Ski Broadmoor

The Broadmoor Hotel built Ski Broadmoor at the base of Cheyenne Mountain, on the edge of Colorado Springs, and opened it in 1959, a month late for want of snow. Steve Knowlton designed it. Because the hill sat so low, it relied on snowmaking from the start, beginning with a $200,000 machine billed as the first of its kind west of the Mississippi; later equipment came from the closed Magic Mountain area in Golden. Lights kept the runs open into the evening.^1,2,3

A double chairlift and a small surface lift served four runs, with 515 or 600 feet of vertical depending on the source. Racing came early: the Gazette dates an international slalom derby there to 1960, Denver7 a slalom tournament to 1961. In summer an alpine slide ran on the hill.^1,2,3,4

Rising costs, insurance for the chairlift among them, wore on the hotel. In 1986 it handed the area to the City of Colorado Springs, by lease in Denver7's account and by sale in Colorado Ski History's. The city lost money over two seasons, and Vail Associates took over in 1988, hoping the hill would feed skiers to its bigger resorts. It could not make the area pay either, and Ski Broadmoor closed in 1991.^1,2,3,4

TodayThe old runs still show on the lower slopes of Cheyenne Mountain, most plainly after a snowfall. (2024)³