The latest in the lost and overlooked ski area series.During a recent family trip back east, my cousin Carolyn and I visited the remnants of Apple Hill Ski Area near Allentown, Pennsylvania. Apple Hill operated from 1962-1978 with 200+ vertical feet of skiing, a few surface lifts, night skiing, snowmaking, and an A-frame base lodge.
This modest hill developed a loyal following in the 16 years its lifts spun, and what it lacked in extensive terrain it made up in creating community magic. Online commenters recalled learning to ski on its icy, moguled slopes, with many going on to make skiing a lifelong passion.
This ghost ski area, like anything that has sat abandoned in the northeastern woods for almost half a century, is being reclaimed by nature. Curious skiers and explorers taking time to thrash through the overgrowth will find rusting lift towers, old light poles, fragments of a rope tow, and remnants of snowmaking equipment. The exurban chateaus at the top of the hill offer a stark but familiar commentary on the tensions between development, affordability, and disappearing third spaces.
Over Memorial Day weekend, Carolyn and I set out to see what remained.
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Exploring Apple Hill
As Carolyn and I wiggled our way through Lehigh Valley, the bigger towns of Bethlehem and Allentown gave way to smaller communities, and we were soon in the country. It was a cool, rainy 47 degrees when we arrived, providing perfect, atmospheric conditions to explore an abandoned ski area.
Apple Hill is wedged into a small plot of land at the confluence of Kernsville and Old Mile Hill Roads in the hamlet of Orefield about ten miles from Allentown. (Click here for a map.) Given that Apple Hill was long ago deserted and is surrounded by dense northeastern forest, we weren’t sure if there would be any signs of the former ski area. Soon, we noticed a small lift shack in the woods off Old Mile Hill Road, so we looked for a place to pull over.
At the intersection of the two roads, we found a dirt pullout where we parked out of view of the Old Mile Hill Road McMansions. With stone veneers, three and four car garages, lion statues propped at the foot of walkways, and even one house with a cannon, these homes were manicured to a dull perfection and sat eerily lifeless. As we set off to find an on old Pennsylvania ski area, it struck me that this development and the contrasts weren’t too different from what I’m seeing at home in Bozeman, Montana.
From here a cornfield rolled out in front of us with scraps of spent corn husks sprinkled throughout the orderly rows. Eventually the field began sloping into what was once a ski run. To our left (towards Kernsville Road), we spotted a tower poking out of the trees, and we bushwhacked through a tangle of vegetation to take a closer look.
A lift tower surrounded by dense trees loomed overhead and rain sprayed our faces as we looked up through the drippy canopy at an old rusty bull wheel silhouetted against the steel sky. Part of a rope tow was still hanging, and other pieces were strewn on the forest floor. The rope was soft and frayed today, but decades ago small hands gripped with all their might as the unforgiving rope tossed them around and tore their gloves to shreds.
Carolyn and I wandered further checking out two more rusty lift towers hidden in the trees, brush, and vines. I imagined brisk winter air turning cheeks pink and wooing and laughter echoing across the slopes and throughout the trees. Apparently, you could ski through apple orchards at Apple Hill, but we didn’t see any evidence of apple trees during our visit, and I haven’t been able to find out anything about the orchard era.
Back in the cornfield, we looked up the slope. To looker’s left (towards Old Mile Hill Road) we saw some old towers with lights and speakers mounted to them. I pictured a school bus depositing a gaggle of rambunctious kids from the middle school ski club at Apple Hill’s slopes after school. The terrain may have been small but that did not dampen the enthusiasm.
Nearing the top of the cornfield, a quartet of turkey vultures circled overhead. Carolyn's car soon came into view and so did the ridgeline dotted with homes. It was not hard to be jarred by the juxtaposition.
While the quiet surrounding the old ski area was atmospheric, the silence near the trophy homes was ominous. The rain still fell cool and steady from the grey sky. It was a fitting weather to contemplate change and explore a place that survives mostly in memory.
As we drove away, we found another pullout at the bottom of Kernsville Road, which is where the old A-frame lodge stood until at least 2020. The exact date of its demise is uncertain, but rumor has it that the weight of the fireplace tower pulled the roof down. To looker’s right, a faint run could still be seen through the trees, and straight ahead was the bottom of the cornfield, the lower section of the run now being overtaken by landscape. The headwall or the expert run is what we heard it called in online recollections.
