Lost ski areaColoradoSan Juan MountainsRocky Mountains
Stoner
Ran 1951–1985. A club-run ski area on Highway 145 at Stoner, 26 miles from Cortez, with T-bars and a large vertical drop for its size, open from 1951 to 1985.
Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
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The Ski-Hi Ski Club of Cortez ran Stoner from 1951. Two T-bars and two rope tows served a few long runs that were seldom groomed, and the area opened on weekends and holidays, with a lodge, restaurant and bar at the base and a ski school of four instructors.1,2
Read the whole historyTodayThe old slopes are plainly visible from Highway 145 at Stoner. (1992)2
Timeline
4 events · swipe
Memories
Skied Stoner, 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 Stoner
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- 1976–1986 · 28.4 mi away · ColoradoA small beginner ski hill run by the Tamarron resort north of Durango, with a rope tow from the mid-1970s and a short double chair from 1981.
- 1957–1959 · 29.5 mi away · ColoradoA family rope-tow hill on the Yeager Ranch west of Durango that ran from 1957 to 1959.
- 1962–1976 · 41 mi away · ColoradoA one-T-bar ski area beside Highway 62 west of Dallas Divide, near Ridgway, that ran from about 1962 into the mid-1970s.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 3 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
The Ski-Hi Ski Club of Cortez ran Stoner from 1951. Two T-bars and two rope tows served a few long runs that were seldom groomed, and the area opened on weekends and holidays, with a lodge, restaurant and bar at the base and a ski school of four instructors. For a small area its vertical was large: about 1,200 feet in The Colorado Skier's listing, 1,260 in Colorado Ski History's 1984 figures. Readers recall physicians from the Four Corners states holding a medical conference at the lodge for years.1,2
Skiing ended in 1985, when part of a T-bar tower fell and the club had no money to repair the lift. The area was advertised for sale in 1987, and the lifts looked to be gone by 1991. A 2010 poem by a writer who grew up in Dolores gives its years as 1951 to 1983 and says its special use permit was not renewed. The lodge carried on as a restaurant for years after the lifts came down, readers say.1,2,3
TodayThe old slopes are plainly visible from Highway 145 at Stoner. (1992)2
Sources for this history (3)
- 1Colorado Ski History · Stoner Ski Area
- 2Colorado Ski History · Lost Areas #4 (The Colorado Skier newsletter, August 28, 1992)
- 3Restless native (blog) · Ski Stoner and you can ski anywhere (a poem by Rob Carrigan, September 2010)
Photos
No photographs of Stoner 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 Stoner, in their own words.
Facts
Location
37.5846° N · 108.3197° W · Colorado · San Juan Mountains
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
1951–1985
Closed after the 1985 season. It stays here as part of the record of U.S. ski areas.
Its numbers
all 5all 5, in one list
Terrain contours: USGS 3D Elevation Program, public domain