The Schuss Mountain side underwent a huge overhaul in 1997. They ripped out the 4 original Riblet chairs, re-contoured the top of the mountain, dumped a ton of dirt to add an additional 50 vertical feet, added 4 new CTEC quads, and added lights for night skiiing. Then the following season they added the terrain expansion around the north side for the Cedar River base.
The Shanty Creek side still retains the two original Riblet chairs and is now more or less the family / beginner / learn-to-ski area and only open Fri, Sat, Sun, and holiday periods.
Does anybody know if the Summit Slopes (the original “Shanty Creek” side of the resort) will re-open for downhill skiing? They turned it into an all-tubing operation at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic as it could not support both at that time, but as of now I believe it is still all tubing. It would be a shame, as this was a nice perk of the resort. The Summit Slopes were a nice place for families and had beautiful views of Lake Bellaire from the top. The “upside down” nature with the hotel/lodge at the top was unique. It was nice to have a less-crowded option on busy weekends as well.
I have wondered the same thing and not gotten a solid answer from anyone that regularly skis Schuss / Shanty Creek.
If they don’t open for 2022-2023, I would venture to guess they may be done skiing on the Summit Slopes.
Per a trusted source, Summit is not completely dead for alpine skiing, but would require significant investment in infrastructure, mainly with snowmaking, and that is the big sticking point. Similar to the challenge contributed to the demise of Sugar Loaf and currently hampers The Homestead among other places, humidity is higher being close to Lake Bellaire and even Torch Lake, making snowmaking less efficient and thus more costly. I would love to see Summit live on for the family aspect or as a massive terrain park (which would require even MORE snowmaking). Having the renovated and pretty Lakeview Hotel at the top without having the skiing down below seems tragic. So if any of you want skiing to continue at Summit, drop them a social media message or an e-mail and we will see if they think it’s worth the investment.
I found an old trail map on the web, ostensibly from 1997, that shows Schuss having the Pink, Yellow, and Red CTEC quads operational that winter. I believe that they tore out the Blue triple that year, but the Blue and Purple quads weren’t installed until the following summer of 1998. Does anyone know about this?
As for Summit slopes, how much would that snowmaking infrastructure (and possibly new lifts) run? Those trails are not bad skiing and I’d like to ski them again someday.
I learned to ski at Summit so it is sad to see the current state of skiing there. The summit slopes are not as good as what is available at Schuss. Even if they are revived they are not ever going to be as good. In the 80’s they removed a lift and shrunk the size of the area by roughly a third in order to build more condos. At that time it appears that they stopped investing in the skiing at Summit. Shanty Creek had a lot of financial issues in the 90’s that didn’t help things either. My opinion is that unless schuss becomes so overcrowded on a regular basis that they are fearful of losing skiers to other resorts, they will let Summit rot. A lot of the property owners at Summit were upset when skiing was stopped and I think the snowmaking excuse was more of an excuse than a reality. It hadn’t been a real issue prior to that and snowmaking technology for marginal conditions has greatly improved. Homestead has some SMI Wizards which are designed for marginal snowmaking conditions. Homestead does have to deal with marginal conditions but their real problem is a real lack of snowmaking equipment. They can only make snow in one small area at a time.
I do not recall the specific timelines for the lifts at Schuss. I know they all went in over a 2 year period. I have noticed that in some cases the dates of install listed are not actually the date of install and more likely the date of purchase or delivery. Not sure if that is why the timelines are different than the reality or not. The Challenger lift at Highlands is listed as a 69 install but I do not think it was actually installed until 72.
Trail maps are misleading, especially older ones. There are a lot of cases where older trail maps imply that lifts were operating when they were not installed yet and more often trail maps do not list new lifts that are operating.
Yeah similar feelings as well, Shanty Creek was one of the first places I went skiing as a kid (along with Snowsnake) before I really got into it in middle school. As a kid we often stayed in Traverse City or at the “Resort” (Grand Traverse Resort). However I remember we once stayed at the Summit slopes staying in the hotel there getting there on a Friday night a seeing the place all lit up for night skiing was just magical as a kid.
Anyways, yeah I was by the Summit slopes a few weeks ago to check out the view for the fall colors from the top and its sad to see the state of the ski area. They are now just using it for a tubing area on weekends in the area in front of the hotel.
It would probably at least $5 million dollars to replace the 2 lifts, utility / infrastructure and get modern snowmaking equipment.
