Skiing at Sugar Loaf this winter?
A new article on the Glen Arbor Sun asks Will Sugar Loaf offer cross-country skiing this winter? It begins:
A breath of fresh air may have descended on Sugar Loaf. Just weeks before snow is likely to fall on the downtrodden Leelanau County ski hill whose chairlifts have sat idle for nearly 12 years, a local resort owner is developing a plan that would open the mountain to cross-country skiing and ice climbing — perhaps this winter.
Erik Zehender, fourth generation co-owner of Fountain Point Resort in nearby Lake Leelanau, is negotiating with Sugar Loaf owner Kate Wickstrom to lease the mountain from her and create the Sugar Loaf Mountain Club, a nonprofit that would offer backcountry and groomed trails to members of the club who, in Zehender’s words, “participate in the costs of insurance, grooming, outhouses, warming huts, parking, plowing, safety programs and other operating expenses.”
Empire resident and Director of Sales and Marketing at DW North, Rick Desrochers, and Glen Arborite Eric Luthardt, a Product Line Manager at Flow Snowboarding, have assisted Zehender. According to Wickstrom, those two “believe in Sugar Loaf and have stood by me. I wouldn’t go forward without them.” Desrochers and Luthardt have worked with Wickstrom for over a year, and she says they bring ideas to resurrect the resort lodge and mountain…
Read on at the Glen Arbor Sun for more about plans for this winter and share your thoughts on our Sugar Loaf thread!
This needs to happen…I hope they keep a grass roots operation. I’m a senior, not by age, National Ski Patrol member that lives in sight of the Loaf and would offer my services to help bring this hidden gem back to the surface.
PMiller, email sugarloafmi@gmail.com if you’re interested in helping/volunteering for ski patrol or anything else.
My name is Joe I have missed this place for so long now! I would be ecstatic and would visit the loaf very often. I have a lot of memories there, I wish and hope the families of this generation could build memories with there families just like I had the privilege of doing. As far as I am concerned this is the best ski resort in the L.P.