Colorado’s Gart family and the ski industry pioneer Andy Daly have sold a majority interest in Powderhorn ski area on the Grand Mesa to Utah-based Pacific Group Resorts.
Pacific Group Resorts, or PRGI, is chaired by Vern Greco, the former boss at Park City, Steamboat and Purgatory ski areas. The company hosts about 1 million skier visits a year at four resorts it owns in Maryland, Vancouver, Virginia and Vermont and a ski area it operates in New Hampshire. The company also runs golf courses, resort restaurants, recreation amenities and lodges that can sleep 4,000 visitors.
The Garts and Daly first deployed PRGI in 2017 to run the ski area’s “Mission: Affordable” season pass campaign, which cut season pass prices to $249 a year as a way to get more skiers invested in the 1,600-acre ski area.
A year later the owners brought in PRGI to manage the entire ski area. That year, the resort owners also announced they were signing on Denver’s Zoma Capital — the investment fund controlled by Ben Walton, the grandson of Walmart founder Sam Walton, and his wife, Lucy — as an equity partner to help develop the ski area. That partnership noted the recent designation of the Grand Mesa as an opportunity zone under the Trump administration’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which offers tax breaks to investors who park development money in economically distressed areas.
Zoma Capital is no longer involved and that opened the door for PRGI to come in and operate the ski area while the Garts and Daly shepherd development of nearly 800 acres at the base of the ski area, which is a 30-minute drive up from the Colorado River and the town of Palisade.
Mesa County has grown by 20,000 residents in the past 15 years. Much of that growth is attributed to new people moving into the region as Grand Junction attracts younger residents lured by outdoor amenities and affordable homes.
“The Grand Valley is growing and it’s changed the culture of the area. It used to be very extraction oriented but it’s moving toward outdoor recreation and technology,” said Mark Fischer, the chief executive and co-founder of PRGI.
A 2022 economic study by professors at Colorado Mesa University showed outdoor recreation businesses and visitors delivering a $321.6 million annual impact to Mesa County. That accounts for about 4.8% of the county’s overall economy, which is larger than the state’s outdoor recreation impact of 3.1%.
Businesses catering to Mesa County’s outdoor recreation visitors employ about 6,500 people who earn $190.1 million a year in the county of about 155,000 residents.
Tapping the Grand Valley’s outdoor recreation renaissance
To capitalize on the economic transition underway in Mesa County, economic development boosters in the Grand Valley have started calling Palisade “Colorado’s last undiscovered ski town.” The town of about 2,600 bustles in the summer with its wineries and bike trails. The resort is boosting winter business with “ski and stay” packages at affordable lodges in Palisade, which is about a 30-minute drive from Powderhorn. It’s a strategy that taps into simmering skier discontent with crowds and prices at Colorado’s busy mega-pass resorts.
“That’s a theme we have noticed,” Fischer said, noting that Powderhorn has tripled its season pass sales and doubled skier visits since PRGI took the reins at the ski area. “Palisade really is a ski town. It’s such a beautiful drive up the mesa and it has that character and authenticity that people like.”
(Sidenote: There is a trail that connects Powderhorn with Palisade, buttressing the ski town claim. It’s a summer mountain biking trail. And more than 30 miles long, with technical stretches for expert pedalers. But there is a ski resort trail connection that kind of defines a ski town.)
The Gart family — led by brothers Tom, John and Ken — and Daly — a longtime resort boss who was president of Vail Associates before it became Vail Resorts — bought the ski area at auction in 2011 with a $1.4 million bid. Back then the ski area attracted about 75,000 skiers a year. A few years later the owners installed Powderhorn’s first high-speed chairlift — built by Grand Junction’s Leitner Poma. In the first five years, the owners pumped $5 million into Powderhorn, marking the most significant investment at the three-lift ski area since local investors opened Powderhorn in 1966 atop the world’s largest flattop mountain.
The 2016 investment included top-to-bottom snowmaking, which has lengthened the ski season at Powderhorn. The ski area opened Nov. 22 this season, its earliest opening ever.
Fischer said PRGI plans to expand snowmaking and replace the West End double chair that was built in 1972 with another high-speed four-pack that climbs more than 1,600 vertical feet from the base.
PRGI is also the majority owner of about 800 acres that the Garts and Daly acquired in the 2011 deal. Much of that land is on steep terrain, but Fischer said there is room to add more lodging for weekend visitors. In 2019, Powderhorn rolled out a village of six slopeside tiny homes available for purchase and nightly rentals.
Evan Gart, the son of John and Martha Gart, is handling the development of the Powderhorn real estate for his family. The tiny-home village at the base was “a teaser project to see if there was interest.” The homes rent regularly and now there are plans simmering to build starter slopeside ski homes with prices around $150,000. The idea is that owners will buy the homes and place them in a rental pool for skiing vacationers.
“There is a ton of enthusiasm for these tiny homes,” Gart said. “No other resort can replicate that because the land is too valuable. So that’s a unique angle we can offer.”
Gart said PRGI will run Powderhorn with a focus on maintaining low-cost access. Combine the skiing at Powderhorn with ski-up tiny homes, he said, “and you can create a truly different experience that is fun and funky and unusual while being extraordinarily affordable.”