17 Michigan Ski Hills Where a Day Pass Is Under $45

Last updated October 2026

Seventeen of Michigan’s 41 ski areas are run by a city, a county, a college, the DNR or a volunteer club, and most of them never show up on a “best Michigan ski resorts” list. These community ski hills in Michigan are where the state learns to ski: rope tows and T-bars, every run lit after dark, and adult day passes that run from free to about $45 at all but three of them. Here’s every one, by region, with what it costs, when it runs and how far it is from Detroit, Grand Rapids or Traverse City.

This is for the parent who wants a first ski day that doesn’t cost $400, the college student with a Tuesday night free, and anyone who lives within 30 minutes of one of these hills and has never been. What most guides miss is that these aren’t lesser versions of Boyne; they’re a different product. Nobody is in a hurry, the lift line is a rope, and the person running it probably taught your neighbor’s kid. For the full-service resorts, I keep the complete list of all 41 Michigan ski resorts on MyMichiganBeach.

Why ski a community hill instead of a resort?

Because a first day on skis is a cost-and-patience problem, and the community hills win on both. A rope-tow hill with a 200-foot vertical teaches the same stop, turn and ride-the-lift skills as a 500-foot resort, for a fifth of the price, with no lift line and no one shouting past your six-year-old. Here’s what I’d do with a beginner: two or three evenings at the closest community hill, then one resort weekend once they can link turns. You’ll spend less on the whole winter than one weekend at Boyne, and the resort day will go better.

The tradeoff is real, and it’s hours. Most of these hills open at 4 or 5 on weekdays and run weekend afternoons; a few only open when it snows. The overrated move is driving three hours north for a resort on a December weekend when the hill 25 minutes from your house has lights on Tuesday night and nobody on it.

Upper Peninsula community ski hills

Ten of the 17 are in the UP, which makes sense: towns up here have run their own hills since the 1930s, and the snow is reliable enough that half of them don’t bother with snowmaking. Two are college-owned, one is a state park, and four are kept alive by volunteers. Drive times below are from Traverse City, since everything in the UP is a long day from Detroit (Marquette is seven hours).

Porcupine Mountains Winter Sports Complex, Ontonagon

The Porkies is the only ski area in Michigan the DNR runs, inside Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park, and it’s the biggest hill on this list by a wide margin: 630 feet of vertical with Lake Superior filling the view from the top. It’s also the most expensive here at $60, which still undercuts every resort in the state with that much vertical. The DNR’s Ski the Porkies page has tickets and the Friday-to-Monday schedule. More than 20 miles of groomed cross-country, snowshoe and fat-bike trails leave from the same lot, and the state park rents cabins and yurts if you’re making a weekend of it. Bring lunch: there’s a bring-your-own A-frame warming building next to the chalet.

Mont Ripley, Hancock

Mont Ripley is owned by Michigan Technological University and sits across the Keweenaw Waterway from campus in Hancock (Houghton County), about 6.5 hours from Traverse City. It’s the oldest ski area in Michigan, and the Keweenaw’s 300-plus inches of annual snow make its 440 feet of vertical and 25 runs feel bigger than they read. Night skiing, a terrain park with more than 30 features, a two-lane tubing park and kids programs through Snow School. The Mont Ripley page at Michigan Tech lists adult day tickets from $75, which puts it at resort prices; the reason to go is the snow, not the savings. Indy Pass holders ski here.

Mt. Zion, Ironwood

Mt. Zion is on the Gogebic Community College campus in Ironwood (Gogebic County), six hours from Traverse City, and the college runs a ski area management degree out of it, so the students grooming your run are getting graded on it. 300 feet of vertical, 10 runs, glades, night skiing, a tubing park and free cross-country and snowshoe trails. The Gogebic Community College page for Mt. Zion lists a $55 adult day ticket; seniors 62 and older ski free. It’s 15 minutes from Big Powderhorn and Snowriver, which makes it the budget day in a western UP ski week.

Gladstone Ski Hill, Gladstone

The City of Gladstone (Delta County) runs its hill inside the John & Melissa Besse Sports Park on the bluff above Little Bay de Noc, 3.5 hours from Traverse City. Rope tows and a T-bar on 130 feet of vertical, a three-run tubing hill and a regulation half-pipe, which is not something you expect from a city park. Evening hours are Monday, Thursday and Friday per the City of Gladstone’s sports park page, with a chalet to warm up in. The city doesn’t post rates online; call the parks department before you go.

Sault Seal Recreation Area, Sault Ste. Marie

Sault Seal is the Soo’s city hill (Chippewa County), 2.5 hours from Traverse City and the closest UP hill to the bridge. One lift serves a single lit 1,000-foot run, and the real draw is the seven-lane tubing park with two tubing lifts. The City of Sault Ste. Marie’s Sault Seal page listed a $15 adult daily pass for 2025-26, with a heated chalet and groomed cross-country trails. If you’re at the Soo Locks in winter with kids, this is the afternoon.

