Overview
Look around
Loading the ground…
Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
Counting who skied it…
Resorts Inc., owned by Joe and Edie Humphrey, founded Clear Fork in 1963 on State Route 95 south of Mansfield; SnoCountry gives its first year as 1964. The Midwest Lost Ski Areas Project credits it with 300 feet of vertical.1,2,3,4
Read the whole historyTimeline
7 events · swipe
Memories
Skied Clear Fork Ski Area, or worked there?
Tell us what you remember, or what this page has wrong. Memories show here, credited to you, after we read them; facts are checked against a source before they change a figure.
Lost near Clear Fork Ski Area
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- 1979–1991 · 69.1 mi away · OhioA ski area on Bauer Road at Logan, in southeast Ohio, that opened in January 1979 and closed in 1991.
- 1966–1971 · 73.5 mi away · OhioA ski area about six miles northwest of Cadiz, near Tappan Lake in east central Ohio, that ran from 1966 to 1971.
- 1962–1976 · 86.6 mi away · OhioA small ski area on Caves Road in Chester Township, by Chesterland near Cleveland, that ran from 1962 to 1976.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 6 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Resorts Inc., owned by Joe and Edie Humphrey, founded Clear Fork in 1963 on State Route 95 south of Mansfield; SnoCountry gives its first year as 1964. The Midwest Lost Ski Areas Project credits it with 300 feet of vertical. It shut at the end of the 2004–05 season, by Richland Source's account; SnoCountry says early 2005, and Ski Area Management dated the closing to 2006.1,2,3,4
In January 2011 four local partners, through their company Slater Run Land Development, took the area on a land contract from Resorts Inc. They announced a $55 million plan to make it a year-round destination, with three trails to be added to the 11 it had, and reopened it for the 2011–12 season. A formal purchase followed in 2013. After its lender sued to foreclose, Clear Fork closed again on May 14, 2015.2,3,4
That June the property sold at a sheriff's sale for $706,000 in three parcels: the lender took the 110 acres holding the resort, and a land conservancy bought 16.45 unused acres for planned public hiking trails. By November the new owners had renamed it Clear Fork Adventure Resort, with weekend snow tubing planned for that winter.5,6
Timeline
- 1963Resorts Inc. founds Clear Fork south of Mansfield1,2
- 2005Closes at the end of the 2004–05 season1,2,3
- 2011Four local partners take over and reopen it for the 2011–12 season2,3,4
- 2013The partners complete a formal purchase of the property2
- 2015Closes for good on May 14 after a foreclosure suit2,3
- 2015Property sold at a sheriff's sale for $706,0005
- 2015Renamed Clear Fork Adventure Resort, with snow tubing planned6
Sources for this history (6)
- 1Midwest Lost Ski Areas Project · Ohio lost ski areas: Clear Fork Ski Area
- 2Richland Source · Clear Fork Resort closes (May 15, 2015)
- 3SnoCountry (reprinted by ropeways.net) · Ohio's Clear Fork Ski Area Closes, Set For Sheriff's Sale (SnoCountry, June 12, 2015, as reprinted by ropeways.net)
- 4Ski Area Management · Clear Fork Returns to Life (April 11, 2011)
- 5Richland Source · Clear Fork Resort sells at auction (June 5, 2015)
- 6Morrow County Sentinel · Clear Fork Ski Resort to reopen with new name and use (November 27, 2015)
Photos
No photographs of Clear Fork Ski Area we may republish yet
Its old photos and trail maps live on the sites that collected them, and Google finds the rest.
Memories
What skiers remember of Clear Fork Ski Area, in their own words.
Facts
Location
40.5935° N · 82.4123° W · Ohio
OpenStreetMap still maps 5 lifts here; OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
1963–2015
Closed after the 2015 season. It stays here as part of the record of U.S. ski areas.
Its numbers
all 3all 3, in one list
Terrain contours: USGS 3D Elevation Program, public domain