I didn’t know there was a third lift at one time at the Summit slopes Where was it located? My only recollection from the early-90s was the 2 lifts that are currently there. I’ve golfed there a few times and always wondered about the slope that they have replanted with pine trees to the east of the lodge.
Regarding the Schuss side…. I remember skiing there when it was the original 4 Riblets on the front face. Center pole doubles and a triple. In the major 1997 expansion, that is when they were building Cedar River lodge side and with the excavation work dumped all the additional dirt on top the hill. They took out the 4 lifts on the front side and replaced it with 2 CTEC quads on the front (Pink, Yellow), and put the 2 more CTEC quad on some new terrain on the north side (Purple, Red). I believe it was the following year (1998) they added the 5th CTEC quad back on the front side (Blue).
I do know there was a season or two they only 2 quads on the front side.
I echo my earlier sentiments and that of all the others on here…there is something unique and magical about the setting of the Summit Slopes with the lodge on top, the beautiful view of Lake Bellaire, the atmosphere at night. Sure, the skiing over at Schuss is better and tougher, but the smaller crowds and the surroundings made it a nice alternative for families, and rounds out the resort as a whole in my mind. That is definitely a lot of investment, but as long as they can still maintain the old Riblet center-pole doubles and at least threw the initial investment into the snowmaking, maybe that would be enough to raise more capital and replace the lifts a little later. They certainly don’t have the mileage on them that other lifts would, since they ran limited days and hours over at Summit for many years. Who knows…
As far as the third chair, it was located to the northwest of the lodge. The original hotel did not include the extension that heads northwest (the area with the cafeteria/ballrooms on the first floor). The lift line was almost due northwest, and the first hole of the Legend golf course was one of the main slopes. The lower terminal was likely somewhere just west of #1 green. An overhead photo shows a one or two more of the cut trails that are still at least partially there. I don’t know exactly when it was removed, but it still showed up on a 1980 trail map (skimap.org) with that whole trail pod. It was likely removed as they prepared to build the Legend, which opened in 1986 but was I think built starting in 1985. On the MILSAP website, it references a Sports Illustrated article from 1962 that said the area had a Heron single chair that year (the year it opened). as well as a T-bar. I don’t know if that chair was ever replaced or upgraded, but it is likely that it was in that location that no longer has trails.
I also don’t remember the exact sequence at Schuss of the quad installations, as I think my first visit there was right after they were all in. What I do know is that there are some errors and/or anomalies with some of the stats above:
– Yellow Chair: The length per my source that published the SAM survey stats shows a length of 1348 instead of 1938. However, based on USGS topo maps done before the fill addition on top, this lift should have slightly more vertical than the Blue. Also, based on the Michigan license number being pulled for Yellow at the same time as Red/Purple/Pink, and Blue was pulled later (1998 installation), I hypothesize this might actually be the 330/1331 installation (not the Pink).
– Pink Chair: Based on the length calculation from Google Maps and the relative vertical rises of the lifts based on their terminal locations, this is actually the 340/1268 installation rather than Blue. The lower terminal is slightly lower than Blue, maybe by 10 vertical feet or so, and the length is close to the Google Maps calc.
– Blue Chair: The Michigan license number was pulled later than the others, and could possibly indicate this lift was the one added last in 1998 instead of 1997. The next license in sequence is the Crystal Clipper at Crystal Mountain (1998), and the preceding license is #3 at Otsego Resort (1997). The vertical seems like it makes sense at 322, since the lower terminals for Pink and Yellow are both a little below the Blue lower terminal, and they all end at almost the same exact height. The length is what doesn’t make sense. My source on the SAM survey says 1348 (not 1938), but the length is more like about 1138, and is definitely shorter than Pink and Yellow. I’m a little stumped. The Michigan LARA record on this would probably clear it up.
Correction on the lift line of the third Summit chair after I re-read my post – it actually went uphill in the Southeast direction, northwest from the hotel. So the slopes were northwest-facing.
The removed lift ran from the area behind the green on the first hole up to where the water tower is. I have always wanted to look and see if there are any remains of a vault drive in that spot. I can’t post an image but you can see the lift line on an aerial phot pretty clearly.
I never skied there when the lift was operational but is shows up on topo maps and old aerial photos. Old trail maps also show it but never have I seen one that indicated what type of lift it was.
We know there was a single Heron, a T-bar and double Riblets installed in 64, 71 and 80.
I think the 64 Riblet is the green chair and the 71 was the removed chair and the 80 is the Black chair.
I think the 71 Riblet replaced the Single Heron and the 71 was later removed.
The 80 Riblet replaced the T-bar.
