Overview
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Pines Peak, often called The Pines, was a family ski hill at 674 Meridian Road in Valparaiso, in northwest Indiana. The Midwest Lost Ski Areas Project dates it from 1962, among the state's first ski areas; a 2008 news report put its opening 47 years back, in 1961.1,2
Read the whole historyTodayThe hill is mostly abandoned and overgrown with brush and trees. (2025)4
Timeline
6 events · swipe
Memories
Skied Pines Peak Family 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 Pines Peak Family Ski Area
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- Years not yet collected · 13.8 mi away · IndianaA small upside-down ski area west of LaPorte, by the Indiana Toll Road, with rope tows and a T-bar; it closed around 1992.
- 1969–1986 · 31.2 mi away · IndianaA small rope-tow ski hill near New Carlisle, west of South Bend, that ran from 1969 to 1986.
- 1972–1989 · 42.4 mi away · MichiganA ski hill on Main Street Road north of Buchanan, in southwest Michigan, run as Royal Valley from 1972 and as Ski World until 1989.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 4 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Pines Peak, often called The Pines, was a family ski hill at 674 Meridian Road in Valparaiso, in northwest Indiana. The Midwest Lost Ski Areas Project dates it from 1962, among the state's first ski areas; a 2008 news report put its opening 47 years back, in 1961. In 1978 it ran five rope tows and four handle lifts, and by 1989 a quad chairlift had joined a rope tow and three handle tows. At one point it tried skiing on Astroturf and plastic pellets.1,2
Cris Marshall ran the hill from 1991. In December 2008 he put the 36-acre site up for sale: even with more than 20 snowmaking machines, he said, it had grown too hard to hold enough snow to turn a profit, and some interest had come from housing developers. It closed in 2008 after a run of thin winters, with nine trails, a fixed-grip quad, a rope tow and a small terrain park. Sources give its vertical as 135, 151 or 170 feet.1,2,4
The slopes grew over with brush and trees. In 2026 an Indiana news site reported new activity at the property and hopes that tubing would come back first, with skiing later.3,4
TodayThe hill is mostly abandoned and overgrown with brush and trees. (2025)4
Timeline
- 1962Skiing begins, per MWLSAP; a 2008 report implies 19611,2
- 1978Five rope tows and four handle lifts in service1
- 1989A quad chairlift is in service1
- 1991Cris Marshall begins running the hill2
- 2008Closes after thin winters; the 36-acre site goes up for sale1,2,4
- 2026Hopes reported for tubing, then skiing, to return1,3
Sources for this history (4)
- 1Midwest Lost Ski Areas Project · Indiana Lost Ski Areas
- 2The Herald Bulletin · Owner puts Porter County ski slope up for sale (The Associated Press, December 26, 2008)
- 3Hoosier Enquirer · Indiana Should STOP Taxing Ski Areas Like Other Commercial Real Estate (Hoosier Enquirer Sports Staff, late September 2026)
- 4SnowBrains · Hometown Mountain Shoutout: Remembering the Magic of Pines Peak, IN (Greg Wedow, November 17, 2025)
Photos
No photographs of Pines Peak Family 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 Pines Peak Family Ski Area, in their own words.
Facts
Location
41.5315° N · 87.0677° W · Indiana
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
1962–2008
Closed after the 2008 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