'We're Ahead of the Game:' City on track to open Hickory Hills by Christmas
November 2026
Traverse City officials insist that Hickory Hills will open before Christmas and operate without issue this year after a rough 2025-26 season, even after a late curve ball again threatened operations at the beloved community ski hill.
As of this writing, the city is still aggressively hiring for several positions at the city-owned hill and hired outside contractor Keen Technical Solutions for snowmaking equipment optimization to strengthen operations for the hill’s 75th season. Crews also began testing lifts, guns and other infrastructure weeks earlier than normal.
“The exciting and positive news is that we’re ahead of the game from last year. The earlier you can get those kinks worked out and identify where fixes need to be made or when maintenance needs to be done, the better,” said Laura Ness, a city commissioner who serves as chair of the Hickory Hills advisory committee. “We've still got
Nessplenty of time to look at those issues and make sure they're resolved before we fire up the guns and turn on the lifts.”
Despite ample early snowfall, Hickory didn’t open until Jan. 4 last season. Even then, it operated with only four of six runs for several weeks. Area residents were miffed, taking their frustrations to social media and the city as the hamstrung season dragged on.
“Last year was difficult. We had a manager retire close to the start of the season. We had some equipment failures. We had some staffing issues. We had a great winter in terms of weather, but it just really was … the perfect storm – things that just weren't working,” Ness said. “And I think the piece of it that was most disappointing is the city wasn't able to meet community expectations.”
In July, the city opted to hire an outside contractor – North Country Alpine Services (NCAS) – to run Hickory for a one-year trial run. The Traverse City-based ski area operations and infrastructure management company has experience with local ski properties including Hickory, Mt. Holiday and The Homestead. Under the arrangement, the city would retain ownership while NCAS handled staffing, snowmaking, maintenance and other operations.
But that plan went awry when in late September, confusion over the extent of government immunity and liability led to NCAS backing out.
“As we went through the nitty-gritty details of it and who's liable for what and how much and those sorts of things, the prospective contractor wasn't able to get insurance,” said Deputy City Manager Valarie Handy. “The place where it fell apart was the cost and the amount of coverage that the vendor felt was needed in order to (cover themselves). It's not as simple as just extending governmental immunity to a contractor when we're working with contractors.”
So the city made an all-out push to hire additional staff and, if possible, find a quality contractor to handle at least something at Hickory.
“I think that one of the key things that we learned here is that trying to find one contractor to do all operations was really difficult, and that's what this contract (with NCAS) was: Concessions, snow making, ski equipment rental – the whole thing,” Handy said. “We were looking for a unicorn and we didn’t find one.”
In late October, the city hired Keen Technical Solutions to optimize snowmaking operations at Hickory for this season. City staff will run the equipment; Keen will have it ready and be available to help with any problems. Handy says the city has worked with Keen in the past and is very confident in their ability to handle the task.
“Their process – assessing client needs on site, sourcing specific products and supplies for each job, and following up through full implementation and beyond – will be essential for successfully troubleshooting issues, as they arise, in the existing snowmaking system,” she said. "We are very excited to have this support."
Meanwhile, the city is actively hiring for positions all across the hill, from ski operations to concessions.
"We are currently in various stages of negotiation and discussion with 17 to 20 candidates,” Handy said. “We expect to make public announcements as negotiations are concluded.”
Additionally, a Ticker story about the NCAS contract falling through led to scores of volunteers offering to help out at the hill, Handy says.
“We did have great response from the article … and we had community members step up and really take on different elements and different pieces of it and say, ‘We want this to happen,’” Handy said. “The community support has just been great.”
It’s been heartwarming to see the community response, Ness says.
“I think that goes back to the early history of Hickory and that spirit of volunteerism that the community has always had around this park, this kind of ‘we can do that’ attitude,” she said. “The fact that we have all of these community partners who have just in the last few weeks stepped up to say, 'How can we help?' is so special.”
All operational options are on the table in future seasons, Ness and Handy say, adding the only good thing about last year’s struggles is it generated a renewed focus on a community treasure.
“I think the silver lining in this is that the city is now going to really look at what the best and most appropriate delivery model is for a park like Hickory that requires an element of technical and operational expertise in order to be successful,” Ness said. "It created a new focus on the possibilities for Hickory: How can we get better? And what are the business models that could lead us there? Who are the partners that can help us with that?"
