Meadow Mountain Ski Area
Minturn, Colorado1966-1969
Shop Meadow Mountain Ski Area tees, long sleeve tees, hoodies and crewnecks. Jack Oleson, a cattleman from Gypsum, bought the hill at Dowd Junction with friends and put in a chairlift and a surface lift, and the run names followed old cattle trails. It also had the only luge run in Colorado. Pick a style below, then read the full Meadow Mountain history further down. We are an American small business bringing back the signs and logos of places and teams that are long gone but remembered fondly.
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Meadow Mountain Ski Area History
Meadow Mountain Ski Area in Minturn, Colorado, was a small family hill at Dowd Junction, north of Minturn and a short drive from a large resort nearby. Jack Oleson, a cattleman from Gypsum, bought the hill with friends and put in a chairlift and a surface lift. It opened in 1966 with about 900 feet of vertical and four or five runs, none of them steep.
The Colorado Ski History site lists a double chair 2,250 feet long and a base lodge, and says Meadow Mountain had the only luge run in Colorado. A magazine profile described it as a cheap, easygoing place for local families, and a ski racing program for kids began there. The cattle-country roots showed in the run names, which followed old cattle trails.
The lifts stopped for good in 1969. Developers had talked about tying the hill to the resort's lifts as part of a town-to-town plan, but that fell through. Oleson sold the property, and in 1979 it was deeded to the U.S. Forest Service in a land exchange. In the early 2000s the slope ran briefly as a tubing hill with a rope tow. Today it is public land used for sledding, backcountry skiing, hiking and biking, and the old base lodge can still be seen from the interstate.