This is all just a guess but I can’t see how Green isn’t a 1964. The Black chair clearly has newer components mixed with reused towers.
A 71 Riblet removed 10-15 years after install was likely sold to another resort. I wonder where this would have gone?
I have no guesses on where the Pomas would have been but my guess is the beginner area.
Interesting theory. For sure the 1980 has the old-style Riblet tower crossbeam supports with new drive/return terminals and is the Black chair. However, the stats for the 1971 installation (266/1663) line up perfectly with the Green, rather than the 1964 stats. Yet the Green has the same earlier-era tower design as the Black. For the third chair, the 1964 numbers are 276/2540. There is nowhere on that property that I see that would fit a lift of that inclined length, especially when looking at topo maps.
The State of Michigan has a license lookup database, and they even assign names to the lifts in the licenses. You can infer the installation date of the lift based on the license number, because they were pulled sequentially starting around 1966 (they assigned license numbers to all the existing chairs in what appears to be around 1965, but they were sorted by resort at that time). Based on that logic, Green is for sure the 1971 installation and Black is for sure the 1980 installation, making “Purple” (this is before the current Purple at Schuss, which has a separate license) the 1964 installation, which must be the removed chair. For reference, all the licenses for the old Schuss chairs show them installed in 1967 or 1968 as expected.
Even though the Green is the 1971 install, it still could have replaced the Heron single, since we have no stats or pictorial history of that chair at the moment. The Heron single could have been on that middle of the slopes alignment that Green is on now, not sure at all.
I agree with you about black and green… Another possible theory…
The 64 chair was moved, removed or modified prior to 71 and was in fact as long as the stats indicated. The towers were used to make the green chair and the black chair. Maybe the single was the only chair at the now unused slopes to the NW. The T-bar was where the black lift now is until 80 when replaced by the Black chair.
Maybe, the stats on the 64 lift are just wrong.
I would love to know the actual chain of events here.
Summit, Ski Brule, Caberfae and Otsego I think are really the only ones in Michigan where there are still some holes to figure out.
Ski Brule has so many random lifts that mostly came used but from where?
Caberfae had ropes, chairs and T-bars all over but there is still some uncertainty about timelines.
Otsego has 4 Miner Denver lifts. I have only ever seen stats listed for 2 Miner Denver installs there. Were the others brought in used?
I would also like to know where the lifts at closed ski hills went. Lansing Ski club, Mt. Maria, Timberlee, Ski World and others.
You guys are great. I didn’t even know about the NW/SE lift. Still not sure if I am reading the topo maps right – it looks like it would be less steep than Green or Black, neither of which are that steep either. It looks like some of the line north of the condos closed to the water tower might be the old lift line, and that the bottom of the lift would be near the golf course. The old circa-1980 map shows the liftline roughly 135 degrees from the Black chair’s liftline, and that the western-most slope of the now-long-gone lift barely touched or was tangential to the northernmost downhill skiing trail accessible by the Green lift back then. In any event, I last skied at the Summit slopes in the early 1990s and never experienced the NW lift before the condos went in there. As for bringing skiing back to Summit on a regular basis, I would think the condos owners would be most able to do something about it or bring pressure to bear on the resort.
If I do ski Schuss this winter as planned, it might be during a busy period. I think five CTEC quads on Schuss is overkill, but I’ve skied there on non-holidays (many years ago) and when I visit the area, it’s either in January or February when the hill is busy but not jammed, or if I stop by in summer. Question – are the Blue or Yellow lifts operated in summer for mountain biking? I don’t think Schuss has an alpine slide.
I was up at Shanty Creek this weekend, and it doesn’t look good for Summit. chairs are pulled off the Green lift (still on Black), no snowmaking equipment in place, and any trace of Summit skiing seems to be gone from their website.
My wife and I went skiing at Schuss Mountain yesterday. The red lift wasn’t open, as they were grooming the trails. That was a disappointment because the original parts of Schuss are too steep or too flat, and I was looking forward to skiing that “new” terrain pod. The late 1990s CTEC quad lifts run well.
We had dinner at the Summit and I can confirm that it looks like they have closed it for skiing. Lifts don’t look ready to go again, and any references to skiing at Summit (except for trail markers at the top and the trail map posted outside) have been erased with directions to the snow tubing park there.
Lift Blog 
What was rice?
