Overview
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Riverview Highlands was a ski area on the City of Riverview's landfill, on Sibley Road east of I-75, and skiers called it Mount Trashmore. The landfill dated from 1968.1,2,3
Read the whole historyTodayThe site holds a golf practice facility, and gas collected from the landfill is used to generate electricity.2
Timeline
3 events · swipe
Memories
Skied Riverview Highlands, 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 Riverview Highlands
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- Opened 1947 · 36.7 mi away · MichiganA ski hill above Teeple Lake in Highland State Recreation Area, opened by the Pontiac Ski Club in the 1947–48 winter and still listed in the 1980s.
- Opened 1957 · 45.5 mi away · MichiganA ski hill on Lakeville Road near Oxford, Michigan, founded by Joseph F. Kosik Sr. in 1957 and closed by the late 1980s.
- 1949–1995 · 48.2 mi away · MichiganA small ski hill on Foley Road in Fenton that opened as Summit in the late 1940s and ran as the Kandahar Ski Club from 1965 until 1995.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 5 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Riverview Highlands was a ski area on the City of Riverview's landfill, on Sibley Road east of I-75, and skiers called it Mount Trashmore. The landfill dated from 1968. Skiing opened on December 16, 1980, by a Monroe newspaper's account in early January 1981, with two slopes of 90 and 125 feet, a chairlift, five rope tows, snowmaking and lights for night skiing; MWLSAP gives the year as 1981. The city's parks director called it the only ski area in Michigan that a city both owned and ran, and planned a third slope and two more chairlifts.1,2,3
A later listing gave it two quad chairlifts, two handle tows, eight slopes and 190 feet of vertical. Heat from the rotting garbage made snow hard to keep on the hill, the area lost money, and it was shut down in the 1990s. MWLSAP gives 1995 or 1997 for the close, and the Detroit Free Press reported in November 1997 that Riverview Highlands had shut down. Trail maps from 1982 to 1987 survive on Skimap.org.2,3,4,5
TodayThe site holds a golf practice facility, and gas collected from the landfill is used to generate electricity.2
Sources for this history (5)
- 1The Monroe Evening News · Riverview ski area opens (The Monroe Evening News, January 3, 1981; scan on MWLSAP)
- 2Michigan Lost Ski Areas Project (MILSAP) · Riverview Highlands — Riverview, MI
- 3Midwest Lost Ski Areas Project (MWLSAP) · Riverview Highlands (Mt. Trashmore)
- 4Detroit Free Press · Ski column item on Sheridan Valley and Riverview Highlands (Detroit Free Press, November 30, 1997; scan on MWLSAP)
- 5Skimap.org · Riverview Highlands
Photos
No photographs of Riverview Highlands 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 Riverview Highlands, in their own words.
Facts
Location
42.1660° N · 83.2100° W · Michigan
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
from 1980 · the year it closed is not yet collected
Closed for good; the year it closed is not yet collected. 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