Cuchara Mountain Park’s long-dormant Chair 4 clears key hurdle; lift-powered skiing by New Year's in sight

HUERFANO COUNTY, Colo. — The long-dormant Chair 4 at Cuchara Mountain Park in Huerfano County has cleared its largest remaining regulatory hurdle, and the dream of bringing lift-powered skiing back to the ski hill could be just weeks away from reality.

The chair lift, which serves about a half-dozen runs over 50 acres of skiable terrain at the base of the hill but hasn’t spun in a quarter-century, recently completed a state-required acceptance test, Panadero Ski Corporation board member Ken Clayton told Denver7.

Panadero, the nonprofit steward of Cuchara Mountain Park, was set to share the news with its followers on Friday via its newsletter.

The group set the lofty goal of opening the chair lift to the public by New Year’s. All that stands in the way is some “minor” maintenance, some housekeeping items – and, of course, a good snowfall or two.

It’s been too warm in recent weeks in the Cuchara River Valley to even make snow on the mountain, Clayton said, but there’s optimism for colder temps in the coming weeks that will allow them to aggressively make enough snow to ski on.

• Watch Denver7's original report on the Cuchara Comeback from February of 2023 in the video player below:

Denver7 has extensively covered the attempted revival of lift-powered skiing at Cuchara, which the folks behind the effort say will bring skiing to southern Colorado with lower prices and smaller crowds.

We first visited in 2023, and Denver7 Gives viewers donated $3,000 to the mission of resurrecting Chair 4. For the past two winters, the park has run a “ski bus” that hauled skiers to the top of Chair 4 for them to make their way back down the slope.

Clayton told Denver7 earlier this year that the 1,200 skier visits last winter were a “huge success.”

They were a far cry, though, from the average of 22,000 the hill used to attract in its heyday of the 1980s and 90s before the park suddenly shut down in July of 2000 and was largely silent for more than two decades.

Denver7 last caught up with Clayton in May, when Panadero Ski Corporation secured critical funding that was allocated toward the chair lift – and inked a deal with Huerfano County to operate Cuchara for the next four decades.

Read Denver7’s previous coverage of Cuchara Mountain Park below: