Tenderfoot Mountain

Members of the Cripple Creek Ski Club chose the site on Tenderfoot Mountain, off Highway 67 about two miles before town, and built its J-bar themselves. The area opened in 1948 with a portable rope tow while the J-bar was finished, and the tow stayed on for extra capacity. It had six runs, mostly beginner terrain, a base lodge and a warming hut at the top. A 30-meter ski jump on the mountain was dedicated on January 27, 1949, probably named for broadcaster Lowell Thomas, who opened it.^1,2

Thin snow and a lack of harder terrain likely ended it. Colorado Ski History says it closed in the early 1950s; the jump archive says around 1956, and a 2015 blog gives 1956, the year the J-bar went to Monarch. In the 1990s a private owner, David Veren, used the hill again: a former worker recalls putting in a T-bar around 1991, a cabin at the summit and an inner-tube run down the north face.^1,2,3,4

TodayThe hill is private property, closed to the public.¹