target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://erg.usgs.gov/isb/pubs/factsheets/fs07701.html">http://erg.usgs.gov/isb/pubs/factsheets/fs07701.html.
SNOWPACK AND HAZARDS
Colorado’s continental climate is notorious for creating an unstable snowpack. Please use safe travel techniques. Read a book about evaluating snowpack stability, avalanche hazard, and avalanche rescue (see the snow safety section in the Resources for some suggested reading). Better yet (much better yet), take a class. Practice your skills to keep them fresh. Always wear a beacon, and carry a shovel and probe. Always travel with partners, and make sure that they do the same (and know how to use the equipment). Since entire books have been written about this topic, I won’t say more here. But do take the hazard seriously. Your life depends on it.
PUBLIC AND PRIVATE LAND
Finally, I wanted to say a brief word about public and private lands. If you ski every run in this book and use every approach, you’ll be on public land more than 90 percent of the time. But there will be times when you’ll cross private land (on legal easements and rights-of-way), or will be skiing above or next to private property. Please respect private property. Although it may be tempting to poach runs—particularly in instances when the landowner is absentee and out of state—I don’t recommend or condone such practices. If you make the decision to trespass on private property (and I hope you don’t), you do so of your own free will and motivation.
Also, although it is unlikely, it is entirely possible that land will change hands from public to private, and vice versa, or that easements or rights-of-way will change. It is also possible, in a rare number of cases, that a lost ski area will be revived and reopen its doors, or that an application for a new special use permit may result in unexpected restrictions on areas that are otherwise public. All of these scenarios could affect the approaches and descents listed in this book. Always respect the current state of affairs, and please notify me, the author, of any such changes so that I may incorporate them into future editions of the guide. You may contact me through Wilderness Press at [email protected].
TOPOGRAPHIC MAPS AND AERIAL PHOTOS
Every ski area in this book is accompanied by a corresponding topographic map that shows trailhead locations, approach routes, and descents. For a subset of ski areas—those that still have a complex network of runs in the trees—I’ve also included an annotated aerial photograph, in order to make the runs and the terrain clearer than could be described in the text or on the topographic maps. All aerial photos are courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey.
Lost Ski Resorts in the
Northern Front Range
T he Northern Front Range describes the region stretching from the Medicine Bow Mountains and the Snowy Range in southern Wyoming south to Interstate 70, and extending west from Denver to Loveland Pass and the Eisenhower Tunnel. This section of the guide includes nine lost ski areas, though over the years many, many more have operated on the slopes of these mountains. Many of the lost ski areas closest to Denver and the Plains closed for a simple lack of snow—Magic Mountain in Golden, Genesee Mountain along I-70, Chautauqua Meadows in Boulder, and many more. Many others date back to the earliest days of lift-served skiing in Colorado—Fourth of July above Nederland, numerous sites around Granby, and Hot Sulphur Springs. Today, a scant few lift-served resorts remain: Winter Park, Sol Vista, Eldora, and Snowy Range. The lost areas are listed from north to south.
Trip 1
BARRETT RIDGE
THE ESSENTIALS
Nearest Town Saratoga, WY
Distance 0.6 mile
Vertical 800’
Season December to April
Elevation Range 8200’ to 9000’
Difficulty Rating Easy
Skiing Rating
SNOTEL Station South Brush Creek (772)
Forest Zone Medicine Bow National Forest, Brush Creek/Hayden Ranger District
CAIC Zone None
USGS Quad Ryan Park, WY
Weather WYZ063
THE HISTORY
Despite its relatively recent closure (sometime in the 1970s), painfully little is known about the old Barrett Ridge ski area. It had a lift, and at least two dominant ski runs. Beyond that, no one—not the area’s museums, or national forest office, or local residents—seems to know or remember much at all. Barrett Ridge is an enigma and was one of the only lift-served ski areas on the west side of the Snowy Range.
Around the same time that Barrett Ridge operated, however, the U.S. Forest Service received a proposal for another ski area on the west side of the Snowy Range. To be called “Silver Creek,” it would have been southwest of Snowy Pass and Medicine Bow Peak on a south-facing slope in the South French Creek drainage. Unique among ski areas in the Rockies, it would have been a “top base” ski area: You’d park your car at the top, and then ski down and ride the lifts back up to your car. The planned ski area had 1700 feet of vertical, but building it would have required plowing the Snowy Range Scenic Byway, which was closed in winter miles below the proposed ski area. It also would have required a new access road from the byway to the base area, a water source, electricity, and telephone lines. In spite of such challenges, the Forest Service thought it had potential. The agency’s one recommendation: locate the base area at mid-height, so that if the lifts broke down, guests would only have to climb half the height of the ski area to get back to their cars.
Access to the area was planned via Saratoga and Ryan Park, and Silver Creek reportedly had the strong support of the Saratoga Inn (whose winter economy surely would have benefited from the skier traffic). Silver Creek almost got off the ground, but never did.
THE TRAILHEAD
Begin at the Ryan Park Ski Slope Trailhead on Highway 130. From Saratoga, Wyoming, drive south on combined Highway 130/230 for 8 miles. Turn left (east) onto Highway 130, and continue for another 13 miles. The road will make a sharp right turn, heading south. At this point, you’ll cross into Medicine Bow National Forest. Three-tenths of a mile beyond the national forest boundary, you’ll pass the Brush Creek Visitor Center (closed in winter) on your left, and 0.8 mile beyond the visitor center (and 1.1 miles beyond the national forest boundary), you’ll arrive at the Ryan Park Ski Slope Trailhead, with a parking lot on the east (left) side of the highway (UTM: 13 372947 4576890). If you reach Ryan Park Road and the minuscule town of Ryan Park, you’ve gone too far.
Alternatively, from Riverside, Wyoming, drive north on Highway 230 for 10 miles, turn right (east) onto Highway 130 and continue as above.
The “Buzz”
If you like getting away from the crowds, this is the place to do it. There are no major towns for a long way in any direction. With the minimal approach, if this area were located anywhere else closer
