One of the Midwest’s most famous ski resorts, Sugar Loaf Mountain on the Leelanau Peninsula, could reopen this winter for the first time in 11 years.
The Sugar Loaf Mountain Club, a nonprofit group of nearby residents and ski enthusiasts, has laid out plans to revive the resort “one small step at a time” – beginning with a plan to open several areas for cross-country skiing and other outdoor activities this winter. The group says it may be able to put one of the resort’s long-idled surface lifts into operation for a snow-tubing run and could restore other lifts by next year.
From 1964 until 2000, Sugar Loaf was one of the busiest ski resorts in northern Michigan, welcoming an estimated 3,500 skiers a day.