IUP College Lodge

The Co-op of Indiana University of Pennsylvania ran a ski slope at the university's College Lodge from the 1970s, perhaps earlier. Two rope tows ran up the edges of the hill, with lights on their towers, and three runs dropped into a broad meadow; one account gives about 250 feet of vertical, while a 2008 visitor judged it 150 to 200 feet. In the late 1970s rentals cost $2 and a season pass $5. A skier from the mid-1970s says one tow served the hill at first and the second came around 1981 or 1982.¹

The slope relied on natural snow. Students who worked there recall about 45 open days in one snowy winter of the early 1980s and a run of 47 straight days in the mid-1980s. Paul Cline, who described the area for DCSki, puts the end in the late 1980s, but a Co-op worker recalls the hill open about 29 days in a row in the 1995–96 winter. The tow ropes were later removed, and the hill has since been used for sledding and disc golf.¹

TodayThe lodge is kept for university functions, the tow towers still stand with their lights, and the hill hosts disc golf and hiking trails. (2008)¹