Hidden Valley Ski Area, Rocky Mountain National Park
Estes Park, Colorado1955-1991
Order Hidden Valley Ski Area, Rocky Mountain National Park tees, long sleeve tees, hoodies and crewnecks. Skiers were crowding onto three narrow trails here by 1939, long before the lower area opened on December 18, 1955. An adult lift ticket cost $10 in 1984, and the old base is now the park's sledding hill. Browse the styles below, and the full Hidden Valley history is further down. Down Home Apparel is an American small business remembering the best places and teams of yesteryear, and every shirt is printed to order in the USA.
5 products
Hidden Valley Ski Area, Rocky Mountain National Park History
Hidden Valley, sold in its last years as Ski Estes Park, was a ski area inside Rocky Mountain National Park about 10 miles west of Estes Park, Colorado. People skied the valley long before it had a lift. The Rocky Mountain National Park Ski Club held a tournament there in June 1931, and in the 1930s the Park Service plowed Trail Ridge Road so skiers could get to the upper slopes. By 1939 the park reported that most of its skiers were crowding onto three narrow trails at Hidden Valley, and after the war the numbers kept climbing.
Work on lifts began in October 1954, and by the summer of 1955 two surface lifts were in place. The Park Service paid for a two-story concrete base lodge with a wood exterior, and the lower area opened on December 18, 1955. The terrain dropped about 2,000 vertical feet, from roughly 11,400 feet down to 9,400, with a forested lower mountain and open bowls above timberline along Trail Ridge Road. Skiers rode a shuttle up the road to reach the upper lift; by the 1980s it was a 40-passenger bus with a heater and a stereo that made the climb in about 12 minutes. A double chairlift ran from 1971 to 1977.
A private concessioner ran the area for the park from 1955. In 1976 a consultant's report recommended that the Park Service buy out the concessioner, and by the late 1970s a local recreation district was running the ski area for the park. Ski magazine reported snowmaking on the lower slopes in the early 1980s, and in 1984 an adult lift ticket cost $10. By the end the lifts were two Pomas and two T-bars serving 27 trails, and the brochure called the place Ski Estes Park, A Colorado Classic.
The area had too little reliable snow, too many limits on growth inside a national park, and bigger resorts drawing skiers away. A 1989 Park Service study found it could not pay its way as it stood, and it closed for good in 1991. The lifts came out, the lodge was being torn down by 2002, and the runs have grown back in. The old base is now the park's sledding hill, with a warming hut and a start point for backcountry skiers.