Long lost ski resorts in NJ, even deep in South Jersey

Currently, there are only two ski resorts in New Jersey. Actually, only one is a "ski resort," the other is a nice hill in Bergen County where beginners can still get a taste of skiing in a very small venue called Campgaw Mountain.

Mountain Creek is the only serious ski area left in the state. It always was the only serious one, but it's had a few names. At one time it was called Vernon Valley and it merged with Granite Peak and is now Mountain Creek. It's a spectacular 4-season resort with the best skiing in New Jersey.

But did you know our state had several little ski "mountains" as far south as Lower Alloways Creek? That's in Salem County about 15 miles south of the Delaware Memorial Bridge. It was called Holly Mountain and it closed in 1986.

Growing up in South Jersey the place you learned how to ski was Ski Mountain in Pine Hill, Camden County which was really just a 200-foot hill.

But that's where a lot of us who grew up in the '70s and '80s could go within a half hour of home and actually get to ski. It closed in the late 1980s and is now the site of Trump National Golf Course.

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The first place we took our oldest son at the age of seven or eight was Belle Mountain Ski Area in Hopewell, Mercer County just a few miles south of Lambertville.

It's hard to imagine that places like this existed and why don't they today? I think it's a combination of a less active population with better things to occupy their time (the internet), and insurance liability due to a very vibrant legal community here in Jersey.

Let's not forget Peapack Ski Area which opened around 1939 and closed in early 1986.

The only thing left there are the memories of the generations of people who enjoyed the mountain and a road called Ski Hill Drive just off Route 206.

There were a few of these little gems that were barely big enough to learn how to ski, but they thrived in a different era here in New Jersey.

It makes you appreciate the time some of us grew up and feel kinda badly for the younger generations who missed what really was an amazing time to grow up in New Jersey.

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