Brighton — It’s one of the biggest urban legends in Livingston County history.
What’s underneath Mt. Brighton?
Ever since the ski hill opened in 1961, the rumors have been flying. A lot of people swear it’s built on a garbage dump. Others insist it’s packed full of old tires, buried and hidden under layers of dirt.
Today, Mt. Brighton is one of the most popular ski resorts in the state. Skiers and riders from Detroit, Ann Arbor, Lansing and Northwest Ohio flock there every winter. But how exactly did they build a “mountain” in flat Southeast Michigan?
The question was asked recently on the MI Brighton Happenings Facebook page, and, at last count, there were almost 300 comments from people who swear they know the answer.
Yvonne Parker Dunstan wrote, “It was a garbage dump. Then it became Mt. Brighton. My dad wired the ski lift.”
Jim Wright said, “There is an article in the Grand Rapids Press about it being an illegal landfill. Anyone can look it up.”
Raymond Bender said, “Tires. Tons and tons of tires.”
And dozens of others said it’s nothing but dirt.
That urban legend even made it all the way to Hollywood.
In 1993, the movie “Aspen Extreme” was filmed at Mt. Brighton. In one scene, as they’re standing atop the ski hill, one character says to his friend, “You’re making five bucks an hour working on 200 feet of landfill.” The line only added fuel to the fire, cementing the myth for a whole new generation of skiers.
But is Mt. Brighton really just a mountain of trash?
To answer that question, we dug into the newspaper archives, back to the early 1960s when Mt. Brighton was built. The story that emerges is a lot more boring.
It’s nothing but dirt.
According to a story in the Livingston County Press on Jan. 31, 1962, Mt. Brighton was built “in the summer of 1961, when 150,000 yards of earth were moved to improve on nature’s slopes.” Articles in the Detroit Free Press, Brighton Argus, and other outlets tell the same story.
More specifically, the dirt came from the construction of I-96 and US-23 as the highways were being built in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It would have taken roughly 12,000 dump truck loads to move that much dirt.
When the resort officially opened in 1961, it featured five runs, seven rope tows, snowmaking on all slopes, equipment rentals, certified instructors, and a picturesque Swiss chalet lodge complete with a snack bar and dining room. Night skiing was available under floodlights, and the area was marketed as a perfect family destination just 30 minutes from Detroit.
Over the decades, Mt. Brighton has continued to grow. It became known in the 1980s as the “Snowmaking Capital,” home to the Schneehex “Snow Witch,” once the largest snow gun in the world. It introduced Southeast Michigan to snowboarding, is home to a Winter Olympian (snowboarder Jake Vedder of Pinckney), and, thanks to its convenient location, sees more visitors than almost any other ski resort in Michigan.
But through it all, the garbage rumor stuck.
So to set the record straight: Mt. Brighton is not a landfill. It’s not a pile of tires. It’s not hiding anyone’s trash.
It’s just plain old Michigan dirt—carefully moved, shaped, and turned into a place where thousands of people have learned to ski, snowboard, and fall in love with winter.
Next time you’re carving down the hill, you can rest easy.
You aren’t skiing on garbage.
Lottie Moorehouse is a senior at Michigan State University majoring in digital storytelling and broadcasting.
