Pikes Peak Ski Area
Colorado Springs, Colorado1939-1984
Order Pikes Peak Ski Area tees, long sleeve tees, hoodies and crewnecks. The area sat at about 10,500 feet on the northwest shoulder of Pikes Peak, reached by the Pikes Peak Highway, and its slogan was Ski in the Sky. In the 1960s an adult lift ticket cost $3 and a family season pass $75. Browse the styles below, and the full Pikes Peak 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.
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Pikes Peak Ski Area History
Pikes Peak Ski Area above Colorado Springs, Colorado, sat in the Pike National Forest at about 10,500 feet on the northwest shoulder of Pikes Peak, reached by the city-maintained Pikes Peak Highway. Skiing on the mountain started with the Silver Spruce Ski Club, whose members built a ski jump near Edlowe around 1928. The Pikes Peak Ski Club, with Don Lawrie as its first president, opened a ski area at Glen Cove in 1936, where Lawrie built a rope tow from Whippet car parts. The Colorado Snowsports Hall of Fame later credited it as the first rope tow in the state. In 1939 the Gazette-Telegraph counted 18,700 skiers, and during World War II the slopes served as a military training ground.
The area moved up to Elk Park, where sources date the change to the late 1940s or to a 1954 authorization. By the 1960s the Pikes Peak Ski Corporation ran it as a weekend area. A brochure of the time listed a 1,100-foot platter lift, an 800-foot rope tow, a 600-foot beginner platter lift, a lodge, snack bar, ski shop, school and ski patrol. Its slogan was Ski in the Sky, and lift tickets for adults were $3 and a family season pass $75. Skiers reached the slopes by the highway and the gate opened at 9 a.m. on weekends in season. The area did not operate in the 1966-67 or 1980-81 seasons.
By about 1980 SKI Magazine put the vertical at 270 feet, served by three surface lifts, with new owners planning snowmaking on most slopes, new chairlifts and a base lodge. A triple chair went in during the early 1980s at a cost of about $700,000 and opened terrain above timberline, where the wind and thin snow limited its use. The area could not pay its taxes or what it owed on the lift, and the lift maker removed it that spring. Skiing ended after the 1984 season, and trees are now growing back over the runs.