Going apple picking in the NC mountains is one of my favorite fall traditions. We’ve been to several of the big ones at least once – Apple Hill Orchard in Morganton, Sky Top Orchard in Flat Rock, Stepp’s Hillcrest Orchard in Hendersonville. And while I love driving to the mountains to pick apples, not everyone I know is as enthusiastic about a 2.5 hour drive to perform manual labor in a field. Especially because to get our favorite variety (honeycrisp!) you actually have to go in early August when it can still be quite hot, even in the mountains.
So while we were tiring of pandemic isolation and looking for a way to see friends socially distanced and outside, I decided to prioritize socialization over location for our apple picking experience this year. I had heard of Windy Hill Orchard in York, SC as sort of a backup plan (or cop out?) for those who didn’t want to drive all the way to the mountains. We could get the apples and the experience, minus the mountain backdrop. And with 2 of the 3 families that were joining us living in Rock Hill, SC, it seemed like a non-brainer for everyone to meet there.
In Covid-19 world, even outdoor activities can have limited access so advanced planning is needed. The orchard required reservations to enter the Pick Your Own fields. And these were quite the hot ticket! Reservations opened up online Monday morning at 9am and sold out within about an hour. To book a reservation you had to pay ahead – $5 for a 1/4 peck bag, $7 for a 1/2 peck bag, and $25 for a 1/2 bushel.
The reservation system gave me a measure of confidence that this would be a Covid-safe activity. Imagine my surprise when we rounded the corner for the orchard and saw a line of cars 50 deep and hundreds of people milling about, mostly without masks and well within 6 feet of each other. The whole scene made us so uncomfortable that we probably would have turned around and left, had it not been for the fact that I had planned this outing, and it seemed to be in poor taste to drag our friends out here and then ditch them.
So we pressed on, circling the tiny parking lot for 30 minutes waiting for a parking spot to open up. Any time saved driving to York, SC instead of going to the mountains was lost in the unbelievably frustrating time spent trying to park. I started to worry that we would miss our entire hour and a half picking window because we were stuck in the parking lot. Finally we got lucky and were in the right place when someone left their spot and we parked and headed over to the orchard.
Windy Hill is actually both an orchard and a cider mill – and therein lay the problem. While they did a fantastic job controlling entrance to the orchard itself, the cider mill had unrestricted access and was swarming with people drinking, listening to music, and generally having fun on a beautiful fall day. Any other year that have been great and I would have looked upon the scene with very different eyes, but in 2020 it just screamed unsafe to me. So we put on our masks and headed through the crowd to get to the orchard entrance.
The orchard was tiny. You could see from the first row to the last standing in one place. But it was empty. No social distancing issues here. For as many people as there were crowded into the cider mill and bakery area, there was practically nobody in the fields. Aside from our group, we probably saw one other family the entire time we were picking.
A downside of an apple orchard in the foothills instead of the mountains is that there are a limited variety of apples that will grow in the climate. In this case, just one – the Stayman Winesap. I had never heard of it or seen it for sale in a store, but according to their website, the apple is “a sweet aromatic apple that has a slight hint of tartness.” We were mostly there for the experience and to catch up with friends so the apple variety wasn’t super important to us, but I will admit to being a little disappointed by the lack of choices.
Regardless, we really enjoyed our picking experience and were able to fit a surprising number of apples into our tiny bags. The kids also enjoyed visiting with the pot belly pigs and chickens at the back of the orchard.
When we finished picking, we were relieved to see that a good portion of the crowd had cleared out. We must have hit it at exactly its peak when we arrived. (So my recommendation is to go early or late! A 2:00 reservation is NOT the way to go.) Although there were still a decent number of people there, tables had opened up, lines had shrunk, and crowds had thinned. We decided to stay and test out their claim that Stayman Winesaps are “an excellent choice for cider, both hard and sweet”. And of course – and more importantly – to test out their donuts!
There was a bar area where you could order individual ciders, flights, or bottles to go. On the other side of the building was the bakery, where you could buy any of a number of delicious homemade items. Adults tried the hard cider and kids got donuts and cider slushies. (Ok, ok, the adults got donuts too!) Everything was delicious.
After a bit of a nerve-wracking start, this turned out to be a really fun afternoon with friends. Just go with the right expectations. You aren’t in the mountains surrounded by gorgeous scenery and you can’t pick from two dozen varieties of apples. But Windy Hill is a cute, small orchard with a fun PYO experience, delicious homemade goodies, and refreshing cider – both hard and sweet. We didn’t super-love the apples on their own but they did bake really well in a pie. While I certainly don’t think we will come here every year, we would definitely come to Windy Hill again if we were looking for an apple picking experience with less commitment than its mountain counterparts.
