Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
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Richard Bresnahan and his brothers opened the Pando Ski Center near Rockford in 1960, so his family could ski without the costly drive to northern Michigan. Bresnahan had trained with the 10th Mountain Division in World War II at Pando, Colorado, and named the hill after it.1,2,3
Read the whole historyTimeline
5 events · swipe
Memories
Skied Pando Ski Center, or worked there?
Tell us what you remember, or what this page has wrong. Memories show here, credited to you, after we read them; facts are checked against a source before they change a figure.
Lost near Pando Ski Center
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- 1956–1983 · 23.9 mi away · MichiganA family-built ski hill off M-46 between Amble and Lakeview, opened in 1956, run as Winterskol for a time, that closed after the 1982–83 season.
- Opened 1961 · 25.8 mi away · MichiganA small rope-tow hill on Irving Road just east of Middleville, run as Eskar Hills from 1961 until a 1969 fire and as Middleville Ski Area from 1978.
- 1968–1977 · 30.8 mi away · MichiganA small county ski hill on M-37 near Newaygo in west Michigan, listed as a new ski area in 1968 and closed in 1977.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 4 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Richard Bresnahan and his brothers opened the Pando Ski Center near Rockford in 1960, so his family could ski without the costly drive to northern Michigan. Bresnahan had trained with the 10th Mountain Division in World War II at Pando, Colorado, and named the hill after it. MWLSAP gives 1963 as the opening year instead. The 1971 AAA list showed nine slopes, three rope tows and snowmaking, and a 1978 count gave six rope tows on about 100 feet of vertical.1,2,3
In 1977 the Bresnahans sold it, and the new owners renamed it Pando Winter Sports Park. They let snurfers and then snowboarders ride the whole hill, the first Michigan area to do so by MILSAP's account, and in 1979 Pando held a snowboarding contest, won by Jake Burton Carpenter, that MILSAP calls the world's first. It later became the first Michigan area with a tubing hill.1,2
Pando ran for the last time on March 12, 2015. That November the owners of Cannonsburg Ski Area bought it after about a year on the market and said it would stay shut that winter while they worked on upgrades. MILSAP reports that it has not reopened.2,4
Sources for this history (4)
- 1Michigan Lost Ski Areas Project (MILSAP) · Pando Ski Center – Rockford
- 2Michigan Lost Ski Areas Project (MILSAP) · Pando Winter Sports Park – Rockford
- 3Midwest Lost Ski Areas Project (MWLSAP) · Pando Ski Center (also called Pando Park)
- 4The Grand Rapids Press · Pando ski hill sold to Cannonsburg owners (Angie Jackson, The Grand Rapids Press, November 17, 2015; scan on MWLSAP)
Photos
No photographs of Pando Ski Center we may republish yet
Its old photos and trail maps live on the sites that collected them, and Google finds the rest.
Memories
What skiers remember of Pando Ski Center, in their own words.
Facts
Location
43.0839° N · 85.4685° W · Michigan
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
1960–2015
Closed after the 2015 season. It stays here as part of the record of U.S. ski areas.
Its numbers
all 3all 3, in one list
Terrain contours: USGS 3D Elevation Program, public domain