Exploring Colorado Abandoned Ski Resorts in Backcountry
The parking lot at Berthoud Pass fills before sunrise on a February Saturday. At 11,307 feet, the air thins enough that lifting a boot to click into a binding becomes a deliberate act. Skiers hoist packs and begin the trudge upward, following a bootpack trail that climbs what was once a groomed ski run.
Above them, the skeletal remains of an old chairlift tower stand like a monument to a different era. The lift hasn’t carried anyone in over two decades. Now people earn each vertical foot, post-holing through wind-affected snow, pausing to catch breath, aiming for the ridgeline another 500 feet above. No tickets. No ski patrol. No grooming. Just the mountain and the people willing to work for it.
This is Berthoud Pass now – a ghost resort that closed its lifts in 2001 but refuses to die. On powder days, a hundred or more skiers make the pilgrimage. The irony runs as deep as the snowpack: what killed this place as a ski area is exactly what makes it valuable now.
The Rise and Fall
By the 1960s, over a hundred ski areas dotted Colorado. Today, roughly 28 still operate. The rest are artifacts, their infrastructure reclaimed by weather and time.
Berthoud opened in 1937, one of Colorado’s oldest ski operations. Located on US Highway 40 between Empire and Winter Park, it served Front Range skiers before the Eisenhower Tunnel cut through the Continental Divide. The terrain was legitimately challenging – steep, exposed, and prone to wind that could strip snow from ridgelines or deposit it in wind-loaded slabs. At its peak, Berthoud operated two chairlifts and several surface tows.
Hidden Valley took a different path. Opening in 1955 inside Rocky Mountain National Park, it served the Estes Park community with a double chairlift, a few rope tows, and a stone warming lodge. The terrain was gentler, the elevation lower at 9,400 feet. Families learned to ski there.
Both places offered simplicity: drive up, ski, go home. No base villages. No real estate developments. That simplicity was also their liability.
Berthoud closed its lifts after the 2000-2001 season. The resort sat on an exposed pass where highway closures were routine during storms. The base area was just a parking lot with no possibility of real estate development. Insurance costs climbed as avalanche liability became an industry concern. Most damaging was location – by 2001, skiers driving from Denver had their choice of Summit County mega-resorts minutes away via I-70. Why struggle with Berthoud’s exposure when Keystone and Breckenridge offered high-speed lifts and snowmaking? A snowcat operation continued for two more seasons before final closure in 2003.
Hidden Valley’s demise followed different logic. Operating inside a national park meant the Park Service wouldn’t allow snowmaking, essential by the 1980s for extending seasons. Low elevation meant unreliable snowfall. Several lean winters in the late 1980s hammered revenue. There was also philosophical tension: should a wilderness preserve host commercial skiing?
In 1991, Hidden Valley closed. The Park Service removed the lifts but left the warming lodge. The runs remained visible through the forest – perfect ski lines nobody had to maintain.
The pattern repeated across Colorado. Cuchara Valley closed in 2000. Geneva Basin shut down in 1984. Conquistador closed in 1988. The underlying forces were identical: small size, location challenges, inability to compete with consolidation.
What killed them contained the seeds of resurrection. Remoteness. Exposure. Difficulty. Lack of development. All the things that made these places unmarketable as ski resorts would make them irresistible to a different kind of skier.
The Backcountry Boom
In the early 2000s, a cultural shift rippled through skiing. Advances in alpine touring equipment made backcountry travel less punishing. What had been fringe pursuit became accessible to anyone with money for gear.
Colorado Avalanche Information Center data shows backcountry use exploding through the 2010s. This wasn’t just about equipment – it was reaction to what skiing had become at resorts. Epic and Ikon passes democratized access but created crowds. Lift tickets at major resorts approached $300. The commercialization was complete.
The backcountry offered an alternative. No lift lines. No tickets. The catch was risk – avalanche danger, weather exposure, serious injury far from help. But for growing numbers, that risk beat sanitized resort experience.
Ghost ski areas fit this moment perfectly. Decades of ski patrol records documented avalanche paths. Old runs provided natural lines through forests. Access was established. And there was something compelling about skiing where lifts once hummed.
Berthoud became the poster child. The bootpack trail up the old West Slope run becomes a highway of ascending skiers. At the ridgeline, options spread – steep couloirs, mellow cruisers, wind-loaded faces requiring careful evaluation. Everyone climbs the same mountain, earns the same vertical, faces the same decisions about snowpack stability.
Hidden Valley’s resurrection has been quieter. The location inside Rocky Mountain National Park means access requires a park entrance pass or skiing in from Bear Lake – a significant approach. The mellower terrain makes it accessible to intermediate backcountry skiers. The old lodge provides shelter. Park regulations keep the scene more orderly than Berthoud’s chaos.
Two Models, Different Problems
Berthoud represents radical accessibility with all its complications. US Highway 40 provides year-round access. No permits. No fees. No management beyond what users create informally. The Colorado Avalanche Information Center rates the zone as expert terrain requiring solid stability assessment skills.
On powder weekends, cars pack every available space. Groups cluster at the ridgeline debating which line looks stable. There’s herd mentality risk, if twenty people ski a slope without triggering a slide, the twenty-first might conclude it’s safe when it isn’t.
The old chairlift towers still stand, cables removed, metal corroding. They serve as landmarks and reminders that this mountain once had a different identity.
Hidden Valley operates under different constraints. Federal regulations apply automatically. The park entrance fee creates a barrier. Winter road closures require longer approaches. These factors limit crowds organically. Park Service enforcement of Leave No Trace principles creates predictability. The rules are clear and consistently applied.
