Mio Mountain Ski Area

Mio Mountain Ski Area in Mio, Michigan, sat on the ridge at the southwest edge of town, where the hills form the south wall of the Au Sable River valley in Oscoda County. Charles Budesky opened it in 1956. He was a barber from Ferndale, in the Detroit suburbs, and a tinkerer: in 1954 he received a patent for a portable, self-propelled ski tow, a tracked gasoline unit small enough to ride in the back of a passenger car and pull an endless rope up a hill.

The hill was built around rope tows. A guide from 1963 shows four of them, the Lower and Upper Jackpine tows and the Mi-O-My and Lower Mi-O-My tows, serving a dozen trails from 300 to 1,500 feet long, plus a cross country trail, with a small lodge at the bottom. By the late 1970s there were eleven runs, four electric tows, snowmaking and lights for skiing on Friday and Saturday nights. The season ran from mid-December to April 1, and the lodge had a big fireplace and served hot food all day. Brochures sold it as family skiing fun.

In 1977 SKI magazine described a minimal place: four short rope tows, a compact day chalet, 75 sets of well-used rental gear and room for about 350 skiers. Budesky, then 72 and semi-retired from barbering, was owner, manager and chief handyman, and he paid as he went, which the magazine credited for keeping the area out of debt after two decades. Most customers drove about 180 miles from greater Detroit. The runs had names like Westline, which dropped sharply from the top, Mio-My for intermediates, and Dry Gulch for beginners.

Budesky kept opening the hill into his nineties, giving the snow report and running at least one slope whenever the snow allowed. In 1997 he sold the area to Dan and Cecilia Boyer, who opened it for two weekends in January 1998. Trouble keeping the tow ropes adjusted and Dan Boyer's health kept it from reopening after that, and the hill has stayed closed. The Boyers still owned the property in 2016.