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Rice sold rebranded sellers, so it would have looked something like this:
https://liftblog.com/t-bar-brantling-ny/
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The Schuss Mountain side underwent a huge overhaul in 1997. They ripped out the 4 original Riblet chairs, re-contoured the top of the mountain, dumped a ton of dirt to add an additional 50 vertical feet, added 4 new CTEC quads, and added lights for night skiiing. Then the following season they added the terrain expansion around the north side for the Cedar River base.
The Shanty Creek side still retains the two original Riblet chairs and is now more or less the family / beginner / learn-to-ski area and only open Fri, Sat, Sun, and holiday periods.
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Does anybody know if the Summit Slopes (the original “Shanty Creek” side of the resort) will re-open for downhill skiing? They turned it into an all-tubing operation at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic as it could not support both at that time, but as of now I believe it is still all tubing. It would be a shame, as this was a nice perk of the resort. The Summit Slopes were a nice place for families and had beautiful views of Lake Bellaire from the top. The “upside down” nature with the hotel/lodge at the top was unique. It was nice to have a less-crowded option on busy weekends as well.
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I have wondered the same thing and not gotten a solid answer from anyone that regularly skis Schuss / Shanty Creek.
If they don’t open for 2022-2023, I would venture to guess they may be done skiing on the Summit Slopes.
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Per a trusted source, Summit is not completely dead for alpine skiing, but would require significant investment in infrastructure, mainly with snowmaking, and that is the big sticking point. Similar to the challenge contributed to the demise of Sugar Loaf and currently hampers The Homestead among other places, humidity is higher being close to Lake Bellaire and even Torch Lake, making snowmaking less efficient and thus more costly. I would love to see Summit live on for the family aspect or as a massive terrain park (which would require even MORE snowmaking). Having the renovated and pretty Lakeview Hotel at the top without having the skiing down below seems tragic. So if any of you want skiing to continue at Summit, drop them a social media message or an e-mail and we will see if they think it’s worth the investment.
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I found an old trail map on the web, ostensibly from 1997, that shows Schuss having the Pink, Yellow, and Red CTEC quads operational that winter. I believe that they tore out the Blue triple that year, but the Blue and Purple quads weren’t installed until the following summer of 1998. Does anyone know about this?
As for Summit slopes, how much would that snowmaking infrastructure (and possibly new lifts) run? Those trails are not bad skiing and I’d like to ski them again someday.
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I learned to ski at Summit so it is sad to see the current state of skiing there. The summit slopes are not as good as what is available at Schuss. Even if they are revived they are not ever going to be as good. In the 80’s they removed a lift and shrunk the size of the area by roughly a third in order to build more condos. At that time it appears that they stopped investing in the skiing at Summit. Shanty Creek had a lot of financial issues in the 90’s that didn’t help things either. My opinion is that unless schuss becomes so overcrowded on a regular basis that they are fearful of losing skiers to other resorts, they will let Summit rot. A lot of the property owners at Summit were upset when skiing was stopped and I think the snowmaking excuse was more of an excuse than a reality. It hadn’t been a real issue prior to that and snowmaking technology for marginal conditions has greatly improved. Homestead has some SMI Wizards which are designed for marginal snowmaking conditions. Homestead does have to deal with marginal conditions but their real problem is a real lack of snowmaking equipment. They can only make snow in one small area at a time.
I do not recall the specific timelines for the lifts at Schuss. I know they all went in over a 2 year period. I have noticed that in some cases the dates of install listed are not actually the date of install and more likely the date of purchase or delivery. Not sure if that is why the timelines are different than the reality or not. The Challenger lift at Highlands is listed as a 69 install but I do not think it was actually installed until 72.
Trail maps are misleading, especially older ones. There are a lot of cases where older trail maps imply that lifts were operating when they were not installed yet and more often trail maps do not list new lifts that are operating.
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Yeah similar feelings as well, Shanty Creek was one of the first places I went skiing as a kid (along with Snowsnake) before I really got into it in middle school. As a kid we often stayed in Traverse City or at the “Resort” (Grand Traverse Resort). However I remember we once stayed at the Summit slopes staying in the hotel there getting there on a Friday night a seeing the place all lit up for night skiing was just magical as a kid.
Anyways, yeah I was by the Summit slopes a few weeks ago to check out the view for the fall colors from the top and its sad to see the state of the ski area. They are now just using it for a tubing area on weekends in the area in front of the hotel.
It would probably at least $5 million dollars to replace the 2 lifts, utility / infrastructure and get modern snowmaking equipment.
I didn’t know there was a third lift at one time at the Summit slopes Where was it located? My only recollection from the early-90s was the 2 lifts that are currently there. I’ve golfed there a few times and always wondered about the slope that they have replanted with pine trees to the east of the lodge.
