On any given weekend in the winter, the I-70 mountain corridor becomes a stream of bumper-to-bumper traffic as thousands of people flock to Colorado’s world-renowned ski resorts — many of which are owned and operated by ski giants like Vail Resorts or Alterra Mountain Company.
Ski resorts in Colorado, like the rest of the U.S., have quickly become dominated by these ski giants. Locally owned resorts, such as Lee’s Ski Hill in Ouray or Ski Cooper outside of Leadville, are becoming an endangered species.
But Nederland, a small mountain town outside of Boulder with a population of a little more than 1,000 people, is hoping to become the newest municipality to own and operate its own ski area.
“Eldora is already a part of Nederland,” Town Administrator Jonathan Cain said. “And I think what we would like to do is make sure that continues in the future.”
According to Cain, despite being one of only a handful of local municipalities to even attempt to buy out a big resort chain, he’s not intimidated.
“This town has run Eldora for decades. There are people here who have decades of experience running that mountain and understand what it means to run a mountain like that,” Cain told CPR News. “What will make this successful is if we’re able to lean on the expertise of our community and really use an asset-based approach to really make sure that we're running the mountain the way that it needs to be run. And we know we have those people within our community that can do that.”
Eldora Mountain Ski Resort is currently owned by POWDR, which announced its intent to sell the resort three months ago. According to the current president and general manager of Eldora, Brent Tregaskis, the decision to sell the ski area reflects POWDR’s strategy to balance its ski operations with new ventures in National Parks and Woodward, its action sports brand.
“Personally, I have been through three different sales in my long career in ski resort management,” Tregaskis said in a statement. The most recent being POWDR acquiring Eldora in 2016.
Since then, POWDR has made many upgrades to the 680-acre ski area, including updating snowmaking equipment and trail systems, expanding parking, as well as, most recently, the addition of the Caribou Lodge — the new home of Ignite Adaptive Sports, Eldora’s adaptive ski program.
According to Cain, these improvements, along with Eldora’s position as the only ski resort in Colorado served by RTD, gave the town good reason to put in an offer. Additionally, the resort would provide a new revenue source and could potentially give locals year-round access — including activities like concerts, night skiing and summer events.
“That is one of the jewels and one of the reasons we really think POWDR is sitting right by our community,” Cain said. “We'd like to think that as a municipality we can offer ways that might help maintain the mountain without raising costs too much so that we can keep it as accessible and as affordable as possible.”
However, Nederland town officials shared on Facebook that “there’s still a lot to figure out” when it comes to how the town would acquire the $100-200 million ski resort.
According to Cain, the town plans to rely on building a partnership with both the state and local advocates for “local control” over the ski area.
“It’s a bit of a moonshot, but it’s a moonshot that would create resiliency within our community,” Cain said. “So I think it’s worth exploring for that reason alone.”
Eldora is still currently on the Ikon pass this season, but according to POWDR, future operations will depend on the buyer.
“While a new owner has yet to be identified, I am very optimistic that the next stewards of this special place will inject excitement and a new wave of capital investment,” Tregaskis said.
