Lost ski areaColoradoFront RangeRocky Mountains
Bungalow Hill
A small hill in Hot Sulphur Springs where Carl Howelsen gave a ski-jumping exhibition in December 1911, later the town's ski slope with a rope tow.
Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
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Bungalow Hill is a small northeast-facing slope in Hot Sulphur Springs, on the south side of U.S. 40 in the middle of town.1,2,3
Read the whole historyTodayThe hillside is private land, scattered with tree stumps and cut limbs, with little sign of its skiing past. (2018)2
Timeline
4 events · swipe
Photos
Memories
Skied Bungalow Hill, or worked there?
Tell us what you remember, or what this page has wrong. Memories show here, credited to you, after we read them; facts are checked against a source before they change a figure.
Lost near Bungalow Hill
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- Years not yet collected · 0.3 mi away · ColoradoA rope-tow ski hill on the southwest edge of Hot Sulphur Springs, used from the late 1940s into the 1950s or 1960s.
- 1947–1952 · 2.5 mi away · ColoradoA rope-tow ski hill about two miles southeast of Hot Sulphur Springs that ran from 1947 to 1952.
- Years not yet collected · 4.2 mi away · ColoradoA steep ski slope at a guest ranch west of Granby, offered to winter guests for a few seasons in the 1940s.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 3 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Bungalow Hill is a small northeast-facing slope in Hot Sulphur Springs, on the south side of U.S. 40 in the middle of town. On December 30 and 31, 1911, during the town's winter carnival, the Norwegian professional jumpers Carl Howelsen and Angell Schmidt jumped there from a jump built of boxes and logs; Howelsen's longest leap was 79 feet. The Sky-Hi News counts it as the birth of Colorado's ski industry.1,2,3
It stayed the area's main ski hill until skiers, and the jumping hill, moved across the Colorado River to Mount Bross in the mid-1930s. Colorado Ski History says it had a rope tow in the 1940s, until traffic on the highway made skiing there unsafe and activity moved to Maggie's Hill and Snow King Valley. The old jump was torn down for firewood in 1983.1,2
TodayThe hillside is private land, scattered with tree stumps and cut limbs, with little sign of its skiing past. (2018)2
Sources for this history (3)
- 1Colorado Ski History · Bungalow Hill Ski Area (Bill Fetcher)
- 2Sky-Hi News · LEFT BEHIND: Exploring Grand County's skiing past through abandoned hills (December 4, 2018)
- 3Sky-Hi News · John Peyer; Colorado's first winter sports carnival founder (Donald Dailey, December 28, 2011)
Photos
No photographs of Bungalow Hill we may republish yet
Its old photos and trail maps live on the sites that collected them, and Google finds the rest.
Memories
What skiers remember of Bungalow Hill, in their own words.
Facts
Location
40.0715° N · 106.1071° W · Colorado · Front Range
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
from 1911 · the year it closed is not yet collected
Closed for good; the year it closed is not yet collected. It stays here as part of the record of U.S. ski areas.
Its numbers
all 1all 1, in one list
Terrain contours: USGS 3D Elevation Program, public domain