Candy Mountain

September 2004

Candy mountain was a ski resort operational as recently as 2001. When I checked it out in 2004, it was no partly dismantled as a ski hill, quite clear that there was no intent to reopen it. The site has since been converted into a someone's home. People are living there. Please do not go visit the site, as you will literally be walking in someone's back yard. You would not like strangers in your back yard, would you?

With two other decent ski hills in the Thunder Bay vicinity, and a shrinking and aging population base locally, there was no need for three ski hills, and so the owner of two ski hills decided to shut this one down and concentrate the snowmaking equipment to the Loch Lochmond Ski Area.

The ski hill

The hill was already noticeably overgrown, although on the runs, so far, there was only shrubs. The vertical elevation gain was over 700 ft - quite decent, compared to what I'm used to in Southern Ontario.

Quite a nice view of Thunder Bay from the top.

At the top, there was also a satellite dish antenna farm. Presumably for cellular and microwave communications. The top of the main lift was some hundred meters removed from the antenna farm, but there was nothing left of the lift in that area.

There were two snow groomers, on the hill, one at the bottom, and one near the garages part way up. One of these looked relatively recent, although it was clear that various parts had been taken off it. The older one of the two looked fairly complete.

Also various pieces of equipment lying around for grooming the hill - some of it no doubt for grooming the hill in the summer to keep the terrain smooth and the vegetation low enough as not to poke through the snow.

Most of the hill was serviced by just one double chair lift line. There was another lift line further to the left, but it didn't go all the way to the top. There was also the grip tow for the bunny hill. In addition to that, there was a surface lift, which appears to have fallen out of use before the last season the hill operated.

The Alpine village

The alpine village was relatively intact, with relatively few panes smashed. In fact, it looked tempting to try to make something out of the main chalet. This is now somebody's private residence. Please don't go exploring the hill or the village.

The lifts

The main lift that used to go all the way to the top no longer had its cables taut. The top third of the hill's posts were removed, and the lift cable was lying slack on the ground. The chairs have all been removed, and were lying in rows on the ground, with tall grass growing between them.

The control room door was open, and the window smashed. The electrical equipment inside looks recent, the paper instructions on the wall are not even yellowed. The lift's operating licence was taped to the wall. Expiry date: Dec 2001.

The other lift was much more overgrown. Presumably, they only used the main lift for the last few seasons. The ski lift had been struggling, and the extra capacity wasn't needed, especially with the main lift covering most of the runs already.

It was quite a bushwhack getting to the machinery, and it loomed impressively over the shrubs that nearly engulfed it.

The cables were still on the towers for the second lift, and even looked shiny in the light.

A plaque shown in the control room window indicates the lift was built in 1970. Those were probably better times for the ski hill, and for the Thunder Bay area in general.

Another surface lift had been dismantled probably much longer ago. The bullwheel mechanism was lying off to the side on the bottom of the ski hill. Probably removed to make way for skiers, seeing that the surface lift wasn't even on the trail map.

An finally, here's a Google Satellite view of candy mountain:

The ski hill has since been converted to a priave residence. Please do not visit it. There was an article about it in a Thunder Bay newspaper, hee is a copy of that article