The Cuchara ski area is set to turn a chairlift for the first time in more than 25 years.
The next step in a decades-long plan to revive the dormant Cuchara ski area arrived this month when the Colorado Passenger Tramway Safety Board gave preliminary approval to a community-driven renovation of historic Lift 4. The lift first opened in 1981 and last carried skiers in 2000.
The nonprofit Panadero Ski Corp. has spent about $200,000 in state and federal grants to rebuild the motor and electrical systems of the fixed-grip Riblet double chair, which climbs about 270 vertical feet at the now county-owned Cuchara Mountain Park.
“Now the hard part is ahead of us,” said Ken Clayton with the Panadero Ski Corp. “Now we have to operate a ski area and we are going to fine tune it as we go.”
In 2023, Panadero Ski Corp. started hauling skiers up the dormant ski area using a snowcat and a trailer mounted with bus seats. In May, Huerfano County commissioners approved a 40-year agreement with Panadero Ski Corp. to run the county-owned park.
The county has owned about 47 acres at the base of the former ski area since 2017, when the nonprofit Cuchara Foundation raised $150,000 for Huerfano County to purchase the property from a local couple who acquired it in a tax sale in 2015.
After online surveys and several public meetings, a 2018 master plan proposed renovations to the base lodge, converting the old patrol building into a café and meeting space, developing an amphitheater on the hillside, and repairing Lift 4 and the snowmaking system.
The plan also called for phased development of summer and fall activities – such as canopy tours, mountain bike trails and climbing structures – to create a year-round attraction for the region.
The 40-year agreement with Panadero Ski Corp. followed two recent proposals by private developers to revive the ski area. In 2022, two Florida developers responded to the county’s request for proposals with a plan for an adventure park, which the county rejected.
In February, the Cuchara Foundation urged commissioners to reject a proposal for tiny homes on county-owned land.
“While we appreciate and fully support the county’s decision to continue partnering with the Panadero Ski Corporation for winter operation, we firmly oppose any for-profit development within the park,” reads the Cuchara Foundation board’s letter. “The introduction of commercial enterprises not only violated the park’s founding principles … it also sets a dangerous precedent for future exploitation of public lands.”
The Panadero Resort first opened in 1981–82, and a series of Texas investors proposed more lifts and condos. Seven different Texas owners failed to make the ski area viable, which opened and closed sporadically over 19 years. The resort, at 9,250 feet, last turned lifts in 2000, and the Forest Service pulled its permit to access 345 public acres in 2002.
On Dec. 5, the Colorado Passenger Tramway Safety Board issued a preliminary license for Lift 4, first licensed in July 1989. Five other lifts – including a rope tow and tubing hill lift – expired in December 2000.
For the last couple of years, Panadero has charged about $40 a day to ride in the open-air trailer to the top of the hill. Lift tickets will stay below $45, and season passes cost $230.
“There are a lot of people who can’t afford skiing with the current conditions and we want to be an option for those people who are frustrated with the current skiing scene,” Clayton said.
Clayton said the crew is waiting for colder overnight temperatures to start blowing snow. Once that happens, they can set an opening date next month. Lift 4 will run three days a week this season as the nonprofit adjusts revenues and expenses for the roughly 50-acre park. The ski area is run by volunteers and about four paid staff. Clayton said lift operations will likely require five more full-time workers.
If the first few seasons go well, a final phase could involve renovating existing lifts that climb into Forest Service-managed land. The nonprofit has asked for a permit to bring skiers higher with a snowcat or side-by-side snow machine.
Clayton said expansion will be cautious.
“All the previous owners who operated that mountain could not do it and they all quit. If it becomes a viable option and we think we can succeed, of course we can try to move skiing higher,” Clayton said. “We are going to err on the cautious side when it comes to expansion because we do not want to become one of these failed owners.”
Bob Kennemer has been skiing at Cuchara since before there were chairlifts. In the 1980s, he opened a ski, hike and bike shop in La Veta, hoping to serve visitors. He eventually closed after the rotating cast of Texas owners kept shutting down the ski area.
“I’d be ordering skis and winter clothing and then the ski area would announce in August or September that it would not be opening and I’d have all this winter inventory,” said the longtime member of the Huerfano County Tourism Board. “That can only happen so many times.”
For the last two decades, most of Cuchara Village shuts down in winter. La Veta, with a population around 870, typically hibernates, with spending around $500,000 a month in winter, compared with twice that in summer.
Kennemer said Cuchara will likely need two seasons of lift-served skiing to find its footing. If Cuchara can show skiers from Texas that it is worth the trip, “this region will thrive,” he said.
“There is a lot of excitement right now,” Kennemer said. “The ski area opening and closing since its inception has certainly discouraged a lot of people who have given up hope that it would ever open again. With that history, it’s going to take a while.”
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