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It's another year, and another winter that Sugar Loaf is no closer to re-opening.

Will this Leelanau icon ever return and offer scenes like this one from the 1970s on Waffle? Stay up-to-date at the Friends of Sugar Loaf group on Facebook.

Photo credit: NW Cedar MI Leelanau Days Gone By Skiing at Sugarloaf Mountain Resort... by UpNorth Memories - Donald (Don) Harrison

Here's a great photo posted in the Friends of Sugar Loaf group by Scott Hedberg. Left to right they are Peppi Teichner, Jean Sweeny Raymond, Pixie Hoffman, Corky Beals, Bruff LaVan, Tom Kuhnan & Art "Major" Huey.

Peppi Teichner was a legendary figure in the the development of Michigan's ski industry. The Leelanau Conservancy's Teichner Preserve honors him and explains:

Hans “Peppi” Teichner is best known locally for having taught a region to ski – everyone from Helen Milliken to children with disabilities – and as one of the founders of Sugarloaf. But his history before coming to this country is equally as compelling. Peppi was a national ski champion from Germany – and a Jew –who was coaching the Spanish Olympic Team when Hitler rose to power.

When the Spanish Civil War broke out, he helped guide those who were fleeing Franco’s fascist regime over the mountains to France. A patrol spotted him, but he managed to out-ski his would-be captors. Still, his face ended up on wanted posters in the Pyranees Mountains, which forced him to seek haven in the U.S. When World War II broke out he helped train U.S. Army troops in the 10th Mountain Division.

Ultimately, after the war and stints teaching skiing in Sun Valley and Aspen, he settled in Leelanau. An army buddy had convinced him to come help plan a ski area that would one day become Sugar Loaf Mountain.

Teichner also was instrumental in developing Holiday Hills in Traverse City. I'm thinking that his army buddy was Stanley Ball. Anyone? See another photo of him right here, read a little more about the early days of skiing in Leelanau from the Enterprise,  and share and see photos of Sugar Loaf through the Sugar Loaf Mountain Club.

The Sugar Loaf Mountain Club is hard at work, getting the Loaf ready for skiing this winter - connect with them on Facebook!

A new article on the Glen Arbor Sun asks Will Sugar Loaf offer cross-country skiing this winter? It begins:

A breath of fresh air may have descended on Sugar Loaf. Just weeks before snow is likely to fall on the downtrodden Leelanau County ski hill whose chairlifts have sat idle for nearly 12 years, a local resort owner is developing a plan that would open the mountain to cross-country skiing and ice climbing — perhaps this winter.

Erik Zehender, fourth generation co-owner of Fountain Point Resort in nearby Lake Leelanau, is negotiating with Sugar Loaf owner Kate Wickstrom to lease the mountain from her and create the Sugar Loaf Mountain Club, a nonprofit that would offer backcountry and groomed trails to members of the club who, in Zehender’s words, “participate in the costs of insurance, grooming, outhouses, warming huts, parking, plowing, safety programs and other operating expenses.”

Empire resident and Director of Sales and Marketing at DW North, Rick Desrochers, and Glen Arborite Eric Luthardt, a Product Line Manager at Flow Snowboarding, have assisted Zehender. According to Wickstrom, those two “believe in Sugar Loaf and have stood by me. I wouldn’t go forward without them.” Desrochers and Luthardt have worked with Wickstrom for over a year, and she says they bring ideas to resurrect the resort lodge and mountain...

Read on at the Glen Arbor Sun for more about plans for this winter and share your thoughts on our Sugar Loaf thread!

Let me be the first to say "I doubt it," but in anticipation of a new burst of energy here, I'm rolling out a fresh post to replace the Turning the Page on Sugar Loaf post with its nearly 400 comments.

This week's Leelanau Enterprise reports that Sugar Loaf owner Kate Wickstrom met with Glen Dempsey, head of the Leelanau County Construction Authority. Dempsey intends to work with Wickstrom towards bringing the long-shuttered resort into compliance with county building codes.

Probably the highlight of the article - other than confirmation that Wickstrom now intends to sell the property - is Cleveland Township supervisor Rick Stein's statement to the township board that Sugar Loaf stands a "pretty good chance of being condemned if things don't happen there pretty quickly."

Thoughts? Comments? Post them below!

The photo is by Karl Kitchen and was posted to the Friends of Sugar Loaf Facebook group.

While I think the headline New Hope for Sugar Loaf? has been used two or twenty times before, this story from last week's Ticker has some positive news. They report:

The Leelanau County Brownfield Redevelopment Authority (LCBRA) recently made a small but meaningful move in the hiring of AKT Peerless. The Saginaw-based consulting firm’s mission: to market and make use of a $1 million dollar revolving loan fund granted to LCBRA by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Roughly 80 percent of the fund would be available to developers to help with up-front and long-term environmental clean-up costs in the county, a tantalizing incentive LCBRA hopes will make redeveloping the resort more attractive to potential developers.

