Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
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Spring Valley, also called the Caspian Ski Hill, is just west of the town of Caspian in the Upper Peninsula. It began as a ski jumping hill in 1940, and a rope tow carried skiers in 1946 and 1947.1,2
Read the whole historyTimeline
5 events · swipe
Photos
Memories
Skied Spring Valley, 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 Spring Valley
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- 1954–1978 · 25.8 mi away · WisconsinA small ski area in the Nicolet National Forest east of Three Lakes, run with the Northernaire resort, that MWLSAP dates from 1954 to 1978.
- Years not yet collected · 28.7 mi away · WisconsinA small ski hill run by the Chanticleer Inn, a lake resort at Eagle River, perhaps from 1961 and still listed in 1975.
- 1956–1970 · 46.4 mi away · WisconsinA ski hill west of Sayner, open from 1956 or 1957 until 1970, whose slopes are now being built into mountain-bike trails.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 4 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Spring Valley, also called the Caspian Ski Hill, is just west of the town of Caspian in the Upper Peninsula. It began as a ski jumping hill in 1940, and a rope tow carried skiers in 1946 and 1947. An exhibit on Upper Peninsula skiing at Northern Michigan University's Beaumier Heritage Center credits it with 15 acres, five runs, one tow and 200 feet of vertical.1,2
In the early 1990s a rope tow and a chalet went up at the bottom of the hill. In 1996 the local Progressive Men's Club ran three runs there, open four days a week. The exhibit says this later skiing lasted several years and ended sometime in the 2010s, and MWLSAP puts the end around 2010, while MILSAP still lists the hill among Michigan's current ski areas.1,2,3,4
Sources for this history (4)
- 1Beaumier U.P. Heritage Center, Northern Michigan University · Spring Valley/Caspian Ski Hill
- 2Midwest Lost Ski Areas Project (MWLSAP) · Spring Valley (also called Caspian Ski Hill)
- 3The Bay City Times · Caspian Ski Hill (ski listing, The Bay City Times, January 24, 1996; scan on MWLSAP)
- 4Michigan Lost Ski Areas Project (MILSAP) · Spring Valley Ski Hill – Caspian
Photos
No photographs of Spring Valley 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 Spring Valley, in their own words.
Facts
Location
46.0683° N · 88.6389° W · Michigan
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
from 1946 · 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 4all 4, in one list
Terrain contours: USGS 3D Elevation Program, public domain