Davey Pitcher pushes ski pioneer principles at Wolf Creek
Plus: CPW mulls larger role at Pikes Peak, Vail offers credits for Park City strike skiers, first resort death of 24-25, Crested Butte’s fat bike fest
Outdoors/Business Reporter
Sneak Peek of the Week
Fiercely independent, self-sustaining and fun. The Pitcher clan celebrates 85 years of skiing at their Wolf Creek ski area.
85
Number of years Wolf Creek has been hosting skiers
WOLF CREEK SKI AREA — Both sides of the snowcat’s tracks are hanging over cliffs as Davey Pitcher nudges the controls of the 1990s-era LMC 3700 across a narrow spit of snow atop his Wolf Creek ski area.
“Well that was fun,” says the 62-year-old whose family has run the southern Colorado ski area for nearly 50 years, clicking into his telemark skis and slipping into the powdery forest of beetle-ravaged Engelmann spruce.
Fun is a fundamental priority at Wolf Creek, a family-owned ski area thriving in the shadow of pass-peddling giants. In an increasingly business-y ski resort industry — with headlines trumpeting labor strikes, share prices, pass sales, $3 billion funds, $105 million acquisitions, record-high traffic and all-time revenues — the Pitcher family has kept a nearly 50-year focus on keeping skiing fun.
“There’s something about the g-force, the sensation of movement through the forest or a trail, that is intrinsically pretty darn rewarding in itself. It doesn’t have to be where you’re at the top of the heap,” says Pitcher, swinging his Völkl skis from a high-speed chairlift he installed himself. “And there’s a reward from simply seeing people find that sensation. And we’ve really embraced that here. With all of the rules and all of the stress that our society has kind of propagated, when you come to recreate, you want to be left alone as much as you can be. That’s the essence of our long view on skiing.”
Wolf Creek sells season passes but not the kind that work anywhere else, rebuffing a trend that has reshaped the resort industry with season passes that allow access to dozens of ski areas. (One exception: Wolf Creek pass holders can ski at western Montana’s Discovery Ski Area, which is owned by Pitcher’s older brother Peter.) Wolf Creek a few years ago left the Colorado Ski Country trade group, which Pitcher says “is not a trade group that deals with all walks of life.”
A peak-season day ticket at Wolf Creek costs $103, up 2% from last year. There are no discounts for buying early. Skiers 80 and older ski free. Season passes are $1,300. A couple dozen days a year the ski area offers $68 tickets as a “locals appreciation” promotion. Before the pandemic, Wolf Creek was attracting about 200,000 visits a year. That’s bumped to 260,000 since 2021 and has not waned.
Wolf Creek pricing does not follow any of the resort industry’s top trends that swirl around the selling season passes and lift tickets before the snow falls and savaging skiers who dare to walk up to the window and buy a day ticket. The ticket window at Wolf Creek is a bustling scene.
“I believe that’s a fair price,” Pitcher says. “One of the other mantras my father had was that it is public land and that it’s, you know, meant to be for the use and enjoyment of the public. And to create an exclusionist pricing pushes out people that may not have the financial ability of paying some of these big prices, that just doesn’t sit right. We still make money. We still can afford to do new upgrades and infrastructure and pay everyone.”
Last year Pitcher spent $300,000 to remove beetle-kill on the north side of his ski area. Next summer he’s got another $1 million set aside for timber work.
He won’t need to spike ticket prices to pay for it. The timber work is all part of the long-term plan at Wolf Creek.
“There’s no real reason to ask for more than you think is fair,” he says.
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Breaking Trail
CPW asked to explore a larger role around Pikes Peak
24 million
Annual visitors to the Pikes Peak region
Four years ago, a group of nonprofits, elected leaders and land managers around Pikes Peak started looking at how the region could better manage a growing wave of visitors flocking to America’s Mountain.
After the first year of meetings, they found local communities overwhelmed with the impacts of recreation and Forest Service officials too focused on wildfire mitigation to offer much help.
As the meeting continued, one possible solution kept rising to the top: Could Colorado Parks and Wildlife, flush with new revenue from sales of the Keep Colorado Wild Pass, take on a larger role managing recreation around the massif that draws as many as 24 million annual visitors?
