You have to drive hours north to go skiing though and even then the hills are pretty tiny.
But really the Ann Arbor area isn't bad. I'm always a bit amused by discussions like this one in which so many voices seemingly argue that for reasons of weather, culture, and software engineering concentration, life really isn't worth living outside the Bay area even if you need to spend 4 hours a day commuting while sharing a 500 sq. ft. apartment with 2 roommates.
The idea that it's questionable for Google to establish a location in Michigan for automobile research rather than keeping it in the great Silicon Valley is beyond funny.
There are physical limits for the short- to mid-term and there's some upper limit to what even wealthy tech companies are going to pay for new CS grads to work in Mountain View or Cupertino.