The Leelanau Conservancy is happily bracing for impact.

It’s been almost a week since the conservancy announced it will open the Sugar Loaf Scenic Area (the former Sugar Loaf ski resort) to the public on Friday, Oct. 9. The response has been one of unbridled enthusiasm, in every measurable way.

“We’re asking people to RSVP so we can have a general idea, and as of this morning, it’s at around 600…and that’s just the people who RSVPed,” conservancy natural areas director Becky Hill told The Ticker on Wednesday. “I’d love it if people could carpool, of course, but it’s just so exciting that we’re getting this response.”

What may end up being the most attended event in the conservancy’s 38-year history fits for a project that generated an intense outpouring of happiness when it was announced in July of last year. The anticipation for opening has conservancy staff just as excited as the masses.

“My feelings right now are just off the chart,” conservancy Executive Director Tom Nelson tells The Ticker. “We’ve never done a project like this before and may never have an opportunity do anything quite like it again.”

The ski area operated from 1947 until 2000, serving for much of that stretch as the county’s largest employer and becoming an incredibly special place for generations of Leelanau County residents and visitors.

An open-house style event will be held from 5 p.m. until dusk next Friday, and the property will remain open to the public after that. While there is still a lot of remaining work to do at Sugar Loaf, the conservancy wanted to get people on the property as soon as safely possible.

“We have an ambitious five-year plan to create all the amenities – trails, the picnic pavilions and viewing spots, demonstration garden, child's play area – phased in over about five years. But we didn't want to wait five years to let people experience Sugar Loaf,” Nelson says. “We knew that what people wanted most was to be able to reach the summit and take in those incredible views…so our plan right out of the gate was to build a trail so people can access to the top for the views, along with a nice, safe parking area.”

The conservancy built a large, roughly 90-space parking area along Sugar Loaf Mountain Road where the main resort lodge used to sit, Hill says, and a smaller lot to the south along East Old Mountain Road. The main summit trail starts at the larger lot.

There isn’t a schedule or agenda for next week’s event. Just show up and enjoy.

“It’s very much an open house. We’re not going to hold people up and do a lot of speeches, because people just want to have a chance to enjoy that property for the first time in decades,” Nelson says. “I’m looking forward to seeing the smiles on those faces as people have the opportunity to walk up that hill.”

After closing in 2000, the ski area languished for years, with reopening attempts that never materialized as the lodge and lifts fell into disrepair. In 2020, the property was acquired by a mysterious LLC named SPV 45, which later demolished the decrepit lodge and removed the lifts.

SPV 45 was eventually revealed to be a subsidiary of the Edmund F. and Virginia B. Ball Foundation, which donated the property to the conservancy contingent upon the conservancy raising $8 million for a site plan and infrastructure/amenities on the property.

Nelson remains intensely grateful to the Ball foundation for its “mind-blowing” gift, without which the the project could not have happened. This branch of the Ball family has a long history at Sugar Loaf and several previous examples of philanthropy in Leelanau, Nelson says, but perhaps nothing quite like this.

“This really was a stunning gesture of generosity to the community,” he says.

Not to be forgotten is the foundation’s immense and expensive legwork in removing all of the deteriorating infrastructure before gifting the property to the conservancy.

“They cleaned the property up and were able to gift us almost a blank slate,” Hill says. “It’s incredible.”

The conservancy plans several miles of bike, hiking and ski trails at the property. Click here for more on those plans. 

Click here for more on Sugar Loaf's history.