Regarding the Schuss side…. I remember skiing there when it was the original 4 Riblets on the front face. Center pole doubles and a triple. In the major 1997 expansion, that is when they were building Cedar River lodge side and with the excavation work dumped all the additional dirt on top the hill. They took out the 4 lifts on the front side and replaced it with 2 CTEC quads on the front (Pink, Yellow), and put the 2 more CTEC quad on some new terrain on the north side (Purple, Red). I believe it was the following year (1998) they added the 5th CTEC quad back on the front side (Blue).
I do know there was a season or two they only 2 quads on the front side.
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I echo my earlier sentiments and that of all the others on here…there is something unique and magical about the setting of the Summit Slopes with the lodge on top, the beautiful view of Lake Bellaire, the atmosphere at night. Sure, the skiing over at Schuss is better and tougher, but the smaller crowds and the surroundings made it a nice alternative for families, and rounds out the resort as a whole in my mind. That is definitely a lot of investment, but as long as they can still maintain the old Riblet center-pole doubles and at least threw the initial investment into the snowmaking, maybe that would be enough to raise more capital and replace the lifts a little later. They certainly don’t have the mileage on them that other lifts would, since they ran limited days and hours over at Summit for many years. Who knows…
As far as the third chair, it was located to the northwest of the lodge. The original hotel did not include the extension that heads northwest (the area with the cafeteria/ballrooms on the first floor). The lift line was almost due northwest, and the first hole of the Legend golf course was one of the main slopes. The lower terminal was likely somewhere just west of #1 green. An overhead photo shows a one or two more of the cut trails that are still at least partially there. I don’t know exactly when it was removed, but it still showed up on a 1980 trail map (skimap.org) with that whole trail pod. It was likely removed as they prepared to build the Legend, which opened in 1986 but was I think built starting in 1985. On the MILSAP website, it references a Sports Illustrated article from 1962 that said the area had a Heron single chair that year (the year it opened). as well as a T-bar. I don’t know if that chair was ever replaced or upgraded, but it is likely that it was in that location that no longer has trails.
I also don’t remember the exact sequence at Schuss of the quad installations, as I think my first visit there was right after they were all in. What I do know is that there are some errors and/or anomalies with some of the stats above:
– Yellow Chair: The length per my source that published the SAM survey stats shows a length of 1348 instead of 1938. However, based on USGS topo maps done before the fill addition on top, this lift should have slightly more vertical than the Blue. Also, based on the Michigan license number being pulled for Yellow at the same time as Red/Purple/Pink, and Blue was pulled later (1998 installation), I hypothesize this might actually be the 330/1331 installation (not the Pink).
– Pink Chair: Based on the length calculation from Google Maps and the relative vertical rises of the lifts based on their terminal locations, this is actually the 340/1268 installation rather than Blue. The lower terminal is slightly lower than Blue, maybe by 10 vertical feet or so, and the length is close to the Google Maps calc.
– Blue Chair: The Michigan license number was pulled later than the others, and could possibly indicate this lift was the one added last in 1998 instead of 1997. The next license in sequence is the Crystal Clipper at Crystal Mountain (1998), and the preceding license is #3 at Otsego Resort (1997). The vertical seems like it makes sense at 322, since the lower terminals for Pink and Yellow are both a little below the Blue lower terminal, and they all end at almost the same exact height. The length is what doesn’t make sense. My source on the SAM survey says 1348 (not 1938), but the length is more like about 1138, and is definitely shorter than Pink and Yellow. I’m a little stumped. The Michigan LARA record on this would probably clear it up.
The rest are all correct for both locations.
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Correction on the lift line of the third Summit chair after I re-read my post – it actually went uphill in the Southeast direction, northwest from the hotel. So the slopes were northwest-facing.
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The removed lift ran from the area behind the green on the first hole up to where the water tower is. I have always wanted to look and see if there are any remains of a vault drive in that spot. I can’t post an image but you can see the lift line on an aerial phot pretty clearly.
I never skied there when the lift was operational but is shows up on topo maps and old aerial photos. Old trail maps also show it but never have I seen one that indicated what type of lift it was.
We know there was a single Heron, a T-bar and double Riblets installed in 64, 71 and 80.
I think the 64 Riblet is the green chair and the 71 was the removed chair and the 80 is the Black chair.
I think the 71 Riblet replaced the Single Heron and the 71 was later removed.
The 80 Riblet replaced the T-bar.
