For $40, you can now ski at a southern Colorado ski area that sat dormant for more than two decades – and you don’t have to hike back up.
Cuchara Mountain Park, located near the small town of Cuchara on the eastern slope of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, opened for snowcat skiing last weekend.
A “ski bus” – bus seats welded to a car hauler that’s attached to the back of a snowcat – hauls people up the slope. Panadero Ski Corporation, the concessionaire that operates the park, says the ski hill will stay open for business for snowcat skiing on Saturdays and Sundays until the snow melts, hopefully in April.
The mid-January opening comes after a successful test run of the ski bus last year, but a slow start to the snow season in 2023-24, Panadero Ski Corporation board member Ken Clayton told Denver7 on Friday.
He says the snow picked up the week after Christmas. The mountain had seen around 50 inches of natural snow by Jan. 19, he said, and has been running its snow guns almost nonstop in the new year to catch up.
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About three-dozen skiers braved frigid temps to take part in the year’s first snowcat skiing experience last weekend, Clayton said. The board hopes for a bigger turnout this weekend and beyond.
“Regardless, high turnout or not, we're going to be open and taking people up to the top of Lift 4,” he said.
The dream of restoring lift skiing at Cuchara is still alive
The return of snowcat skiing at Cuchara comes as Panadero’s quest to revive affordable lift skiing at the once-abandoned mountain continues.
The nonprofit aims to make skiing accessible in one of the lowest-income counties in the state. A family of four should be able to ski there for about $100, Clayton said.
“A big part of our goal is to be able to get kids that couldn't afford to go skiing anywhere else up on this mountain,” he said. “[We want to] get them passionate about skiing, so we have skiers in the future.”
Lift 4 – the only one that’s fully on Cuchara Mountain Park property – is central to that effort. Panadero has been raising funds for years to complete repair work that would make the lift functional again.
Denver7 reported on that mission a year ago, shortly after Panadero paused its work on Lift 4 for the 2022-23 season.
It’s been a busy – and uncertain – year since.
Clayton is a member of what is now a five-person board after it lost three members in that time. The current board has been working to re-establish its relationship with Huerfano County, he said.
Last spring, a few months after the Denver7 story aired, Panadero was awarded a grant by the state. The last six months have been spent working with the state to “check all the boxes” to ensure that funding comes through, Clayton said.
The grant, the amount of which is not yet public, would fund the mechanical work still needed on Lift 4 with some left over for snow making, Clayton said. He says Panadero is hopeful the funding comes through in the next 60 days.
If it does, work on the lift could be scheduled for the spring – which would mean the chairs could start turning again this summer.
All of this is happening without a long-term deal in place for Panadero to operate the park. The nonprofit extended what was a one-year agreement with Huerfano County through the end of this spring.
The board has submitted plans to the county to become the long-term concessionaire, Clayton said. Panadero expects to hear back on the plan before the end of this spring when the current agreement expires.
“We feel really good about the chances of us continuing,” Clayton said.
In the meantime, the board and a group of local volunteers continue their work to restore the ski hill.
“We're all professionals with different careers,” Clayton, a full-time resident of the Cuchara Valley, said of the board. “We go up there on the weekends and do what we can to get that thing going. Whether it's mowing the grass in the fall, lift maintenance throughout the summer, fixing up the day lodge – it's just whatever we can get done, we get done.
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