Ski Rio

Ski Rio stood in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains just below the Colorado line, between San Luis and Taos. The Rio Costilla Cooperative Livestock Association built it as Rio Costilla Resort, starting with a triple chair and two surface lifts. Sources differ on the first year: 1982 for Colorado Ski History and the Gazette, an official opening on January 15, 1983 for Skier 72, and 1980 in a Taos News look-back. By the end of 1985 a second triple and a used double chair from Stowe, Vermont, had followed, and the area counted about 910 acres and 2,150 feet of vertical.^1,2,3,4,5

The co-op lost the resort in a foreclosure after two seasons, Chapter 11 followed at the end of 1985, and a federal agency ran it for 1988–89. It sat idle in the early 1990s, then reopened mid-decade under new owners. The 1995–96 winter brought more than 70,000 skier visits, its best, per Colorado Ski History. Texas owners stopped the lifts partway through the 1999–2000 season; Skier 72 gives the last day as January 17, 2000.^1,3,4

Florida and Czech investors bought it at the end of 2007. Their company, Endless Blue, sold both triple chairs to other ski areas in 2009 and offered snowcat skiing on the old slopes around 2010. The lifts never ran again.^1,3,4,5

TodayThe resort village stands mostly empty, and some of its closed restaurants still hold their kitchenware. (2017)²