Little remains here other than a flat spot where I could picture tons of cars and old woody station wagons pullingin filled with families and endless stoke. Apple Hill was quiet the day we visited, but it was not hard to picture this place bursting with energy during its halcyon days.
Apple Hill Nostalgia
For me, old, rusted ski areas always evoke the wonder of learning to arc turns down a snow-covered hillside and leave me feeling nostalgic and wanting to know more of the story. Carolyn and I took scoured the internet after we returned home, and we were pleased to learn that people still remember this scrappy little hill nearly 50 years after it closed. Mother Nature may be smothering Apple Hill’s physical existence, but the memories are alive.
Here are a few things from our search....In its 16-year history, Apple Hill became a beloved community institution and developed a loyal following. This link provides more detailed information. It was posted in 2005 and includes a ton of comments with one as recent as August 2025. Interestingly, an Apple Hill reunion in 2008 drew 85 people.
Avery Zucco explored Apple Hill in 2020 as part of his lost ski area project, which you can watch here, and you can click here to watch a music video shot in the lodge in 2017.
The three links were helpful in piecing together a bit of Apple Hill’s history. It shares the fate with of hundreds of other ski areas forced to close due to the expense, competition from other larger ski areas, and changing weather patterns.
All the links have comments worth checking out. Here are a few of my favorite comments:
“Apple Hill was an unbelievable place! It had more magic than Disney and everybody knew everybody. I occasionally run into people from the Apple Hill days, and the conversation always turns to the magic that happened there. My sisters and I were total ski brats. My folks had to literally drag us off the hill at closing time. We would get home from school, do our homework, and as soon as Dad came home, we were off to ski. We also spent all weekend there too, from open ‘til close. When we weren’t skiing, we were hanging with the lift operators or sledding with the cafeteria trays. Like I said Apple Hill was magic!”“After a snowstorm while waiting in the t-bar line, a group of instructors elegantly skied powder through the apple trees to the lookers right of the t-bar. I felt like the Native Americans must have felt seeing the first sailing ships arriving. Something so far beyond what I could imagine without seeing it in real life. I witnessed something so ineffable, I knew one day I must be able to do myself. I then spent a large part of my life chasing powder. After college, I spent 15 years in Utah recreating what I witnessed that day.”“There were two real good skiers there - brothers from the Allentown area and I can't remember their names but one had Head Masters. Then, the next year, one got Head Competition skis - they were the Ferraris of the slope back then.”“Many of you might not remember me but you may remember my brother, Rudy. He was there every night after school and all day on the weekends. I think one time he skied down the expert slope with Tom 'Mouse' Wentz holding a torch. I think they did this on one ski. I remember it being impressive and pretty cool.”“The P.A. system was used sometimes to provide ‘correction’ to misbehaving kids.”
Apple Hill had something often missing in today’s ski world of $300 lift tickets, heated lifts, amenity-filled base areas, and multi-million dollar condos. While it didn’t have extreme terrain or best-ever conditions, it provided an affordable entry to the sport. At a local spot like Apple Hill, people skied for the sheer fun of sliding on snow, and connections and community mattered more that creature comforts. I suspect that the number of folks who learned to ski at a place like Apple Hill far outnumber those who learned at a large Rocky Mountain resort.
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| Courtesy of Kevin Whipple |
Apple Hill Today
Internet search revealed that there was talk of development in the area as early as 2008, but as of our visit only a few houses line Old Mile Hill Road. I couldn’t find out what’s happening with the ski area land. These houses are in a development called Apple Hill Estates, but again, a web search revealed little. Locals told me it is owned by the Jaindls who “own everything" in the Lehigh Valley.There’s a joke in Bozeman that new developments are named after the thing that was disappeared (Wildlands, sandhill, elk, etc.) Although Apple Hill was not displaced by development since it had long been abandoned, it is the first time I've heard of a development being named after a former ski area.
While Apple Hill exuded authenticity, these homes could exist almost anywhere that luxury development is rampant. It was sad to see this vapid, aspirational extravagance where an affordable recreation opportunity once stood and was a sobering thought to cap off our exploration. As we drove away, I looked back but there was nothing to see. The mansions, the rusted lifts, and the cornfield were all shrouded in the woods sharing the same silence.
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Click here to see the entire lost and overlooked ski area series.
A few backcountry ski tales
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