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Midwest Abandoned Sugar Loaf Michigan drone footage

Tricia

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I really wish the drone footage wasn't so dark when it goes through the main loby, sitting area and restaurants. This place was pretty cool back in the day.
This drone pilot is pretty good at this.

 

jimmy

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doc

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If you hadn't posted a title to this thread, I would've thought the first two minutes of the drone footage was from Chernobyl.
 

markojp

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Dakine

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I really wish the drone footage wasn't so dark when it goes through the main loby, sitting area and restaurants. This place was pretty cool back in the day.
This drone pilot is pretty good at this.

Used to ski there a lot when I lived in Traverse City.
The first three turns on Awful Awful were exciting, probably the steepest in the Midwest.
Night skiing with a moon and the view of lake Michigan were the best.
The wind howling off the lake wasn't.
 

Jilly

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This is so sad. I work in this type of construction and can tell that at one time this place must have been beautiful. I hate to see good buildings go to waste. Hopefully it doesn't fall to the fate of Grey Rocks....so much alcohol in the floors it burnt longer than it should have.
 

James

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Wow, pretty cool. Too bad that whole complex couldn’t be shipped out to Magic and reassembled.
 

BLiP

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Very interesting, had no idea Sugar Loaf shut down. I remember having races there in the late 90s. They had one run that was considered pretty steep for the region. Sad to see it looking like this
 

DanoT

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With the high price of lumber these days, I wonder if there isn't a lot of valuable material that could be salvaged, including some furniture.
 

markojp

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This is so sad. I work in this type of construction and can tell that at one time this place must have been beautiful. I hate to see good buildings go to waste. Hopefully it doesn't fall to the fate of Grey Rocks....so much alcohol in the floors it burnt longer than it should have.

Architecturally, it was pretty good and way ahead of much of what was is currently going on in northern michigan resort development.
 

afski722

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Sugar Loaf was THE PLACE to ski in Northern Michigan from the late 70s through mid-90s. As a kid growing up skiing in Michigan in the 1980s and 1990s this place was amazing.
I do remember it starting to get a bit shabby in the late-90s also around the time the Boynes and Nubs upped their game in terms of terrain, lifts, and more importantly snowmaking.

However with the popularity and growth around Traverse City over the past 2 decades its too bad this place isn't open. Great terrain, great views, great location. Just needs a good injection of infrastructure.
 

locknload

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So cool. Footage feels like it belongs in a zombie apocalypse or some other story about a distopean future. It made me feel sad and melancholy as I saw the big common rooms and the all the hotel rooms and wondered who made memories there and had good times there.

For those of those that know nothing about Midwest skiing:
  1. When did it open?
  2. When did it go out of business?
  3. What was cool about it?
  4. Why did it go out of business?
  5. Looks like the golf course is still active there?
What else can you tell us about this resort that has passed into the memories of yesteryear? I'm sure some of you guys have seen the "forgotten resorts" that are out there specific to CO..I think. I find this stuff absolutely fascinating for some reason.
 

locknload

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So cool. Footage feels like it belongs in a zombie apocalypse or some other story about a distopean future. It made me feel sad and melancholy as I saw the big common rooms and the all the hotel rooms and wondered who made memories there and had good times there.

For those of those that know nothing about Midwest skiing:
  1. When did it open?
  2. When did it go out of business?
  3. What was cool about it?
  4. Why did it go out of business?
  5. Looks like the golf course is still active there?
What else can you tell us about this resort that has passed into the memories of yesteryear? I'm sure some of you guys have seen the "forgotten resorts" that are out there specific to CO..I think. I find this stuff absolutely fascinating for some reason.
I will go read the story BTW..it may answer some of my questions.
 

James

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Here’s abandoned Sarajevo Olympic facilities. Not the great drone shots, but the devastation is bad. They did have a war only 8 years after the games.
 
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