A consortium — including the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, El Paso and Teller counties, the cities of Colorado Springs and Manitou Springs and Colorado Springs Utilities — is now formally asking CPW to help manage increasing recreation around Pikes Peak, starting with management of the Ring the Peak Trail.
“This can allow the Forest Service to focus on areas where they can do the most good with their wildfire crisis strategy. The same can be said for Colorado Springs Utilities focusing on water supplies and the health of our watersheds,” said Becky Leinweber, the head of the Pikes Peak Outdoor Recreation Alliance that has worked to gather diverse public and private interests around the massif to plan for the next chapter of growth. “CPW has capabilities and expertise that can truly balance both the conservation needs and the recreation needs. This is a unique moment for us.”
But never call this a step toward creating a new state park. Even our governor — on a mission to stock up Colorado’s stable of state parks — stops short of using the ‘p’ word. (Trumpeting a new state park has not worked out well at Sweetwater Lake.)
The Pikes Peak plan for CPW could look similar to the Arkansas Headwaters Recreation Area, where the agency manages a 152-mile stretch of the Arkansas River that hosts 1.4 million annual visitors as it winds through four counties, Forest Service and BLM land and a national monument.
That stretch of river between Leadville and Cañon City is the most commercially rafted river in the country. The Arkansas River Outfitters Association estimates nearly 200,000 rafters every summer spend more than $13 million in Chaffee and Fremont counties, supporting 600 jobs.
Locals in Pikes Peak especially like the “recreation area” shingle CPW uses around the Arkansas River. But right now, this is just a plan to have a talk and see if maybe there could be a bigger role for CPW around the peak.
This is all about getting visitor management under control so communities and land managers can better plan for the future, Leinweber said.
“We want to be exceptional in our outdoor recreational opportunities. We want to be exceptional in our natural resource conservation. And we want to be exceptional in how we manage both those,” she said. “This is us rolling up our sleeves and figuring out how to make that happen.”
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The Playground
Vail Resorts offers Park City Mountain skiers credits following patroller strike as more patrollers unionize
$4 an hour
Average wage increase negotiated by the 200-patroller union at Park City Mountain, which ended a 13-day ski patroller strike
Skiers who visited Park City Mountain Resort during the patroller strike over the holiday will get credits toward the purchase of passes and lift tickets next season. Vail Resorts, the owner of the Utah ski area, offered the deal Thursday, nearly a week after settling the unprecedented patroller strike that limited open terrain and caused long lift lines during the busy Christmas and New Year’s holidays.
“We have heard our guests’ feedback and are providing credits to those who skied and snowboarded at Park City Mountain during that time,” reads a statement from Deirdra Walsh, the head of Park City Mountain. “We are committed to rebuilding the trust and loyalty of our guests by delivering an exceptional experience at Park City Mountain this season and in the future.”
The largest ski area operator in North America is offering pass holders up to a $65.44 credit for every day they skied during the Dec. 27 to Jan. 8 patroller strike, with a minimum discount of 25% off an Epic Pass for the 2025-26 season. (The full Epic Pass this season cost $1,047, so the minimum credit offered to buyers of the unlimited Epic Pass next season is $261.75. The Epic Local Pass costs $731, so the minimum credit for that pass is $182.75.)
Skiers who bought lift tickets will get a 50% credit based on what they paid for the lift tickets during the strike.
The credits only can be used toward the purchase of a 2025-26 season Epic Pass product. Click here for details on the credit plan.
The credit amounts to a 50% discount on advance-purchase Epic Passes based on eight days of use, or $130.88 a day.
Vail Resorts sold 2.3 million advance-purchase lift tickets and season passes for the 2024-25 ski season. The company collected $1.4 billion from selling lift tickets and season passes for the 2024-25 ski season and 65% of that — more than $900 million — from advanced sales before its 43 ski areas opened.
The company reached an agreement with more than 200 unionized Park City Mountain patrollers Jan. 9 after more than 10 months of contract negotiations that culminated in the first ski patrol strike in decades. The agreement increased starting wages for ski patrollers by $2 an hour, with an average increase of $4 an hour and veteran ski patrollers getting an increase of $7.75 an hour.
