Lost ski areaColoradoSangre de Cristo MountainsRocky Mountains
Ski San Isabel
Closed after the 1985 season. A 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.
Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
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Ski San Isabel sat on Highway 165 near Bigelow Divide, outside Wetmore and just north of Lake San Isabel. Twin rope tows, each 1,100 feet long, served open beginner and intermediate slopes, and the hill had a snack bar, rentals and a ski school, with a season that usually ran from December to April.1,2
Read the whole historyTodayThe old slope was turning back into cow pasture. (1993)2
Timeline
3 events · swipe
Memories
Skied Ski San Isabel, 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 Ski San Isabel
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- 1966–1984 · 8 mi away · ColoradoA 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.
- 1978–1993 · 25.3 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 · 46.5 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.
Ski San Isabel sat on Highway 165 near Bigelow Divide, outside Wetmore and just north of Lake San Isabel. Twin rope tows, each 1,100 feet long, served open beginner and intermediate slopes, and the hill had a snack bar, rentals and a ski school, with a season that usually ran from December to April. A former instructor remembers a staff made up mostly of high school students and a family feel.1,2
Its start is dated only to the 1960s, about 1966 by The Colorado Skier's count. Sources give its vertical as 100 or 250 feet, and its closing as 1984 or after the 1984–85 season. It had applied for a Small Business Administration loan shortly before it shut. The area has no link to later proposals for a San Isabel ski area.1,2
TodayThe old slope was turning back into cow pasture. (1993)2
Sources for this history (2)
- 1Colorado Ski History · Ski San Isabel
- 2Colorado Ski History · Lost Areas #11 (The Colorado Skier newsletter, July 29, 1993)
Photos
No photographs of Ski San Isabel 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 San Isabel, in their own words.
Facts
Location
38.0948° N · 105.1192° W · Colorado · Sangre de Cristo Mountains
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
until 1985 · the year it opened is not yet collected
Closed after the 1985 season. It stays here as part of the record of U.S. ski areas.
Its numbers
all 4all 4, in one list
Terrain contours: USGS 3D Elevation Program, public domain