Lost ski areaColoradoSangre de Cristo MountainsRocky Mountains
Silver Hills
Ran 1966–1984. A small surface-lift ski hill on Highway 96 east of Westcliffe, past Querida, run by the owners of a nearby ranch from 1966 to 1984.
Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
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Clara Reida and Margaret Locarnini, who owned the nearby Singing Acres Ranch, ran Silver Hills. Its J-bar had come a long way: built in Austria before the Second World War, it served at Camp Hale and then at Cuchara before reaching this hill.1,2
Read the whole historyTodayOld surface tows still stood in a farmer's yard beside Highway 96. (1992)2
Timeline
2 events · swipe
Memories
Skied Silver Hills, 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 Silver Hills
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- Closed 1985 · 8 mi away · ColoradoA rope-tow beginner hill on Highway 165 near Bigelow Divide, outside Wetmore and north of Lake San Isabel, that ran from the 1960s to the mid-1980s.
- 1978–1993 · 19.1 mi away · ColoradoA chairlift ski area in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains near Westcliffe that ran from 1978 to 1988, then one last season as Mountain Cliffe in 1992–93.
- Opened 1948 · 42 mi away · ColoradoA small ski area on Tenderfoot Mountain, about two miles from Cripple Creek, built by the Cripple Creek Ski Club in 1948 and closed in the 1950s.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 2 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Clara Reida and Margaret Locarnini, who owned the nearby Singing Acres Ranch, ran Silver Hills. Its J-bar had come a long way: built in Austria before the Second World War, it served at Camp Hale and then at Cuchara before reaching this hill. A rope tow, pulled by a tractor, worked beside it. The area sold lift tickets, rented skis, ran a ski school and a tubing slope, and served food in a small lodge, but never printed a trail map.1,2
Colorado Ski History dates it 1966 to 1984; The Colorado Skier, in 1992, said only that it ran in the seventies, and listed a Poma and two rope tows. Several Colorado highway maps misspelled its name as Siller. The lodge was later moved to Bear Basin Resort.1,2
TodayOld surface tows still stood in a farmer's yard beside Highway 96. (1992)2
Sources for this history (2)
- 1Colorado Ski History · Silver Hills Ski Area
- 2Colorado Ski History · Lost Areas #6 (The Colorado Skier newsletter, November 12, 1992)
Photos
No photographs of Silver Hills 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 Silver Hills, in their own words.
Facts
Location
38.1630° N · 105.2383° W · Colorado · Sangre de Cristo Mountains
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
1966–1984
Closed after the 1984 season. It stays here as part of the record of U.S. ski areas.
Its numbers
all 2all 2, in one list
Terrain contours: USGS 3D Elevation Program, public domain