Apple Hill Ski Area
Orefield, Pennsylvania1962-1978
Browse Apple Hill Ski Area tees, long sleeve tees, hoodies and crewnecks. Trails wound between the old orchard rows, and a T-bar served the steep headwall that regulars called the expert slope. Upstairs in the A-frame lodge, the cafeteria served cider pressed from apples picked on the property, beside a round fireplace with a conical flue. Choose a style below, and the full Apple Hill history is further down. We are an American small business bringing back the signs and logos of places and teams that are long gone but remembered fondly.
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Apple Hill Ski Area History
Apple Hill Ski Area in Orefield, Pennsylvania, sat in an apple orchard off Kernsville Road in Lehigh County, about ten miles outside Allentown. According to a ski-history blog, the owner of a downtown Allentown music store bought the orchard in 1962 and set up what is described as the Lehigh Valley's first ski area. The ground was low and got little natural snow, so snowmaking went in with the rest of the equipment, and night lights let the hill run into the evening.
The vertical was a little over 200 feet. A T-bar served the steep middle headwall that regulars called the expert slope, and two main rope tows handled the beginners, with a few more short tows added over the years. A former instructor wrote that a third rope tow near the top ran only briefly, probably in the late 1960s. Trails wound between the old orchard rows, and skiers remembered a short but steep pitch with a long runout.
The base lodge was an A-frame. Downstairs held the ski shop and rentals, where lift tickets were sold, and upstairs was a cafeteria with windows over the slope and a round fireplace with a conical flue. Cider was pressed from apples picked on the property, and readers recall hot chocolate with whipped cream, hot dogs, french fries and red apple cut-outs used as signs. The ski school was run by Bob Barette, then Dick Kleintop, and from the early 1970s by Jerry Hamm and Paul Best as co-directors, according to Hamm's son.
The area closed in 1978, according to the blog and a former instructor's account, after larger ski areas opened nearby, and its instructors moved on to them. The lodge and T-bar stood overgrown for years, with snowmaking hydrants still on the hill. Houses have since been built around and on the old slopes. Former staff and skiers held a reunion in 2008, the thirtieth anniversary of the closing, and about 85 came.