Alpine Lodge¶
Alpine Lodge is a tourist ski lodge in the mountains above Radford, Virginia, home to the teenager Matt McCready and the site of the water tower that the task force uses for its night stakeout in The Radford Horror.
| Type | Location (ski resort) |
| Aliases | Ski lodge; McCready ski lodge; the water tower; Make-Out Peak |
| Region | Mountains above Radford, Virginia, outside town |
| Operators | The McCready family |
| First appearance | Radford Horror 01 (as an unnamed "tourist lodge up in the mountains") |
Description¶
The lodge is a tourist ski resort reached by a narrow, winding road with ski-lodge signs. It has a parking lot behind the main buildings, internal streets leading to nicer cabins, and access roads up to the ski lifts (Radford Horror 03). Out of season, a teenager keeps watch in the office at night because kids from town have been spray-painting the property. The lodge gets UFO hunters every year and keeps a rack of UFO merchandise in the gift shop (Radford Horror 06). The mountain is nicknamed "Make-Out Peak," and its view over the whole area makes it a candidate vantage point (Radford Horror 05).
Not the Ferry Lodge
The ski lodge is a different place from the Ferry Lodge in town where the team stays. The players sometimes call both "the lodge," and the Ferry Lodge is what is meant by "the lodge" in most of the team's planning (Radford Horror 01, Radford Horror 05).
Notable places within¶
- The water tower: a curved, snow-shedding top roughly 20 feet above the tree line and 35 to 40 feet off the ground, with a 10-inch hatch in the middle. Light pollution is enough for watchers to pick out shapes moving against the horizon (Radford Horror 06).
- The office: where the team meets Matt McCready (Radford Horror 06).
- Cabins and lift roads: where the team loses a car it is tailing (Radford Horror 03).
History of events there¶
- Radford Horror 01: Amanda Lucky's parents point the finger at Matt McCready, whom they say lives with his father Ed at a tourist lodge in the mountains (Radford Horror 01).
- Radford Horror 03: The team follows a speeding car up the mountain past the ski lodge but loses it. It is not in the lodge lot and could be somewhere in the complex, on the cabin or lift roads (Radford Horror 03).
- Radford Horror 05: The Biz suggests using the lodge's water tower for night observation, and the plan is carried over to the next session (Radford Horror 05).
- Radford Horror 06: The Biz and Andrew take a squad car up to the lodge and find Matt on night watch. He has them sign a Sharpie waiver, lends them the key to the locked ladder, and says Dean Lawson was his first thought when Amanda went missing. He marks the Lawson family cabin on a tourist map about a mile from the lodge. He also says that while maintaining the ski lifts he felt something big and silent pass over him, smelling like compost or "an old closet," and that he no longer goes out there without a shotgun. From the tower the Biz and Andrew watch the craft carry off the Whateley twin and drop Huell, and they toss the key back to McCready, who catches it mid-joint. The team's cover story the next morning is that Huell fell off the water tower (Radford Horror 06).
Inhabitants¶
Matt McCready is the lodge's night watchman. Radford Horror 01 has Amanda's parents say he lives with his father Ed at the lodge, while in Radford Horror 06 Matt says his uncle owns the place and he helps out. The episodes do not reconcile the two (Radford Horror 01, Radford Horror 06).