Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
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Timberlee Hills stood north and west of Traverse City, in Elmwood Township near the south end of Lake Leelanau. MWLSAP dates its opening to 1964.1,2
Read the whole historyTodayTimberlee Hills now hosts weddings, banquets and parties, with snow tubing in winter.1
Timeline
6 events · swipe
Memories
Skied Timberlee, 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 Timberlee
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- 1947–2000 · 8.1 mi away · MichiganA ski hill near Cedar, Michigan, that opened to the public in 1947, became Sugar Loaf Mountain Resort in 1964 and closed in 2000.
- Opened 1954 · 47.1 mi away · MichiganA ski area in the Udell Hills of the Manistee National Forest, 16 miles east of Manistee, that opened in 1954 and was later called Big M.
- Opened 1957 · 50.4 mi away · MichiganA ski area a few miles from Boyne Mountain, opened in 1957 by Joe and Donna Behse with backer Dee Adgate, later owned by Boyne and now abandoned.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 4 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Timberlee Hills stood north and west of Traverse City, in Elmwood Township near the south end of Lake Leelanau. MWLSAP dates its opening to 1964. It added a Riblet double chairlift in 1968 and a second in 1969, and readers recall a J-bar and a rope tow as well, with night skiing in the 1970s. MWLSAP gives it 400 feet of vertical and, in 1980, one rope tow, two chairlifts and a Poma.1,2
Its owners went bankrupt, and Michigan National Bank took over the ski area and its residential complex. The bank kept the slopes closed for the 1976–77 winter, judging a season too costly, and looked for a buyer. Timberlee reopened in 1978 and closed for good after a second bankruptcy in 1984, by MWLSAP's account. A trail map from 1980 survives on Skimap.org.2,3,4
TodayTimberlee Hills now hosts weddings, banquets and parties, with snow tubing in winter.1
Sources for this history (4)
- 1Michigan Lost Ski Areas Project (MILSAP) · TimberLee Hills – Traverse City, MI
- 2Midwest Lost Ski Areas Project (MWLSAP) · Timberlee Hills
- 3Traverse City Record-Eagle · Timberlee ski hill closed this season (Bill Pritchard, Traverse City Record-Eagle, December 1, 1976; scan on MWLSAP)
- 4Skimap.org · Timberlee
Photos
No photographs of Timberlee 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 Timberlee, in their own words.
Facts
Location
44.8240° N · 85.7072° W · Michigan
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
1964–1984
Closed after the 1984 season. It stays here as part of the record of U.S. ski areas.
Its numbers
all 2all 2, in one list
Terrain contours: USGS 3D Elevation Program, public domain