Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
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Thunder Mountain began as the plan of Joe and Donna Behse, skiers who in 1955 found land a few miles from Boyne Mountain and took on Dee Adgate as their main backer, according to their son's account on MILSAP. Bulldozers shaped the runs in 1956 and a rope tow went in, and the area opened to the public in 1957.1
Read the whole historyTodayThe hill stands abandoned with its lifts long removed, and people use its old runs for sledding and hike-up skiing.1
Timeline
7 events · swipe
Memories
Skied Thunder Mountain, 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 Thunder Mountain
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- 1965–1988 · 18.6 mi away · MichiganA ski area on Sawyer Road near Lake Nineteen, northeast of Gaylord, opened in the mid-1960s as The Pinnacles and run as Tyrolean Hills until 1988.
- 1948–1997 · 33.5 mi away · MichiganA ski area seven miles northeast of Lewiston in northeast Michigan that ran from 1948 until it shut down in 1997.
- Closed 2006 · 43.4 mi away · MichiganA family ski hill on Skyline Road six miles south of Grayling that ran from the mid-1940s until it closed before the 2006–07 winter.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 4 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Thunder Mountain began as the plan of Joe and Donna Behse, skiers who in 1955 found land a few miles from Boyne Mountain and took on Dee Adgate as their main backer, according to their son's account on MILSAP. Bulldozers shaped the runs in 1956 and a rope tow went in, and the area opened to the public in 1957. Jean Pomagalski then designed a Poma lift to follow its ridge. A 1958 Sports Illustrated guide listed four miles of trails, the Poma and four rope tows, and said the area had been open 100 days and served 7,000 skiers the winter before.1
The Behses sold their share to Adgate in 1960. New chairlifts were going in by late 1965, and a 1966 AAA guide listed 12 runs, a T-bar, the Poma and two rope tows. Ev Kircher later bought the hill as part of his Boyne holdings, and a reader says it closed a few years after that. Sources disagree on when: MWLSAP gives 1971 and 400 feet of vertical, but it also lists a 1978 count of one rope tow and two chairlifts, a reader skied there through 1983, and Skimap.org holds trail maps from 1975 to 1978.1,2,3,4
TodayThe hill stands abandoned with its lifts long removed, and people use its old runs for sledding and hike-up skiing.1
Timeline
- 1956Runs bulldozed and a first rope tow installed1
- 1957Opens to the public1
- 1958Sports Illustrated lists a Poma lift, four rope tows and four miles of trails1
- 1960The Behses sell their share to Dee Adgate1
- 1965New chairlifts going in, the Detroit Free Press reports2
- 1971MWLSAP's closing year, disputed by later accounts3
- 1978Listed with one rope tow and two chairlifts3,4
Sources for this history (4)
- 1Michigan Lost Ski Areas Project (MILSAP) · Thunder Mountain – Boyne Falls, Charlevoix Co.
- 2Detroit Free Press · 4 New Ski Resorts Open (Detroit Free Press, November 5, 1965; scan on MWLSAP)
- 3Midwest Lost Ski Areas Project (MWLSAP) · Thunder Mountain
- 4Skimap.org · Thunder Mountain
Photos
No photographs of Thunder Mountain 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 Thunder Mountain, in their own words.
Facts
Location
45.1937° N · 84.8181° W · Michigan
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
from 1957 · 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