Hiawatha Slopes, Chatham

Hiawatha Slopes is a volunteer rope-tow hill in Rock River Township (Alger County), about 15 miles from Munising and 3.5 hours from Traverse City, and an all-day tow ticket has been $5. It opens weekend afternoons and Wednesday evenings from late December or whenever the snow comes, with free groomed cross-country trails and a sledding slope on the east side. There’s no website; the Hiawatha Slopes Facebook page carries the schedule, and the warming area is staffed by whoever volunteered that day.

Adventure Mountain, Greenland

Adventure Mountain in Greenland (Ontonagon County) went dark for 30 years until the local Lions Club brought it back in 2021 with a lit rope-tow hill, a chalet with food, an indoor ice rink and a tubing and toboggan slope. It runs Friday evenings and weekends on natural snow, January into March, and daily passes have been about $7. It has no website and no published phone number, which tells you what kind of place it is; ask in Ontonagon or Greenland, or check the Ontonagon County tourism office.

Crystella Ski Hill, Crystal Falls

Crystella is Crystal Falls’ city-owned, volunteer-run rope-tow hill (Iron County), typically open January through March with sledding welcome. Season passes and user forms are on the City of Crystal Falls skiing page; day rates and hours aren’t posted, so call city hall. It’s 20 minutes from Ski Brule in Iron River if you want a resort day on the same trip.

Big Valley Ski and Tube, Newberry

Big Valley near Newberry (Luce County), three hours from Traverse City, is a small beginner hill with tubing and rentals, and the only downhill skiing in the eastern UP between Marquette and the Soo. It appears on the Upper Peninsula Travel & Recreation Association’s winter listings but has no website or posted schedule. Treat it as a confirm-by-phone stop on a Tahquamenon Falls trip, not a destination.

Pro tip: The UP hills that depend on natural snow (Hiawatha, Adventure Mountain, Crystella, Missaukee downstate) can open in mid-December one year and mid-January the next. Follow their Facebook pages in November; that’s where the opening-day post lands, usually the night before.

Northern Michigan community ski hills

Seven hills in the northern Lower Peninsula are run by a city, a recreation authority or a nonprofit, and two of them are inside Traverse City limits. These are the ones a Detroit or Grand Rapids family can reach for a long weekend, and the two Traverse City hills are the best value in Michigan skiing, period.

Hickory Hills, Traverse City

Traverse City has owned Hickory Hills since 1950 and rebuilt it in 2019 with a new lodge, snowmaking and a conveyor lift on the Fast Tammy learning hill, which is why it now has the most runs of any community hill in the Lower Peninsula. At $28, it’s less than a third of a Nub’s Nob ticket for a hill that will teach a child everything they need before the resort. Rates and hours are on the City of Traverse City’s Hickory Hills page. A 5 km Nordic loop, part of it lit, leaves from the lodge, and the Hickory Meadows trails are next door.

Mt. Holiday, Traverse City

Mt. Holiday is the other Traverse City hill, on the east edge of town, and it’s community-owned as a nonprofit after residents bought it to keep it open. Every run is lit, there’s a terrain park and a tubing hill with an express return lift, and the lodge doubles as event space. 200 feet of vertical over 12 runs. The Mt. Holiday site projects December 19, 2026 through March 14, 2027, and it’s one of the few community hills on the Indy Pass. If Hickory Hills is for learning, Mt. Holiday is for the night the kids want the park.

Hanson Hills, Grayling

Hanson Hills in Grayling (Crawford County) is run by the nonprofit Grayling Recreation Authority, about three hours from Detroit straight up I-75, which makes it the closest Northern Michigan hill to the Detroit side of the state. A T-bar and rope tows on 225 feet of vertical and 11 runs, a lift-served tubing park sold in hourly sessions, and 35 km of groomed cross-country trails, one of the largest Nordic systems in the Lower Peninsula. Hours and rates are on the Hanson Hills site; adult tickets have run in the low $30s. Mid-December to mid-March.

Snow Snake, Harrison

Snow Snake in Harrison (Clare County) is the one privately owned hill on this list, included because it functions as mid-Michigan’s community hill: family-owned since 1957, an hour north of Mt. Pleasant, under three hours from Detroit and two from Grand Rapids or Lansing, and the southernmost lift-served skiing in Northern Michigan. 210 feet of vertical, 10 runs, 50 snowmaking positions, a four-lane tubing park and a PSIA ski school with more than 30 instructors, which is a serious program for a hill this size. Snow Snake’s site projects December 12, 2026 through March 14, 2027.

