Lost ski areaNew MexicoSangre de Cristo MountainsRocky Mountains
Ski Rio
Ran 1982–2000. A ski area near Amalia, just south of the Colorado line, that ran through the 1980s and again in the late 1990s before closing in January 2000.
Overview
Counting who skied it…
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.1,2,3,4,5
Read the whole historyTodayThe resort village stands mostly empty, and some of its closed restaurants still hold their kitchenware. (2017)2
Timeline
8 events · swipe
Look around
See the ground where Ski Rio stood in 3D, then open it in Google Earth.
Memories
Skied Ski Rio, or worked there?
Tell us what you remember, or what this page has wrong. Memories show here with your username after we read them; facts are checked against a source before they change a figure.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 5 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
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
Timeline
- 1982Livestock co-op opens Rio Costilla Resort with one triple chair1,3
- 1983Official opening day held on January 154
- 1985Used double chair from Stowe added; Chapter 11 filed at year's end1
- 1995The 1995–96 season brings more than 70,000 skier visits1
- 2000Lifts stop in January, partway through the season, and never reopen1,3,4
- 2007Investors from Florida and the Czech Republic buy the property5
- 2009Both triple chairs removed and sold to other ski areas1
- 2010Endless Blue offers snowcat skiing on the former slopes3,4
Sources for this history (5)
- 1Colorado Ski History · Ski Rio (Rio Costilla Resort)
- 2Santa Fe New Mexican · Once bustling New Mexico ski resort now a ghost town (The Associated Press, October 31, 2017)
- 3Colorado Springs Gazette · OUT THERE: Closed New Mexico ski resort getting new life, six skiers a day (R. Scott Rappold, February 17, 2010)
- 4Skier 72 · Ski Rio
- 5The Taos News · History: Ski Río sold (again), county commission investigates thefts, and U.S. postal rates jump (January 4, 2018)
Photos
No photographs of Ski Rio 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 Ski Rio, in their own words.
Facts
Location
36.8644° N · 105.4500° W · New Mexico · Sangre de Cristo Mountains
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
1982–2000
Closed after the 2000 season. It stays here as part of the record of U.S. ski areas.
Its numbers
all 6all 6, in one list
Terrain contours: USGS 3D Elevation Program, public domain