Marquette Mountain

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Marquette Mountain is a winter sports area for skiing and snow boarding, located a few miles south of Marquette, Michigan, the major city in the state's Upper Peninsula. In the summer, Marquette Mountain offers activities such as mountain biking, volleyball, and disc golf (added in 2006). The base area's parking lot is adjacent to M-553.

Popular from the start, the ski area opened in 1957. It was originally known as Cliffs Ridge, as it operated on land leased from the Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Company of Cleveland, Ohio. The ski area was renamed Marquette Mountain in 1982.

The mountain has a summit elevation of 1357 ft. (414 m) AMSL and a vertical drop of 600 ft. (183 m). It has three chairlifts and a rope tow, snowmaking, night skiing, and receives an average of 210 inches (17.5 ft., 533 cm) of snowfall annually, the grateful recipient of lake effect snow from nearby Lake Superior, prominently visible to the north and northeast. The shore of the lake's Marquette Bay is just two miles to the northeast. Ten miles to the south is the massive concrete runway of the county's Sawyer International Airport, which opened in 1999 on the site of the former K. I. Sawyer Air Force Base, which closed in 1995.

The city of Marquette is home to Northern Michigan University. NMU has an intercollegiate ski team, but it competes in the cross-country events, not alpine racing. Nevertheless, Marquette Mountain is very popular with the student body of NMU, and is a drawing card for the university. One can depart the campus and be on the chairlift in a matter of minutes.

The National Ski Hall of Fame is in Ishpeming, about twelve miles west of Marquette.