Lost ski areaColoradoSawatch RangeRocky Mountains
Meadow Mountain
Ran 1966–1969. A small family-run ski area at Dowd Junction, north of Minturn, that ran from 1966 to 1969 before Vail bought it.
Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
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Meadow Mountain Ski Area stood at Dowd Junction, just west of Vail and north of Minturn. Cattleman Jack Oleson bought the hill and, with friends, put up a chairlift and a Poma lift.1,2
Read the whole historyTodayThe old slopes are public land used for backcountry skiing, sledding, hiking and mountain biking, and the base lodge still stands in sight of I-70. (2020)1,2,3
Timeline
5 events · swipe
Memories
Skied Meadow 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 Meadow Mountain
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- 1936–1962 · 21.3 mi away · ColoradoA company ski hill on Chalk Mountain atop Fremont Pass, run mainly for workers at the Climax molybdenum mine from the mid-1930s into the early 1960s.
- 1939–1986 · 23.4 mi away · ColoradoBreckenridge's town learning hill at Carter Park, served by rope tows on and off from 1939 until 1986.
- 1938–1949 · 26.3 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.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 4 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Meadow Mountain Ski Area stood at Dowd Junction, just west of Vail and north of Minturn. Cattleman Jack Oleson bought the hill and, with friends, put up a chairlift and a Poma lift. It opened in 1966 with about 900 feet of vertical, from a 7,900-foot base to an 8,800-foot top, and four or five gentle runs. It was a small local area with cheap tickets where valley children learned to ski, and one of the valley's first race programs, named for Buddy Werner, began there. Colorado Ski History says it had the state's only luge run.1,2
Developers talked of linking it to Vail, but the lifts stopped for good in 1969. Vail Associates bought the area in 1970 and in 1979 deeded the land to the U.S. Forest Service in exchange for other acreage. A tubing hill with a rope tow ran there from 2004 to 2012.1,2,3,4
TodayThe old slopes are public land used for backcountry skiing, sledding, hiking and mountain biking, and the base lodge still stands in sight of I-70. (2020)1,2,3
Sources for this history (4)
- 1Vail-Beaver Creek Magazine · Minturn's Historic Spot for Backyard Fun (February 2015)
- 2Colorado Ski History · Meadow Mountain Ski Area
- 3Vail-Beaver Creek Magazine · A Quick Guide to Meadow Mountain (July 2020)
- 4Vail Daily · No more sledding at Meadow Mountain (Cliff Thompson)
Photos
No photographs of Meadow 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 Meadow Mountain, in their own words.
Facts
Location
39.6065° N · 106.4454° W · Colorado · Sawatch Range
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
1966–1969
Closed after the 1969 season. It stays here as part of the record of U.S. ski areas.
Its numbers
all 4all 4, in one list
Terrain contours: USGS 3D Elevation Program, public domain