The son of the Parke family patriarch recently gave a lecture on the long history of the Hidden Valley ski area. The Parke bought the farm  in 1949 where HV is currently located. They started an inn for tourists at the farm. In the 1950's, a family member went to Europe and skied (I believe in Sweden). The family member convinced the Parkes to open the area for skiing. To make a long story short, in 1967 when the Oregon RIdge Ski Area went belly up, the Parkes bought the old double chair lift and the snow making equipment from Oregon Ridge, trucked it up to HV and installed it. For those of you who  are not familiar with the Oregon RIdge Ski area it is located in the Hunt Valley area of Baltimore County. It is included in the 'Lost Ski Areas' section of this web site. There has been speculation for years that Ski Roundtop bought the old Oregon Ridge double chair. So I was surprised to find out that HV bought the Oregon Ridge chair lift. Oregon Ridge is only about 5 miles from my house and I skied their several times back in the 1980's when the County would operate the rope toe after we receive enough snow. The chair lift dissappeared many years ago from HV, but I find it interesting the connection between HV and Oregon Ridge. I had no idea when I bought my ski house at HV that there was a connection to the community where I reside in Baltimore County!

The ski universe is really still pretty small. Nice find.