Lost ski areaColoradoFront RangeRocky Mountains
Mount Lugo/Meyer Ranch
Ran 1940–1942. A one-rope-tow ski hill on Mount Legault, now part of Meyer Ranch Park near Conifer, that ran from about 1940 until wartime gas rationing in 1942.
Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
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Mount Lugo was a small ski area on the north face of Mount Legault, on what is now Meyer Ranch Park beside U.S. 285 near Conifer.1,2,3,4
Read the whole historyTodayThe old run shows as a block of aspens among the evergreens, and pieces of the tow motor lie beside the park's Old Ski Run Trail. (2020)1,4
Timeline
5 events · swipe
Photos
Memories
Skied Mount Lugo/Meyer Ranch, 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 Mount Lugo/Meyer Ranch
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- Years not yet collected · 3.7 mi away · ColoradoA ski jumping and tow hill on Denver Mountain Parks land in Deer Creek Canyon, run by the Eriksen family from Norway from the 1920s.
- 1938–1977 · 4.3 mi away · ColoradoA small foothills ski area off Deer Creek Canyon Road in Jefferson County that began as Watson's Ski Hill and ran as Fun Valley from the mid-1960s.
- 1972–1984 · 10.8 mi away · ColoradoA small night-skiing area beside Interstate 70 near Genesee, owned by Arapahoe Basin founder Larry Jump, that ran from 1972 to 1984.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 4 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Mount Lugo was a small ski area on the north face of Mount Legault, on what is now Meyer Ranch Park beside U.S. 285 near Conifer. Colorado Ski History dates its opening to 1940; PLAN Jeffco says it was built in 1939. One 1,200-foot rope tow, run by an old Buick engine over five towers, served about 150 feet of vertical, and a horse-drawn sleigh carried skiers from the road to the tow. A warming shelter with wood stoves stood at the base. Macaroni KID names Covert Hopkins as the man who developed it.1,2,3,4
Gas rationing during World War II closed it in 1942. Ralph Kirkpatrick owned the ranch then. Norman and Ethel Meyer bought it in 1950 and in the late 1980s sold most of it to Jefferson County Open Space, which opened Meyer Ranch Park in 1989.1,2,3
TodayThe old run shows as a block of aspens among the evergreens, and pieces of the tow motor lie beside the park's Old Ski Run Trail. (2020)1,4
Sources for this history (4)
- 1Colorado Ski History · Mount Lugo/Meyer Ranch
- 2Wikipedia · Midway House (Aspen Park, Colorado)
- 3PLAN Jeffco · Meyer Ranch
- 4Macaroni KID Evergreen - Bailey - Conifer · 285 Winterfest History ~ Mount Lugo Ski Area, Located at Meyer Ranch (2020)
Photos
No photographs of Mount Lugo/Meyer Ranch 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 Mount Lugo/Meyer Ranch, in their own words.
Facts
Location
39.5433° N · 105.2707° W · Colorado · Front Range
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
1940–1942
Closed after the 1942 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