Saratoga’s a great place to live if you’re a skier. You can get to Gore Mountain in an hour and most mountains in the Catskills, Southern Vermont or Western Massachusetts
in under two hours. But up until 30 years ago, Saratoga slopesters had it even better—they had a ski area right in their own backyard.
Founded during World War II by Ed Taylor, Jr., Alpine Meadows was a ski area in Porter Corners that operated from the early 1940s to the early ’90s. In its early days, as many as nine rope tows transported skiers up the 1,000-foot mountain, and nearly 20 trails brought them down it. During the late ’40s and ’50s the mountain touted itself as having “New York State’s Largest Open Slope,” and was known for its wide-open terrain.
“There were four or five of us kids in South Corinth who skied, and Mr. Taylor would let us in for a buck a day,” the late Elwyn Parker told Jeremy Davis, author of Lost Ski Areas of the Southern Adirondacks. ”That’s down from the regular adult price of $3.50.” Other youngsters learned to ski for free in exchange for chipping in on work around the mountain.
Over the next half century, the ski area changed hands several times and was renamed Adirondack Ski Center for a brief time. Plagued by an ongoing property dispute, Alpine Meadows closed permanently in the early ’90s, making it the largest ski area of 39 in the Southern Adirondack region to do so. But while Saratoga County may no longer have a ski mountain of its own, Ed Taylor’s love for the sport lives on in the store he opened: Alpine Sport Shop.
