Camping at Alpine Mountain, an abandoned ski resort, from guts and glory, to one last run brings closure for me and many others

From 1984 Alpine Ski Resort was born, this resort was a hidden gem in the poconos, financial problems, bad winters, lack of upgrading, Once voted by Onthesnow.com in 2013 as PA’s best ski area for families, to ripping off investors, the resort would close in the worsts PA ski season ever 2015-2016, failing to invest more in operation and more in looks, mismanagement led to it’s demise, one day in a twitter ski chat, somebody said does anybody remember Alpine Mountain, I was like right here🙋‍♂️, he said my cousin owns it, to be invited on this camping trip meant alot to me, it gave me one last run down the mountain I was supposed to hit it in 2017, little did I know, its owners had abandoned it, and for the first time in 40 years, it would not be open. But sold for 412,000 dollars, Yep you read that right. It will never be a ski resort again.

The Resort Back in the Day🥶🤟

In 1984 the poconos were booming as the greatest honeymoon destination in the US and for family vacations, I should know I lived there until, the late 90’s for weeks and weekends, and yes I have skied at Alpine Mountain in it’s glory days, originally sold to the now defunct Penn Hills resort which went bankrupt in 2010, yep the honeymoon was over the owner of Penn Hills sold the mountain to keep Penn Hills open, you know heart shaped jacuzzi, wall to wall red carpet, and round beds yea baby, bow chica wow wow! It’s no secret they catered to honeymooners and swingers, when flights became cheap, mega destinations appear, and the poconos, left behind, in the 2000’s you needed to change your operating model like others did to survive, camelback and shawnee mountain both survived by adding the alpine slide and water parks and catering to families, and heavily invested in snowmaking, as Jack Frost and Big Boulder which Big Boulder is 80% terrain parks, they knew, Alpine thought they would get fancy on looks, in 2013 rated by onthesnow.com as Pa’s best ski and ride resort for families, they added the terrain park and half pipe😮🥶🤟in pa dude a half pipe for real? Yep 4 sure dude an f’n halfpipe.

The New Owner’s Vision

The new owner took charge and redid the old charm, upgrades, new lodge, what went wrong, well lots man. Upgrades in snow making but not the pond, upgrades in millions of dollars, new snowcat, new lodge, place was beautiful, new ski school, new everything except what they needed the most, snowmaking, from taking sponsored money, to the repossessed snowcat, and snowmaking equipment, the writing was on the wall, the new investor started with a big vision, the big mountain investor failed to realize what if we had a bad winter, yep you need snow to ski and ride asshole. Why he didn’t see the trend, because money blocked his vision, handed a turnkey operation, only to waste millions in the wrong thing, yep I work in finance, I know what operating costs will be, and the return you need to recover them, unfortunately 2015-16 ski season was one of the worst in PA skiing history, with no high efficiency guns anymore, no snowcat the 2015-16 ski season would be its last.

Alright dude so what is it like today? Da fuq

Well, I had to go into a secret entrance, I drive around backroads and backroads, and drive down past one of the slopes, ahhhh memories, never skied here with the new lodge, but an overgrown access road, and gunshots from hunters made it super creepy, its 4pm, daylight is short, I need to get to camp right now, and I did, as all of us set up camp around a wood burning stove bust out the food and beer, we explore the old ski school

We explore the old ski school building, newer to the property, still filled and as busy as the last day, these employees jumped ship when they saw the writing on the wall, files with ski school operations, once the season was over the employees all knew they would never return, the sad part mostly locals☹️ So we go on to explore the basement of the lodge, the owner kept and buried all of the rentals for what I have no clue, but kinda of creepy check it out.

So what was it like camping there?

Tell us already🤬

In the end……….

Well, I skied here as a kid, sleeping there that night I swear I could still hear the whoots and hollers, and high fives in the distance, that morning we hiked to the top of the trails, as I descended down my last run, finally some closure for this place, that I loved so much growing up, the unfortunate part is that nobody else will ever get to enjoy it, so enjoy the pics at the end, some call it sad, some call it creepy, I call it closure as I drive away……