood growing up. Super steep hill on a street kids would sled down or ride their bikes down.

  10. In Los Angeles there are several very steep streets not far from Dodger Stadium where a friend used to live.

    In fact LA the steepest streets in California, not San Francisco.

    There are people that skateboard all the way down

  13. Not sledding, but here in San Diego there are a few streets with big hills popular with skateboarders.

  16. I think kids everywhere call a specific local hill “suicide hill” or deadman’s hill” or something similar. It’s probably passed down from older siblings to younger siblings and no one remembers when it started. I know as kids we had sledding hills or biking hills called that.

  17. We had a “Killer Hill” near where I grew up. Every winter in school they had announcements warning us not to sled on it.

  18. It wasn’t a sledding hill but a mountain biking hill where a section was called suicide ridge.

  22. My dad’s hometown had “army hill” and he took me and my brother’s there once. Where I lived was too featureless and urbanized for sledding tho

  23. The city I grew up in has a hill that is still called “Dead Horse Hill”. Apparently its long and steep enough that it used to kill horses back ib the day.

  27. St Louis has Art Hill in Forest Park that gets most of the sledders the few times a year it snows. But on the other side of the park there’s a Suicide Hill that’s not so much steep, it just has lots of bumps so you always get some air going down

  29. We have “suicide rock” that’s covered in graffiti. Seems like you might kill yourself trying to get to it to graffiti on it.

  30. We have ‘The High Place”. You can drive up it, takes about 5 minutes but from atop it you can see for miles in all directions. Its stunning at night, esp during the holidays. No winter sports tho as its a sheer drop

  31. We called ours “thrill hill” of course we don’t get much snow but we’d ride our bikes down the steep grade.

  32. When I was a kid in Alabama, there was a hill that some kids in my neighborhood called Suicide Hill. However, we seldom got snow, and we mostly rode our bikes down it.

    ​

    Where I live now, even less snow and no hills worthy of the name.

  33. My hometown’s sledding hill is in a cemetery, appropriately. It’s steep enough there are no graves on it, and none at the flat area at the bottom either.

    I don’t know if the hill has a name like that, but in high school my friend Anthony and I built a sled to use on it out of a waxed snowboard with a seat bolted to it, and we called that the Suicide Machine.

  35. Is that the one featured in the hit Jack Black and Seth Green action-comedy “Airborne” that was actually set in Ohio but filmed in Minneapolis?

  38. No but a small town near us has a park they call “Suicide Park”…I guess it is also haunted at night too.

  39. I’m not sure about here in California. I just know that sometimes, someone will jump in front of a moving a train at the tran stations.

  40. This is a thing in many areas where there is a risky activity kids will do but many are scared to attempt it. It’s almost always informal and known to the kids that sled, skate, surf, swim, etc that area. Could be a jump, a point, a hill, a swing or almost any activity.

  41. Payton’s Hill is a place just down the street. it is an old site where there was alot of dirt piled up when a large highway was constructed. It is mainly known for its use as a training tool for the great Chicago Bears running back Walter Payton, who would charge up the steep hill over and over on his daily jogs. the Hill now Bears his name. https://www.californiabychoice.com/home/paytons-hill

  42. My family went to a steep hill in Yorkville once when I was 14. It was really fun. Wish I could have gone more times.

  43. I’ve heard the term ‘Bitch Hill.’ Usually from kids describing a long and super steep hill they had to walk up to get to or from school.

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