Lost ski areaNew JerseyMid-Atlantic
Holly Mountain
Ran 1972–1986. A small ski area with a double chairlift in Lower Alloways Creek, Salem County, in southern New Jersey's farm country, that ran from 1972 until 1986.
Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
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Holly Mountain stood in Lower Alloways Creek, Salem County, about 15 miles south of the Delaware Memorial Bridge, among the farms of southern New Jersey. Ski historian Liz Holste found evidence of two ski slopes in South Jersey, and this was one of them.1,2,3
Read the whole historyTimeline
6 events · swipe
Memories
Skied Holly Mountain, 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 Holly Mountain
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- Years not yet collected · 28.6 mi away · New JerseyA ski area in Pine Hill, New Jersey, open by 1978, whose site became a golf course in 1998.
- 1963–1988 · 30.3 mi away · PennsylvaniaA small ski area off Route 1 in Chadds Ford that Richard and Marie Paciaroni started in 1963 and that closed in the late 1980s.
- 1965–1997 · 63.9 mi away · New JerseyA small Mercer County ski hill near Lambertville and the Delaware River, skied from the mid-1960s until early 1997.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 7 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Holly Mountain stood in Lower Alloways Creek, Salem County, about 15 miles south of the Delaware Memorial Bridge, among the farms of southern New Jersey. Ski historian Liz Holste found evidence of two ski slopes in South Jersey, and this was one of them. A DCSki reader recalled that it ran from 1972, with a double chairlift and a rope tow.1,2,3
New Jersey's official highway maps listed it with a chairlift and a rope tow in 1976, and with a chairlift and a pony tow in 1980–81. A DCSki reader recalled six trails, all lit for night skiing. The state's 1988 map described five slopes, two lifts, a lodge and a 150-foot vertical drop.1,4,5,6
DCSki and NJ 101.5 both give 1986 as the year it closed, though the 1988 state map still listed it. A trail map from 1979 survives on Skimap.org.1,2,6,7
Timeline
- 1972Opens with a double chairlift, by a DCSki reader's account1
- 1976State highway map lists one chairlift and one rope tow4
- 1979Date of the trail map kept on Skimap.org7
- 1980State map lists a chairlift and a pony tow5
- 1986Closes, by the accounts of DCSki and NJ 101.51,2
- 1988Still listed on the state map with five slopes and two lifts6
Sources for this history (7)
- 1DCSki · Holly Mountain: Lost Ski Area
- 2New Jersey 101.5 · Long-lost ski resorts in NJ, even deep in South Jersey (Dennis Malloy, NJ 101.5, January 8, 2024)
- 3The Township Journal (Straus News) · Skiing in New Jersey (Amy Stewart, The Township Journal, September 30, 2011)
- 4State of New Jersey (New Jersey Department of Transportation Research Library, via Internet Archive) · New Jersey Official Bicentennial Map & Guide, 1776–1976 (full text, Internet Archive)
- 5State of New Jersey (New Jersey Department of Transportation Research Library, via Internet Archive) · New Jersey Official Transportation Map & Guide, 1980–1981 (full text, Internet Archive)
- 6State of New Jersey (New Jersey Department of Transportation Research Library, via Internet Archive) · 1988 Official New Jersey Transportation Map & Guide (full text, Internet Archive)
- 7Skimap.org · Holly Mountain
Photos
No photographs of Holly Mountain 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 Holly Mountain, in their own words.
Facts
Location
39.4761° N · 75.3633° W · New Jersey
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
1972–1986
Closed after the 1986 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