The philosophical difference matters. Berthoud says: this is public land, access is a right, manage your own risk. Hidden Valley says: access is a privilege under federal wilderness policy. Both work. Both have limitations.
The Search and Rescue Problem
But Berthoud’s free-for-all model has darker implications that become clearer each season. On December 26, 2022, an avalanche on Berthoud Pass killed a 44-year-old snowboarder from Lakewood. The slide caught him in Nitro Chute. Bystanders and family helped with rescue he was found unresponsive and could not be revived despite CPR efforts. Just over two years later, on February 22, 2025, another avalanche at Mines Peak claimed a 50-year-old art teacher who was riding alone when the slide buried him five feet deep in dense debris.
Clear Creek County Search and Rescue responds to multiple calls each winter – skiers injured on difficult terrain, parties caught in slides, people lost or stranded as weather deteriorates. These operations are expensive, dangerous, and staffed almost entirely by volunteers. The Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Office coordinates rescue efforts but receives no additional funding to handle increased call volume from backcountry incidents. Flight for Life helicopter evacuations can cost tens of thousands of dollars. Ground rescues in avalanche terrain put volunteer teams directly in harm’s way.
Now, the problem compounds with social media. Instagram and TikTok have turned Berthoud into content gold – dramatic terrain, accessible location, visual spectacle. The footage is compelling: powder spraying in slow motion, GoPro perspectives through tight couloirs, drone shots of exposed ridgelines. Each viral post draws more people, many of whom are relatively new to backcountry skiing but drawn by the possibility of creating their own impressive content.
The Colorado Avalanche Information Center sees concerning patterns. Groups follow each other into questionable terrain because “those people just skied it.” Skiers push into more exposed lines chasing better footage. The risk calculus changes when the goal isn’t just a good run but a good shot. The distraction of documenting the experience can compromise focus at precisely the moment when careful evaluation matters most.
Volunteer rescue community faces mounting pressure. Search and rescue teams that once responded to occasional emergencies now face multiple calls during peak season. The physical danger is real, rescuers must travel through the same avalanche terrain that caught the initial victims, often in deteriorating conditions and fading light.
There’s also a moral hazard question. Should taxpayers fund rescues for people engaged in purely recreational risk-taking? Some jurisdictions in Europe charge for rescues when negligence is involved. Colorado hasn’t gone that route, but the conversation is happening. When a helicopter evacuation costs $40,000 and the motivation was creating content for social media, the optics are poor.
The Forest Service has discussed permit systems, parking restrictions, or required avalanche education certification to access certain zones. Each proposal faces resistance from users who view regulation as antithetical to backcountry freedom. But unmanaged access with increasing crowds and social media-driven behavior may force the issue.
For now, the system survives on volunteer goodwill and acceptable loss rates. How long that continues as Instagram reels multiply and parking lots overflow remains an open question.
The Broader Landscape
Other Colorado ghost ski areas show varying degrees of resurrection. Geneva Basin, which operated near Grant until 1984, sees regular use from skiers willing to make the approach up Guanella Pass. The old lodge ruins and lift towers add ghost-town atmosphere. It offers similar appeal to Berthoud – high alpine terrain with serious consequence.
Cuchara Valley Resort closed in 2000. Unlike Berthoud or Geneva Basin, Cuchara hasn’t become a backcountry haven. Too remote, less compelling terrain, more complicated access. The property recently reopened as Cuchara Mountain Park with limited lift service, but it illustrates an important point: not all ghost ski areas become backcountry destinations.
What determines the difference? Legal access matters, public land works better than private. Proximity to population centers drives use. Terrain quality, steep enough to be interesting, not suicidal. Some remaining infrastructure for orientation. And avalanche risk that’s manageable with proper training.
Of roughly 20 to 30 closed Colorado ski areas, perhaps five to seven see regular backcountry use. The rest remain simply abandoned.
What It Means
The economic irony runs deep. These places couldn’t profit with lifts. Now they’re valuable precisely because they have no commercial infrastructure. People drive hours and spend thousands on gear to get the opposite of what the ski industry perfected.
It represents cultural shift from convenience to effort as the point itself. But contradictions exist. Most Berthoud skiers own $2,000 in specialized gear. They’ve taken $400 avalanche courses. The rejection of commercialization is itself a consumer choice available mainly to people with disposable income and flexible schedules.
There’s the preservation question. Hidden Valley will never return to commercial operation, the Park Service made that clear. Berthoud sees periodic reopening proposals, but they founder on the same economics that killed it initially. The current state functions as accidental wilderness preservation.
The risk reality complicates romantic narratives. People die at Berthoud Pass. Avalanches are real. The freedom from management means freedom from protection. You are responsible for your own decisions, and the mountain doesn’t care about your experience level or Instagram followers.
Return to the Mountain
By late afternoon, skiers descend through the fall line they climbed hours earlier. The old chairlift tower catches alpenglow corroded metal turning orange-red against darkening sky.
Tomorrow the scene repeats. People will drive up, climb the bootpack, evaluate snow, make decisions. Some will ski with grace. Others will barely survive. The mountain won’t distinguish.
The places we abandon sometimes find better purpose than intended. Hidden Valley failed as business but succeeded as mountain. Berthoud couldn’t compete with mega-resorts but thrives as alternative. The lifts are gone, but the skiing remains, harder, simpler, more honest about what it asks.
The old infrastructure rusts in place. The skiers keep coming, not despite the difficulty but because of it. What was lost as business becomes something else – not quite wilderness, not quite recreation area, but some hybrid that exists because people want it and the mountain allows it.
The snow falls. The turns are earned. The lifts remain silent.
