LA VETA, Colorado (AP) — It’s been the longest wait, in fact, of their lives. But Race Lessar and Landen Ozzello are finally where they want to be, on a snowy slope close to home, snow forming into a ski jump.
Their local ski mountain just reopened.
“I’m glad it’s been open for at least a year,” Lessar said. It opened as a non-profit organization, which may be key. “I didn’t know there was hope,” he said.
His ties to the mountain are so close that he was practically named after it. His father used to race here and named his son after what brought him joy. Chad Lessar first skied on discarded equipment and later worked summers on a nearby farm to earn money for more nimble racing gear.
“We’ve never been very rich,” Chad said of Huerfano, one of the state’s poorest districts. “It’s nice to see a small area opening up on the cheap,” he said. The ski runs here are short, but the fact that it’s affordable might be enough to keep it going.
Beneath the gaze of southern Colorado’s imposing Spanish Peaks, the 20-acre Parker-Fitzgerald Cuchara Mountain Park is the story of so many American ski resorts that only the community was determined to change the script.
Ski resorts boomed in the 1970s and 1980s, even popping up in areas that didn’t have the climate or workers to maintain them long-term. Owners of a new ski resort went into debt and quickly filed for bankruptcy after a bad snow season. Ownership was transferred countless times before resorts calcified into ghost towns.
But some communities are now finding a niche and offering an alternative to endless lift lines and skyrocketing ticket prices. They are reopening, several as non-profits, offering a mom-and-pop experience at a much lower cost than corporate-owned resorts.
“It’s not necessarily about attracting overnight or out-of-town guests, but about making a positive economic impact and being a source of physical and mental well-being for the community,” said Adrienne Isaac, director of marketing for the National Ski Areas Association.
A DELAYED REOPENING
Cuchara closes in 2000 after years of mismanagement, unpredictable snowfalls and bankruptcies. It was 16 years dead, when a group of stubborn locals with fond memories of the mountain got together. When the last owner put it up for sale, the Cuchara Foundation gave the province a down payment and helped raise the remaining funds.
At the start of this season, the preparation work was in full swing. Volunteers continued to hold fundraisers. There were donation jars. Taking over snowmaking and lifts might sound good, said Ken Clayton, a board member at Panadero Ski Corporation, a nonprofit organization that conducts operations. But both required expensive repairs, and then the refurbished chairlift didn’t even pass inspection. In addition, it was a warm, dry winter. As the season progressed, the volunteers began to lose hope. “It just wasn’t going to happen because we didn’t have snow,” said Clayton.
Finally, when cold air and late winter blizzards arrived, Cuchara’s director of maintenance got an idea. They welded old school bus seats to a car trailer and hooked it up to a snowcat, a tractor with snow steps, then announced they would be hauling people up the mountain. “We’re trying to give something to the community because they’ve been supporting us for so long,” Clayton said.
And the community showed up.
GROWING ACCESS
There is no guide to reopening an abandoned ski resort, especially as a non-profit, so some community groups make common goals and learn from each other.
Will Pirkey had heard of a non-profit ski resort six hundred miles north of Wyoming, and sought it out as soon as he joined the volunteer board. The Antelope Butte Foundation has been operating a non-profit ski resort in northern Wyoming since 2018 after a 15-year closure. With a limited, mostly volunteer staff, it is open Friday through Monday. Keeping skiing affordable, especially for children, is key to her mission.
For $320, a child can get a season pass to the Wyoming mountain, rent, and four lessons. The foundation covers families who cannot afford the costs. They also organize lessons for schools in the area that introduce children to cross-country skiing and downhill skiing.
Cadance Wipplinger, principal of Greybull Middle School, used to escort students to ski resorts when she taught in a Montana town with a robust outdoor industry. But her students now mostly come from mining, railroad, and farming families with fewer resources.
“A high percentage of our kids wouldn’t get the chance if we didn’t take them,” Wipplinger said. “It opens up their world a little bit.”
A FUTURE WITH SHORTER, STRANGER WINTERS
If fond memories and volunteer spirit are essential to reopening an abandoned ski resort as a non-profit, so is snow, and its consistency determines whether it can last.
The Antelope Butte Foundation studied snow patterns for 30 years before reopening, said board chairman Ryan White, but knew it would face increasingly shorter winters. As greenhouse gas emissions warm the atmosphere, winters are getting shorter and there are also more dramatic swings, for example last year’s snow drought in the Sierra Nevada followed by this year’s record snowfall.
This season, Antelope Butte was buried in the powder, former executive director Rebecca Arcarese said, but she knows other years won’t be as bountiful. Snowmaking can extend the season, but it’s a tough call for a mountain that doesn’t have the staff to open seven days a week.
“Will it give us another two, three weeks or just two or three days? And does it make sense to make that capital investment?” asked Arcarese.
In southeastern Vermont, Mount Ascutney has been plagued by erratic snow for a long time. A local non-profit organization reopened Ascutney after five years of closure. A few seasons ago, a storm threw dozens of feet of snow onto the slopes, but a week later, rain washed it away.
“When you spend a hundred thousand dollars making snow, your heart breaks when it washes off the mountain,” said Steve Crihfield, a board member of Ascutney Outdoors, the nonprofit organization that owns and manages the mountain.
Ski resorts thus deal with climate risks by offering year-round activities, from archery to concerts and weddings. But in a quiet town like La Veta, with limited winter outdoor activities and a population of less than 1000, there is still no alternative to winter sports.
On a late Sunday afternoon in March, the energy is buzzing at the Mountain Merman Brewing Company, one of the few bars in town. Pints swing over the counter to construction workers wearing ski pants, while windburned teens—Lessar and his friends—play nosh chicken barbecue pizza and Battleship.
The service is so busy that co-owner Jen Lind has to help behind the bar. She barely recognizes the energy in her brewery compared to the typically leisurely pace at the end of a weekend.
“I think that’s straight off the mountain,” Lind said. “People like to be outside and have things to do.”
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