Sharktooth Ski Area
Greeley, Colorado1971-1986
Shop Sharktooth Ski Area tees, long sleeve tees, hoodies and crewnecks. It opened on December 17, 1971, on a sandstone bluff near Greeley, Colorado, with a 150-foot vertical drop, the lowest elevation of any ski area ever operated in the state. Fossil shark teeth turned up during construction and gave it the name. At least once the runs closed because of blowing tumbleweeds. Pick a style below, and the full Sharktooth 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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Sharktooth Ski Area History
Sharktooth Ski Area near Greeley, Colorado, ran on a sandstone bluff above the Cache la Poudre River, about five miles west of town between Greeley and Windsor. It opened on December 17, 1971. The summit stood at 4,750 feet and the base at 4,600, which gave it a vertical drop of 150 feet and the lowest elevation of any ski area ever operated in Colorado. One slope about 1,000 feet long was served by a single rope tow.
The area was built by Dick Perchlik, a University of Northern Colorado professor who also served as Greeley's mayor, with his wife Sylvia and Greeley realtor Clyde Davis. By the founders' account, the idea came when bad weather turned back their plane on a ski trip to Steamboat Springs and they spotted the snowy bluff on the flight home. Fossil shark teeth turned up during construction and gave the place its name, a few years before the movie Jaws. Early season passes called it Sharktooth Mtn. Ski Area.
Sharktooth was a learning hill. It taught ski classes for University of Northern Colorado and Aims students and ran night skiing, snowmaking, tubing runs and an ice rink, and in the early 1980s it offered grass skiing after the snow melted. Wind off the farm fields laid brown topsoil over the snow, so the owners put up snow fences and planted about 1,000 trees. At least once the runs closed because of blowing tumbleweeds. An adult day ticket cost $3.50 in the 1970s and $8 by 1985.
Skiing ended in 1986, after thin snow years, rising insurance costs and Perchlik's failing health. The site became private property. The old lodge was turned into a house, and in 2019 the 18.5 acres were listed for sale as Sharktooth Retreat.