Hidden Valley Ski Area
The only downhill ski area ever to operate inside Rocky Mountain National Park, running from 1955 until the National Park Service closed it in 1991 and pulled out the lifts.
- Region
- Colorado
- Country
- USA
- Status
- closed
- Year opened
- 1955
- Year closed
- 1991
- Reason for closure
- A 1989 study concluded the ski area was not economically viable in its current form. After a poor snow season in which skier visits fell by roughly a third, and with the National Park Service unwilling to authorise the new chairlifts and snowmaking needed to compete with modernising Colorado resorts, operations ended in 1991 and the lifts were removed.
History
Hidden Valley lay about ten miles from Estes Park on Trail Ridge Road, inside Rocky Mountain National Park - the only lift-served alpine area the National Park Service ever permitted there. Rope-tow skiing in the valley dates back to the early 1940s; the area formally opened for the 1955 season with a T-bar and a Poma, and a double chairlift was added in 1971. The terrain ran from a base at 9,400 ft to 11,400 ft, an unusually large 2,000 ft vertical, split roughly evenly between beginner, intermediate and expert. Its problem was snow: the east side of the park is dry and windswept compared with the Front Range areas over the divide, and Hidden Valley had no meaningful snowmaking. A 1989 review found the operation economically unviable, and after a thin winter in which visits dropped by close to a third the Park Service closed it in 1991 rather than approve the chairlift and snowmaking investment it would have needed. The lifts came out that year and the day lodge was demolished in 2002. The base area is now a picnic and warming-hut site and the park's only designated sledding hill, with the old lift lines and the unplowed road used for backcountry touring and snowshoeing. Individual trail names from the ski era are not recorded.
Lifts
| Name | Type | Manufacturer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| T-Bar | T-Bar | Installed for the opening of the area in the mid-1950s; removed in 1991 | |
| Poma | Platter | Poma | Operating from the 1955 opening; removed in 1991 |
| Double Chair | Chairlift - Double - Fixed | Added in 1971; removed in 1991 and reported to have been sold on to Vail |
Sources and further reading
More in USA
Location
40.3955, -105.6520