Lost ski areaColoradoFront RangeRocky Mountains
Pikes Peak
Ran 1936–1984. The Pikes Peak Ski Club's area on the Pikes Peak Highway, first at Glen Cove from 1936 and later at Elk Park, which closed after the 1984 season.
Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
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Skiing on Pikes Peak grew out of the Silver Spruce Ski Club, which Don Lawrie and friends started in Teller County in 1928. Once the highway's toll gate opened in 1936, the club, now the Pikes Peak Ski Club, cleared slopes near Glen Cove, about a mile below timberline.1,2,3,4
Read the whole historyTodayTrees are growing back over the old runs, and the area is getting harder to make out. (2023)1
Timeline
7 events · swipe
Memories
Skied Pikes Peak, 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 Pikes Peak
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- Opened 1924 · 1 mi away · ColoradoA jumping and rope-tow area at Glen Cove on the Pikes Peak Highway, where in 1936 the Pikes Peak Ski Club rigged what is credited as Colorado's first rope tow.
- 1965–1971 · 3.3 mi away · ColoradoA ski area southwest of Woodland Park that Harlan and Kay Nimrod built with their Holiday Hills subdivision and ran from the mid-1960s into the early 1970s.
- Years not yet collected · 5.5 mi away · ColoradoA one-run, one-tow ski hill off Highway 67 between Divide and Cripple Creek that operated in the 1960s.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 5 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Skiing on Pikes Peak grew out of the Silver Spruce Ski Club, which Don Lawrie and friends started in Teller County in 1928. Once the highway's toll gate opened in 1936, the club, now the Pikes Peak Ski Club, cleared slopes near Glen Cove, about a mile below timberline. Lawrie built a rope tow from the parts of a Whippet car; it ran in early December 1936 and is credited as Colorado's first. The Broadmoor paid for a cabin, and the Gazette-Telegraph counted 18,700 skiers in 1939. During World War II the area went to the military for training, and in April 1944 it hosted an all-military ski meet.1,2,3,4
After the war Lawrie, by then superintendent of the Pikes Peak Highway, moved the skiing to Elk Park, partly to escape the wind at Glen Cove; skiing there was authorized in 1954, with the $1 highway toll covering the rope tow. In the early 1980s the owners added a Poma lift, which Colorado Ski History describes as a $700,000 triple chair reaching above timberline. A winter of thin snow and poor attendance followed, the owners could not pay for the lift or their taxes, and Poma took the lift back. The area closed after the 1984 season.1,2,5
TodayTrees are growing back over the old runs, and the area is getting harder to make out. (2023)1
Timeline
- 1928Don Lawrie and friends start the Silver Spruce Ski Club in Teller County1
- 1936Rope tow built from a Whippet car starts running at Glen Cove1,3
- 1939The Gazette-Telegraph reports 18,700 skiers on the slopes1,2
- 1944Glen Cove hosts an all-military ski meet1,4
- 1954Skiing authorized at Elk Park, the area's new site2
- 1981A new Poma lift is installed at Elk Park1,5
- 1984Lack of snow and money close the area after the season2,5
Sources for this history (5)
- 1The Gazette (Colorado Springs) · The colorful history and man behind Pikes Peak's old ski area (Seth Boster, December 19, 2023)
- 2The Gazette (Colorado Springs) · Learn the unlikely story of Pikes Peak's former ski area (Seth Boster, October 7, 2017)
- 3Colorado Ski History · Colorado Ski History Timeline, the 1930s
- 4Colorado Ski History · Colorado Ski History Timeline, the 1940s
- 5Colorado Ski History · Pikes Peak Ski Area
Photos
No photographs of Pikes Peak 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 Pikes Peak, in their own words.
Facts
Location
38.8865° N · 105.0701° W · Colorado · Front Range
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
1936–1984
Closed after the 1984 season. It stays here as part of the record of U.S. ski areas.
No figures from its operating years are collected yet.
Terrain contours: USGS 3D Elevation Program, public domain