Missaukee Mountain, Lake City

Missaukee Mountain is a municipal, volunteer-run rope-tow hill north of Lake City (Missaukee County), an hour from Traverse City and about two from Grand Rapids, that depends entirely on natural snow and opens weekends and school breaks when it has enough. 200 feet of vertical, nine runs, two terrain parks, a free sledding hill, free cross-country trails and a free walk-up tubing hill. Lift passes and rentals have each run $10, the cheapest lift-served skiing in the Lower Peninsula. The City of Lake City’s Missaukee Mountain page posts whether it’s open.

Mt. McSauba, Charlevoix

Mt. McSauba is Charlevoix’s city hill (Charlevoix County), an hour from Traverse City, built on a Lake Michigan dune and operating since 1956. Rope tows on 150 feet of vertical, six groomed runs, a terrain park and night skiing, with the Tornado Alley run on the backside as the local test. The city grooms more than two miles of Nordic trail, free, with a lit loop open until 11 pm, and the sledding hill is lit and free too. Details are on the Visit Charlevoix page for Mt. McSauba. Mid-December to mid-March.

Petoskey Winter Sports Park, Petoskey

The Winter Sports Park in Petoskey (Emmet County), 75 minutes from Traverse City, is free: one rope-tow beginner slope about 460 feet long, two outdoor rinks with $7 skate rental, a sledding hill with loaner sleds, and a warming house with a fireplace and concessions. Open afternoons and evenings in winter, weather permitting, per the City of Petoskey’s winter park page. It’s a bunny hill, and that’s the point. Put a four-year-old on skis here for an hour before you spend anything at Nub’s Nob, 10 minutes up the road.

West Michigan: Mulligan’s Hollow, Grand Haven

West Michigan has one community hill, and it’s the closest one to Grand Rapids: Mulligan’s Hollow in Grand Haven (Ottawa County), 40 minutes from downtown and about three hours from Detroit or Chicago. A volunteer-run nonprofit since 1963, in the dunes behind the Tri-Cities YMCA, with six rope tows on eight lit slopes, Lake Michigan from the top dune, and a warming lodge in a former World War II Coast Guard mess hall with a fire pit outside. The Mulligan’s Hollow site posts the 2026-27 season as December 19 through March 14, daily over the holiday break and then Tuesday, Thursday and Friday evenings plus weekend afternoons, with adult tickets at $24 and rentals from $15 on weekdays. The Glow Bowl, Women’s Night and the Cardboard Sled Race are the events locals plan around, and a Freestyle Club and Junior Race Team run all season.

Southeast Michigan has no community hill. Its four ski areas (Mt. Holly, Pine Knob, Alpine Valley and Mt. Brighton) are commercial, and the nearest municipal rope tow to Detroit is Hanson Hills in Grayling. Cannonsburg, Bittersweet, Timber Ridge and Swiss Valley on the west side are also commercial day-trip hills; I cover all of them in the statewide Michigan ski resorts guide.

Check hours, snow and drive times before you go

All 17 of these hills are in the free Michigan Ski & Snowboard Guide, which installs on your phone from the browser: drive time from where you are, a three-day snow forecast for each hill, open status once the season starts, and directions. For the natural-snow hills especially, the Snow tab is the thing to check on a Thursday night.

Frequently asked questions

What is the cheapest place to ski in Michigan?

Petoskey Winter Sports Park, which is free. Among hills with a real lift, Hiawatha Slopes near Munising ($5 all day) and Missaukee Mountain near Lake City ($10) are the cheapest; both depend on natural snow. Hickory Hills in Traverse City ($28) is the cheapest hill with snowmaking.

Do community ski hills in Michigan rent equipment?

Most do. Hickory Hills, Mt. Holiday, Hanson Hills, Snow Snake, Mt. McSauba, Mulligan’s Hollow, Mt. Zion, Mont Ripley, the Porkies and Sault Seal all rent skis and snowboards. Missaukee rents for about $10. The small volunteer hills (Hiawatha, Adventure Mountain, Crystella) may have loaner gear or none; ask before you drive.

Can you snowboard at a rope-tow hill?

Yes, at every hill on this list, though a rope tow takes a few tries on a board. Mt. Holiday, Hickory Hills, Mt. McSauba, Missaukee and Mulligan’s Hollow all have terrain parks, and Gladstone has a half-pipe.

Are there ski hills near Detroit that aren’t resorts?

Not community-run ones; all four Detroit-area hills are commercial. The closest municipal or nonprofit hill is Hanson Hills in Grayling, about three hours up I-75, with Snow Snake in Harrison a little closer.

Pick the hill closest to you and go on a weeknight; that’s the whole strategy. The resort weekend will still be there in February, and you’ll ski it better for having spent three evenings on a rope tow first. If you’re heading to the UP for the big snow, the Mount Bohemia guide covers the other end of the Michigan ski spectrum.

Explore more Michigan: Every ski resort and hill in Michigan

Where to go snow tubing in Michigan

Cross-country skiing in Michigan