But what exactly needs to be cleaned up? And how much will it cost?

Leelanau County Planning Director Trudy Galla tells The Ticker that the project wouldn’t be easy – or cheap: “The buildings are falling into disrepair … There are issues with mold, water intrusion and a bit of asbestos. There was also a septic backup in one of the buildings. It looks like the Tennis Barn will need to come down, and there are old underground storage tanks that need to be removed.”

Photo by Karl Kitchen from the Friends of Sugar Loaf group on Facebook - see more of the condition of the resort in his Sugar Loaf - April 2010 Album on Facebook!

(still) waiting for sugar loaf, photo by farlane.

The lift line is looooooooong today...

I posted this photo in April of 2008 after Brad Lutz announced he was pulling out of a purchase agreement. While we're waiting, here's a new poll!

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Discuss at Turning the page on Sugar Loaf.

Jeff Smith of Traverse Magazine asks Can Sugar Loaf Mountain Come Back? After presenting a really excellent history of the resort from its founding in 1964 and through its sad demise (we're almost at the 10 year anniversary of its closing), Smith takes a look at what's going on right now. Some highlights:

Rumors are circulating that some kind of Sugar Loaf deal is in the wind involving an investment group headed by David Skjaerlund, from Owosso. Skjaerlund spent the past several months getting options on several Sugar Loaf town houses and nearby properties, according to Tony Mattar, who co-manages the town house association.

(County Commissioner Dave "Chauncey" Shifflet) has worked with county planner Trudy Galla to establish a brownfield development authority in large part to address any contamination issues at Sugar Loaf—subsequent studies of the buildings and underground storage tanks have found very little contamination. He and Galla have also laid the groundwork for a tax increment finance zone that could help the developer pay for demolition and cleanup costs.

...Shifflet has been beating the drum for a business center there for years now—high tech info-based businesses that just need a fat data pipeline to do their work. “We have an aging population. We have to figure how to attract young working families that doesn’t revolve around recreation. We need employment opportunities, like intellectual arts, multimedia content creation, maybe a film production studio. People working day in and day out, not just on the weekends,” he says.

Click to read much more at MyNorth.com, and if you have comments, please post them to our Sugar Loaf blog!

Photo credit:Sugar Loaf Mountain from Ski Michigan (see a couple more photos right here and get more Michigan skiing info at skimichigan.com!)

On our Sugar Loaf blog, Lex suggested that it might be interesting to find out what folks are wanting to happen at Sugar Loaf.

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If you have comments on the poll, post them below!

Comments are now closed on this post - head over to A New Leaf at Sugar Loaf to follow the ongoing cavalcade of folly that Leelanau's signature ski hill has become.

Over at the redoubtable Glen Arbor Sun, Jacob Wheeler asks if Sugar Loaf has a new suitor. Can Sugar Loaf Mountain Come Back? by Jeff Smith of Traverse Magazine offers a great timeline showing some highlights in the history of Sugar Loaf and some info about the present day.

Please post your information, memories and thoughts about Sugar Loaf Mountain below. I'd like to have us try and take the discussion to a level that moves Sugar Loaf past the sordid mess it has become over the last decade and a half and towards becoming a productive driver of Leelanau's economy once again. Click for the Sugar Loaf Poll!

I'd also ask you to start asking your elected officials at every level you can why an entity that directly employed hundreds of people and indirectly hundreds more has been allowed to fester for so long and what they are going to do to change this.

Here's the previous thread on Sugar Loaf from August - December 2010, the Glen Arbor Sun's Sugar Loaf Resort features and the Friends of Sugar Loaf group on Facebook. More links? Add them below...

Photo credit: Christie Petersen via "Friends of Sugar Loaf"

Discussion closed here and continues at Turning the page on Sugar Loaf.

The headline reads Smith pulls Sugar Loaf bid: Sugar Loaf owner calls would-be developer 'a joke', and in it, Bill O'Brien of the Traverse City Record-Eagle reports that Liko Smith has withdrawn his bid for the long-shuttered Leelanau ski resort.

"I wanted to believe this was going to happen," Wickstrom said. "But he's obviously without the means to do anything."

Smith's website stated, "Unfortunately, at some point it is not healthy to (pursue) a deal," and he was pulling out of the project.

"I'm like the sixth buyer here, and I've got the farthest," he said.

Really? I wasn't aware that there were varying degrees of "nowhere" you could get to. Now we're left at the point where we were when Liko crashed into the scene this spring with one very important difference: a bunch of people are paying attention to Sugar Loaf.

We've decided to close our massive Sugar Loaf thread to new posts, add a link to the hibernating Friends of Sugar Loaf group on Facebook and start anew here with the simple question, What now for Sugar Loaf?