Richmond Hill

Richmond Hill stood along Route 75 in Path Valley at Richmond Furnace, north of today's Whitetail. Ray and Evelyn opened it around 1962 with a warming hut and a rope tow, first run by a tractor and later by an electric motor. An A-frame ski shop followed in 1963, then a T-bar driven by an old truck, a pool, a tennis court and snowmaking from used machines Ray bought from a bankrupt ski area in Virginia.^1,2

The couple built the lodge themselves from 90-foot poles bought at a sale at a military site, with a fireplace of stone from an old barn foundation and 11 rooms upstairs; the log walls were up by January 1967. Open only on weekends, the hill made little from skiing, and renting the lodge for parties, reunions and ski groups kept it out of the red. Readers recall one short hill of roughly 120 to 125 feet.^1,2,3

NELSAP's account, from a son of the family who worked there, says the area closed in 1990, when its snowmakers were sold to Ski Liberty and Roundtop and its lifts went for junk; a DCSki reader remembers the end as 1989 or 1990. Later owners renovated the lodge but did not reopen the slopes.^1,2