The People’s Ski Hill: Non-Profit will Operate Cuchara for the Long Haul
No condos. No concierge. Just a chairlift—and a committed community. Here's how a 40-year agreement will help Panadero Ski Corporation secure affordable skiing in southern Colorado
In a monumental win for affordable access to snow sports: Panadero Ski Corporation has inked a 40 year deal with Huerfano County, to continue operating Cuchara Mountain Park as a community ski hill.
If you’re not familiar: Cuchara Mountain Park was a resort that had a brief tenure in southern Colorado, before shutting down.
For the past several years, a dedicated group has been working to restore the property, bring back lift served skiing, and secure affordable access to the sport. Quandary Magazine has been covering this effort for the past several years. You can catch up on past coverage here:
The short version is: After helping the county buy the property, Panadero Ski Corporation — or PSC — spun off of the Cuchara Foundation in 2019 to laser-focus on reviving the base area, and restoring Lift 4. This has proven to be an absolutely monstrous task. Chairlifts are complex pieces of machinery, and this one has sat unused and in the elements for close to a quarter of a century.
It’s a little like opening Pandora’s Box — or Panadero’s Box if you want to be clever about it: each step of progression reveals hitherto unknown problems, which PSC has to fund raise for, and fix.
The mechanical issues — which we will revisit later in this article — are only one challenge facing the organization. Arguably more significant has been the instability of year-to-year operation agreements.
The Long-Term Problem
Board member Ken Clayton explained that when the county first approached PSC about running the park, they were essentially placed in charge for a year, with the possibility to renew. And while that original agreement has been extended several times, this was never a guarantee.
“It made it very difficult for us to raise money, commit to hiring people, you know, get the community behind us with those one year agreements, not knowing if we would be there the next fall,” Clayton said. “One of the one of the positions in the original grant was a mountain manager… We couldn't hire that person until we knew that there'd be a mountain for them to run.”
With an uncertain future, even simple operational matters such as advance season pass sales were difficult to manage. “It wasn't the right thing for us to say if we didn't know we would be there in 25 and 26,” Clayton said.
The “Luxury” Option
Through no real fault of their own, Panadero Ski Corporation has fallen years behind their original projections. During the first follow-up story (this is the 3rd,) PSC told Quandary Magazine it was hopeful Lift 4 could pass a Colorado Passenger Tramway Safety Board inspection, purchase insurance, and start lift served skiing before the end of 2022.
While they’ve come a long way, this milestone still has not come to pass. In the meantime, some members of the community came to see Cuchara Mountain Park as a vehicle for regional tourism.
According to Clayton, the county was strongly urged to start a conversation with a company called Buckhorn Ridge Outfitters. The outfitter submitted a county plan to create what it described as a “Luxury resort guest experience,” including personal concierge services, and the development of solar-equipped “luxury tiny lodges.”
An important piece of context is that Cuchara Mountain Park has a rough history with real estate development. In an earlier discussion, former board member Will Pirkey described previous operators as development-centered, rather than ski-centered. In other words: their business model was more geared toward selling premium real estate around the park than the rider experience itself. Pirkey partially attributed CMP’s initial closure to this very factor.
Also worth bearing in mind: CMP essentially operates in a ski desert. The next closest place to get your turns1 is two hours away — in New Mexico. Skiers in Atlanta Georgia have closer options.
Compare this to Colorado’s I-70 mountain corridor, where you can find 12 ski areas clustered within a two hour drive from Denver.
The concentration of major resorts pictured above can easily support a large hospitality industry. This is not the case in Huerfano County, where Clayton says many tourist-dependent businesses actually close up shop for the winter season. With CMP serving visitors, that’s slowly changing.
“Since I have had a house up there, there have been no restaurants open from New Year's to Memorial Day. This year we had a restaurant that stayed open on the weekends, because we were bringing enough people up there to actually have business,” Clayton said. “There's lodges up there now that have that have year round occupancy because of people coming up to ski.”
Carrying Capacity
While this trend is promising, many of these local businesses still have significant vacancy.
