Lost ski areaColoradoFront RangeRocky Mountains
Duck Lake
A one-lift ski hill on Guanella Pass, just north of the later Geneva Basin ski area, run for two or three winters in the 1950s.
Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
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Duck Lake sat along Guanella Pass, directly north of where Geneva Basin would open. According to Dick Wilson, a 10th Mountain Division member cited by Colorado Ski History, Bill and Annette Holmes of Georgetown, who also kept a small bar and restaurant in town, ran it for two or three seasons in the 1950s, before Geneva Basin opened.1,2
Read the whole historyTodayThe land is private, and the remains of the surface lift and an old base lodge once owned by the Coors family appear in Colorado Ski History's photos.1
Timeline
1 event · swipe
Memories
Skied Duck Lake, 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 Duck Lake
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- 1963–1984 · 0.6 mi away · ColoradoA ski area by Guanella Pass in Colorado's Pike National Forest that opened as Indianhead in the early 1960s and closed in 1984.
- Opened 1938 · 10.1 mi away · ColoradoA one-tow club ski spot on Loveland Pass, near today's Arapahoe Basin, that ran from 1938 into the 1940s.
- 1937–2001 · 15.5 mi away · ColoradoA ski area on both sides of the Continental Divide at Berthoud Pass, Colorado, that ran lifts from 1937 to 2001, though not every winter.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 2 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Duck Lake sat along Guanella Pass, directly north of where Geneva Basin would open. According to Dick Wilson, a 10th Mountain Division member cited by Colorado Ski History, Bill and Annette Holmes of Georgetown, who also kept a small bar and restaurant in town, ran it for two or three seasons in the 1950s, before Geneva Basin opened. It had a single surface lift, which in Colorado Ski History's photos looks like a homemade J-bar. Geneva Basin later considered expanding onto the old slopes.1,2
TodayThe land is private, and the remains of the surface lift and an old base lodge once owned by the Coors family appear in Colorado Ski History's photos.1
Sources for this history (2)
- 1Colorado Ski History · Duck Lake Ski Area
- 2Colorado Ranch and Land · Duck Lake – Guanella Pass Colorado (property listing)
Photos
No photographs of Duck Lake 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 Duck Lake, in their own words.
Facts
Location
39.5775° N · 105.7278° W · Colorado · Front Range
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
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