I was looking for a ski area close to Christmas (it’s Dec. 25, 2011 as I write this) and the closest I could get was Maple Mountain Ski Area just south of Munising. It was listed as having both alpine and nordic skiing, but I haven’t found any other information about it.
If you have any information about skiing at Maple Mountain, please post it or send it to us via the directions on the About MILSAP page.
MILSAP 
Our family was involved in the clearing of the hill where Maple Mountain was. We cut enough firewood for about three winters. My parents bought all 5 of us our Skis from the local Holiday Gas Station. I think they were Champion Brand, all wood! We skied every Saturday and Sunday from open to close for many years! I think we have some old pictures that I can dig up and post for you. I was told the hill closed due to a death on the rope-tow. Great Chalet!
Thanks Tom. We’ll look forward to seeing the pictures. Can you put a date on clearing the hill and maybe on the closing of the area?
How can i get a few pics to you?
Tom, you can email them to milsap@comcast.net. You might have to send them one at a time if the files are really big. If they are too big to email, you could post copies to me by snail mail or you could send the originals if you cannot copy or scan them and I will scan them and return your originals to you. If email does not work, let me know and I will email you my street address (I am reluctant to post it on the web).
I found an article here about a fatal accident that occurred in 1989. A boy’s clothing got tangled in the lift equipment and he died. http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1989-12-27/news/8912272544_1_lift-machinery-ski-michigan-upper-peninsula
I’m staying up in Munising right now and I was curious about the old ski hill because I heard that a kid died on the rope tow in 1989. I asked someone at the local gas station if they knew where it was, and they gave us directions. We found ourselves driving up the hill on very narrow road. Almost to the top, we saw two people and they said that this is one private property now, but they didn’t care that we were here. We asked him if we were close to the ski area and he said that we were just about at the top of where the lift shack was. He said that he thinks it closed around 2000. In guessing the vertical was about 300 feet
I learned how to ski at and grew up skiing Munising’s Maple Mountain. We would go after school and open to close on the weekends. It’s always been said if you can ski Maple Mountain, you can ski anywhere! For being a little hill, it was a tough one for sure. Basically a steep mogul field on the right (south) side of the tow rope, it got smoother and less steep the further to the left you went towards where the “bunny” tow rope was on the far side.. Not sure if I actually ever saw that bunny tow in operation… The right side was home to the infamous “rohax” jump. A wooden ramp on top of a steep drop they would form into a massive jump. I remember fondly laying under it while a couple of the older boys would do back flips off it. There were a couple other named jumps as well that were built every season… Tree jump, Triangle.
The rope tow was insanely fast. If you grabbed on quickly it would jerk you right out of your skis. Every season you’d have to get new “chaps” for your gloves because the rope tow would chew them apart… It was not uncommon to have the person in front of you snap the rope as hard as they could when they got off which in turn would wipe out everyone still on the rope below and other such rope tow shenanigans… Towards the last couple years it was open it was kind of a free-for-all. I remember days when whoever the volunteer parent was wouldn’t show up to open the hill, the older kids would climb through a broken window on the tow shed, turn the tow on and we’d just ski all day, they’d turn the lights on when it got dark. The last one there would turn it all off.. We just couldn’t get in the chalet (affectionately known as the shack) on those days.. They did try and get it together and more organized the final year or two it was open though…
I wasn’t at the hill the day of the accident (gone for the holiday), most of my friends were there though. Truly tragic what happened. That was the last day the hill was open. Just after Christmas 1989. These days you would never know there was a ski hill there. It is private property now and the trees have filled in any sign that it was ever there.