When weighing in on both PSC’s stewardship, and the Buckhorn plan, multiple residents raised concerns about overloading the market with offerings, when existing businesses are still struggling to hit full capacity.
“The Panadero Ski Corporation has done an excellent job providing year round activities for Huerfano County. At this time we have a restaurant ate the Cuchara Mountain Park. There are many lodging opportunity available right at the Cuchara Mountain Park through Aspen Leaf Condos and homes on the loop. In addition to lodging in Cuchara at the Lokal Hotel, Bachman and Associates and the Bed and breakfast. None of them are at full occupancy now.
Additional lodging is not needed. Adding additional restaurants may cause all restaurants to fail including the new ones.
Currently there is not enough customers to allow full time restaurants to operate now. Perhaps in the future when visitors increase adding lodging and restaurants would be feasible. At this time I would let our current lodging and restaurants have the ability to become viable year round.”
—Chlide2
“Our family has donated to the Cuchara Mountain Park with the understanding that it will be protected and preserved for the community - not developed for housing or private interests!
There are already hotel and home rentals available in the area that are under used and this proposal will negatively impact our local existing businesses.”
—Rebecca
Some neighbors also expressed resistance toward entering the luxury market, where CMP would likely be competing for clientele with the state’s multitude of much larger, oftentimes world class ski destinations.
“The beauty of this park is that it is the result of volunteers, local donations and a grass root effort to create a year round park for the people of Huerfano County as well as visitors to the Cuchara Valley.
Panadero Ski Corporation has been a great steward of the Park and has attracted skilled members who have been critical in the rehab, reconstruction and operation of the Park and ski hill. They know the community, the mountain, the weather and the culture here in Huerfano County. Their proposal is measured and realistic and has focused on community access and year round operation. Continuing to partner with this organization makes sense to me.
Buckhorn Ridge Outfitters proposal is aimed at high-end/luxury accommodations and services. They offer no evidence that there is a market for this kind of service in Southern Colorado.”
—Brad
“I have young kids and what intrigues me about Cuchara is the affordability, access to the outdoors, and ability to enjoy USFS land. Don't turn this into another resort with expensive lodging, Colorado has too many of these. We need family friendly places that are affordable.”
—Josh
The Affordable Skiing Unicorn
Respondents also made it clear: affordability matters. The age of the omni-pass has been a boon for high frequency riders. But it’s also made starting the sport cost-prohibitively expensive for a lot of families.
In a previous article, Quandary Magazine priced out the cost of getting on the slopes for the first time. The cheapest price without comprising on safety equipment was $312 for a single day. This was based on rental, ticket, and lesson rates from Loveland Ski Area.
At other non-locally owned mountains in the area, this would cost several hundred dollars more. Scale this cost up to an average family of four, and we’ve gone past the point of affordability for many.
At Panadero prices, you could take your child riding for an entire season for the cost of a single day lift ticket at many other Colorado resorts. This makes the hill a bit of an affordable skiing unicorn, something that both neighbors, and the broader ski community seem eager to keep.
Members of the public voted more than 90% in favor of making PSC the sole operator for the next 40 years.
“It wasn't a shock to us, it was it was more to just say, ‘hey we hear you, we now understand and realize that the intent was for this to be a public park for everyone to enjoy, not a luxury development…’ and that was how it was sold to the commissioners,” Clayton said.
Huerfano county’s multi-decade agreement also bans the development of onsite hospitality — such as the aforementioned luxury tiny cabins — for the entire duration.
Quandary Magazine has reached out to Buckhorn Ridge Outfitters about the rejection of its proposal. At time of publication, they have not responded with comment.
For PSC, the agreement makes long-term planning possible, solving a host of strategic problems that have hindered their mission.
“By getting a 40 year agreement, it basically allows us to plan the future of that park, plan fundraisers, plan camps for kids next summer, stuff that we never knew that we could do because we never knew if we'd be there.”
Below the Paywall:
PSC’s updated timeline for when Lift 4 will be back in service
A breakthrough in funding for park upgrades and amenities
Will Cuchara Mountain have lessons available for beginners?
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