Mt. Mancelona Ski Area
Mancelona, Michigan1954-1984
Browse Mt. Mancelona Ski Area tees, long sleeve tees, hoodies and crewnecks. The hill on U.S. 131 grew to an Austrian T-bar, a Poma and five rope tows, with runs called Wildcat, Rock and Roll and Westward Ho, and a brochure that promised Our Conditions Are Always Friendly. The T-bar is still standing. Choose a style below, and the full Mt. Mancelona history is further down. Down Home Apparel is an American small business remembering the best places and teams of yesteryear, and every shirt is printed to order in the USA.
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Mt. Mancelona Ski Area History
Mt. Mancelona Ski Area in Mancelona, Michigan, stood on U.S. 131 about a mile and a half north of town in Antrim County. It opened as a ski hill in 1954. By 1958 Sports Illustrated listed a 1,200-foot T-bar with a 300-foot rise and five rope tows, and that season's additions were a lodge with a locker room and bar, a new trail, lights for Friday night skiing and piped-in ski music.
The hill kept growing into the 1960s. A Poma lift of about 1,200 feet came in 1961 along with two new slopes, and the AAA's 1971 winter guide counted ten runs and two trails from 300 to 3,000 feet, an Austrian T-bar, a Poma, five tows, a racing hill and a dishpan hill. The trail map showed runs called Challenge, Wildcat, Rock and Roll, Long Valley, Big Valley, Headwall and Westward Ho, and set aside a lot for trailers parked all season.
Its brochure billed it as the family ski area for experts and beginners, with 18 ski runs, night skiing, and the line Our Conditions Are Always Friendly. Mt. Mancelona closed to the public in the mid-1980s, around 1984. It was a separate business from Schuss Mountain, the resort that still operates nearby.
The lodge later became a private home, and locals got the old T-bar turning again for their own use. The slopes reopened briefly as a snowboard-only hill in the 1990s. In 2017 new owners bought the 75-acre property with plans for a music and camping venue, held a festival there in 2018, and lost it to foreclosure. The T-bar is still standing.