Marquette Mountain

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Base of Marquette Mountain

View from Marquette Mountain with Lake Superior in the distance

Panoramic image inside the "T-Bar"

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, and volleyball. 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 first chairlift (a Riblet double) was installed on the skier's right side of Rocket Run in the fall of 1972. Prior to that there were 2 T-bars (the original Constam on the skier's left of Rocket and a newer Hall Ski-Lift on the skier's left of Snowfield) and several rope tows. The ski area was renamed Marquette Mountain in 1982.

Marquette Mountain is host to downhill / Alpine race events for numerous clubs, as well as their own race program. They also host NASTAR races.

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 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.