The agreement has resonated with resort workers in mountain towns, where the cost of living and housing has skyrocketed in recent years. A growing number of those workers are forming unions, including ski patrollers at Arapahoe Basin who voted this week to join the United Mountain Workers union, part of the Communication Workers of America Local 7781. The agreement at Park City has illuminated the role of collective bargaining for increased pay and benefits.
The Guide
First ski resort death of the season at Powderhorn
15
Colorado ski resort fatalities in the 2023-24 ski season
Jessie Mello, a 24-year-old Marine from Grand Junction, died earlier this month following a ski accident at Powderhorn. It was the first reported ski area death of the 2024-25 ski season.
Mello was skiing with her two brothers on an intermediate ski run at Powderhorn on Dec. 24. It was clear and sunny. It had been a bit since the resort had reported fresh snow. Mello, who grew up skiing at Powderhorn but had taken a break during high school and four years in the Marines, had spent the morning skiing beginner runs to warm up.
She was wearing a helmet and her father, Eric Mello, said eyewitnesses reported she hit a patch of ice and slid into a tree. A ski area spokesman said ski patrollers responded and called for an ambulance from Plateau Valley emergency services. As Mello was cared for they called for helicopter transport from Care Flight of the Rockies. She was transported to the first-aid room at the base of the ski area and flown to St. Mary’s Hospital in Grand Junction with a head injury and broken bones.
She died from her head injuries at the hospital Jan. 5, according to the Mesa County Coroner’s Office.
Eric Mello said “more than 50 Marines from all over the world” showed up for her memorial service and shared stories about his daughter, “which has been a blessing.”
“Jessie lived more in 24 years than most dream to live in a lifetime,” reads her online obituary. “She traveled the world, was a multi-sport athlete, a black belt, a Sergeant in the United States Marine Corps, and an incredible daughter, sister, and friend to everyone she encountered. She was kind, loving, and full of joy but also tenacious and determined. She would put you in your place with a simple glance and build you up with a hug.”
Ski areas do not report fatalities in Colorado. At least 15 people died on Colorado’s ski slopes in the 2023-24 ski season, six of them after colliding with trees. Colorado coroners reported at least 17 deaths at ski resorts in the 2022-23 ski season, an increase over previous seasons but below the record of 22 fatalities in the low-snow season of 2011-12.
Crested Butte hosts Fat Bike Worlds a decade after debuting the festival of balloon-tired pedalers
As a rule of thumb, it’s best to avoid casually signing up for any Colorado event that includes “World Championships” in its name. Those contests are best for spectating.
One exception: the Fat Bike World Championships, a snowy festival of festooned balloon-tired pedalers returning to its birthplace in Crested Butte Jan. 24-26.
A decade ago, the nascent fat-bike phenomenon was growing. The Crested Butte Mountain Bike Association launched the Fat Bike Worlds in 2015 as a costumed rally for the emerging sect of bundled cyclists grinding fat-tired mountain bikes through snowy landscapes typically traversed by skating skiers.
Since then, the not-quite-serious bike race has traveled to Wyoming, Wisconsin and Leadville. Next weekend the races return to the Gunnison Valley, where a 20-mile network of groomed winter trails feeds a fervent faction of fat bikers.
“There are fat bikes all over this place,” says Dave Ochs, the race organizer and longtime bike boss captaining CB’s trail-building — and trail grooming — mountain bike association.
Ochs has signed up Ten Years Gone, a Led Zeppelin tribute band for the post-race party Saturday at the Crested Butte Center for the Arts. He’s got kegs of PBR and free beer from the Zuni West Brewing Co. for the weekend. The Borealis Fat Bike Worlds — sponsored by Colorado Springs-based Borealis Fat Bikes — offers a five-lap and three-lap race around a 4.9-mile route around town. Most of the racers will be colorfully attired. Click here for more details.
“We are keeping this as grassroots as possible. It’s all about the party,” Ochs said. “It’s more about the costumes and taking whiskey shots and stopping at the bacon station than anything else.”
— j
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