This is all just a guess but I can’t see how Green isn’t a 1964. The Black chair clearly has newer components mixed with reused towers.
A 71 Riblet removed 10-15 years after install was likely sold to another resort. I wonder where this would have gone?
I have no guesses on where the Pomas would have been but my guess is the beginner area.
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Interesting theory. For sure the 1980 has the old-style Riblet tower crossbeam supports with new drive/return terminals and is the Black chair. However, the stats for the 1971 installation (266/1663) line up perfectly with the Green, rather than the 1964 stats. Yet the Green has the same earlier-era tower design as the Black. For the third chair, the 1964 numbers are 276/2540. There is nowhere on that property that I see that would fit a lift of that inclined length, especially when looking at topo maps.
The State of Michigan has a license lookup database, and they even assign names to the lifts in the licenses. You can infer the installation date of the lift based on the license number, because they were pulled sequentially starting around 1966 (they assigned license numbers to all the existing chairs in what appears to be around 1965, but they were sorted by resort at that time). Based on that logic, Green is for sure the 1971 installation and Black is for sure the 1980 installation, making “Purple” (this is before the current Purple at Schuss, which has a separate license) the 1964 installation, which must be the removed chair. For reference, all the licenses for the old Schuss chairs show them installed in 1967 or 1968 as expected.
Even though the Green is the 1971 install, it still could have replaced the Heron single, since we have no stats or pictorial history of that chair at the moment. The Heron single could have been on that middle of the slopes alignment that Green is on now, not sure at all.
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I agree with you about black and green… Another possible theory…
The 64 chair was moved, removed or modified prior to 71 and was in fact as long as the stats indicated. The towers were used to make the green chair and the black chair. Maybe the single was the only chair at the now unused slopes to the NW. The T-bar was where the black lift now is until 80 when replaced by the Black chair.
Maybe, the stats on the 64 lift are just wrong.
I would love to know the actual chain of events here.
Summit, Ski Brule, Caberfae and Otsego I think are really the only ones in Michigan where there are still some holes to figure out.
Ski Brule has so many random lifts that mostly came used but from where?
Caberfae had ropes, chairs and T-bars all over but there is still some uncertainty about timelines.
Otsego has 4 Miner Denver lifts. I have only ever seen stats listed for 2 Miner Denver installs there. Were the others brought in used?
I would also like to know where the lifts at closed ski hills went. Lansing Ski club, Mt. Maria, Timberlee, Ski World and others.
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You guys are great. I didn’t even know about the NW/SE lift. Still not sure if I am reading the topo maps right – it looks like it would be less steep than Green or Black, neither of which are that steep either. It looks like some of the line north of the condos closed to the water tower might be the old lift line, and that the bottom of the lift would be near the golf course. The old circa-1980 map shows the liftline roughly 135 degrees from the Black chair’s liftline, and that the western-most slope of the now-long-gone lift barely touched or was tangential to the northernmost downhill skiing trail accessible by the Green lift back then. In any event, I last skied at the Summit slopes in the early 1990s and never experienced the NW lift before the condos went in there. As for bringing skiing back to Summit on a regular basis, I would think the condos owners would be most able to do something about it or bring pressure to bear on the resort.
If I do ski Schuss this winter as planned, it might be during a busy period. I think five CTEC quads on Schuss is overkill, but I’ve skied there on non-holidays (many years ago) and when I visit the area, it’s either in January or February when the hill is busy but not jammed, or if I stop by in summer. Question – are the Blue or Yellow lifts operated in summer for mountain biking? I don’t think Schuss has an alpine slide.
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They run the blue in fall for scenic tours, but other than that I don’t think the lifts run at all for the offseason
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I was up at Shanty Creek this weekend, and it doesn’t look good for Summit. chairs are pulled off the Green lift (still on Black), no snowmaking equipment in place, and any trace of Summit skiing seems to be gone from their website.
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My wife and I went skiing at Schuss Mountain yesterday. The red lift wasn’t open, as they were grooming the trails. That was a disappointment because the original parts of Schuss are too steep or too flat, and I was looking forward to skiing that “new” terrain pod. The late 1990s CTEC quad lifts run well.
We had dinner at the Summit and I can confirm that it looks like they have closed it for skiing. Lifts don’t look ready to go again, and any references to skiing at Summit (except for trail markers at the top and the trail map posted outside) have been erased with directions to the snow tubing park there.
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I’d say the 2 summit lifts should be in a “standing but not operating” tier. Summit Mountain has not opened in nearly 4 years.
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