Lost ski areaColoradoFront RangeRocky Mountains
Indian Mountain
Ran 1972–1988. A small platter-lift ski area at the Indian Mountain subdivision near Jefferson, in Park County, that ran on and off from 1972 to 1988.
Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
Counting who skied it…
Indian Mountain was a small ski area in Park County, reached from Jefferson off U.S. 285, that drew skiers from Fairplay and Colorado Springs.1
Read the whole historyTodayThe land holds a subdivision of vacation homes, and the old lodge stands in Indian Mountain Park beside hiking trails and a disc golf course. (2024)1,2,3
Timeline
4 events · swipe
Memories
Skied Indian Mountain, 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 Indian Mountain
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- 1938–1949 · 19.8 mi away · ColoradoA small rope-tow ski area on Hoosier Pass outside Blue River, started by the South Park Lions Club in the late 1930s.
- 1963–1984 · 22.3 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.
- Years not yet collected · 22.9 mi away · ColoradoA 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.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 3 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Indian Mountain was a small ski area in Park County, reached from Jefferson off U.S. 285, that drew skiers from Fairplay and Colorado Springs. Meridian Properties of Denver built it together with the housing developments around it. A Heron-Poma platter lift and two surface tows served five runs and 573 feet of vertical, and the base had a lodge, a cafeteria, rentals and a ski school.1
It ran in fits and starts from 1972 to 1988 and was often short of snow; The Flume puts that down to the wind on the east side of South Park. Brian Nilsson of the Metro Park and Recreation District in Como bought the area in 1984. The lifts most likely stopped for money reasons that came from poor snow and too few operating days. Colorado Ski History says the platter lift later ran at Vail Mountain as the Westwall poma until 2000.1,2
TodayThe land holds a subdivision of vacation homes, and the old lodge stands in Indian Mountain Park beside hiking trails and a disc golf course. (2024)1,2,3
Sources for this history (3)
- 1Colorado Ski History · Indian Mountain Ski Area
- 2The Flume · What happened to Park County's ski mountains? (Meryl Phair, January 30, 2024)
- 3Indian Mountain Metropolitan District · Indian Mountain Park
Photos
No photographs of Indian Mountain 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 Indian Mountain, in their own words.
Facts
Location
39.2459° N · 105.7243° W · Colorado · Front Range
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
1972–1988
Closed after the 1988 season. It stays here as part of the record of U.S. ski areas.
Its numbers
all 3all 3, in one list
Terrain contours: USGS 3D Elevation Program, public domain