SE Michigan Short List

My first, and easiest geographic region I plan to explore and document is that of my own backyard: South East Michigan (Metro Detroit). There are three main ski areas that I remember hearing about:

1. Kandahar Ski Area – This ski hill is just a few miles east off U.S Highway 23 from the Center Road exit. Whenever we would take family trips to Mackinac my father would point off to the east at the white covered slopes. As a child, I always thought the name was “Candelabra” but I knew it didn’t sound correct. My father’s pronunciation always had one or two less syllables.

2. Mt. Grampian Ski Area – A couple miles east of downtown Oxford off Lakeville (Burdick) Road. I originally found this hill looking at old maps, but I didn’t actually see it with my own eyes until I moved out to Dryden (LapeerCounty) in 1994.

3. Silver Bell (???) / Mt. Christie – I don’t know the original name of this ski area, but I’ve seen it a million times driving up highway 24 on our way from Livonia up to Caseville. Just before State Highway 24 merges from a 4 lane divided highway into a 2 lane country road, the old ski hill could be seen about one mile off to the west. Sometime in the 1990s, a subdivision development was built where the ski area once was.

Honorable mention goes to Riverview Highlands, but I’ve decided to omit it from my initial list. You see, Riverview Highlands was built on an old landfill and opened up in the late 1980s. The three previously mentioned ski areas were in operation long before Riverview Highlands and were built on naturally occurring terrain. A quick Google Earth search for Riverview Highlands shows an old landfill that is undergoing some sort of reclamation. Rumor is that the ski hill was built without the proper permits and the owners were forced to shutdown. This is second hand information and I cannot verify any of it.