Eldora, CO 2024-2025 Season

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Not going to post tons of daily TRs but will throw some stuff up as warranted this year.

I do have more ski days since the Opening day TR I put up nearly a month ago. Lots of snow for this time of year, though not enough to really open anything yet. Lots of ski packing in places, wind removed all snow in some areas as usual, etc... Focus for the mtn has been mostly getting the beginner zone, terrain park, and now race trail ready (FIS races mid-Dec this year). And the past couple of days it finally warmed up too much to get much done snowmaking wise. Good thing snow and colder weather is only a couple days out at this point.

Crowds have been very manageable as central Colo has far more open terrain available for the moment.

Pre-Thanksgiving pics:

Jolly Jug

IP Liftline

Thanksgiving morning pic

Post Turkey pics:

Note the ski packing on the pitches

Ahhhh.... the Eldora Breeze...

Mogul line on Jolly Jug's right side now...

 

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Eldora is in a somewhat weird spot for the moment where it was cold enough to get snowmaking completed on the trails to and from the backside, but no trails on the backside since it warmed back up to upper 30's daytime, mid 20's overnight for several days. So they opened the Corona chair to spread people out, but its a lot of flats going back and forth.

Heading to the backside (hard left at bottom of pitch, the chair you see is IP lift)

Only a small amount of breeze in recent days (also known as 60mph+)

Waiting game...

 

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Figured a couple of these pics are good enough for their own post.

Racing season is here (yay). 7am lift loads are a thing. FIS level races with fast racers but tiny field sizes. 4 race runs for two complete races and still done before 1p.

6:30a arrival in the moonlight

Courses mostly set pre-sunrise....

Very gusty winds to start the day, but slowly getting better as the day went along.
View from the SL start.

 

[Tony Crocker]

No visit to Birds of Prey World Cup races this year?

 

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No visit to Birds of Prey World Cup races this year?

Not this year. I almost worked the races (and know several locals who did), but still a bit too much stuff going on to make it happen. Maybe next year...

 

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After a week of new snow and cold, Eldora is finally looking a lot more like a western resort. 28" of new snow this week has finally opened some blue and black natural snow trails. Snowmaking has a ways to go on the backside (where wind is a huge factor on several trails). But at least temps are cooperating with highs recently at about 20F with winds 'only' at about 15-20mph.

I've finally switched to skis for Eldora, in part due to terrain now available and also to have ski legs (vs boarder legs) for Mustang coming up shortly.

Today was only 3" new and quite dense but very soft under foot. Moderate crowd on the frontside today vs yesterday's big crowds. Plenty of attention needed skiing natural snow trails but less rocks than I would expect (so far).

Soft bumps upper Corona

Stay skiers left on most trails at Eldora... Both sunny and flurries at the same time all day today. Upper Ambush trail...

Hard to believe they actually opened this super sketchy entrance to several trails (normally a snowmade entry). Better entry to the terrain is on opposite side of the 6pack.

 

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Weather impacting skiing in Colo this holiday weekend. From the Eldora morning report:

[snip]temperatures today will be downright frigid, and with west winds of 8–17 gusting to 28, wind chill values will be as low as -32F today. As we write, it's -4F in the base area, with a wind chill of -41F. If you dare to venture up today, bring a buddy who can watch you for cold injuries like frostbite and hypothermia, and make sure you are properly bundled up with no exposed skin. Please note that lift operations and other services may be affected by the extreme cold, so check this page early and often for the latest updates.[snip]

 

[Tony Crocker]

From what I read, at least the Continental Divide region will be getting some snow while the rest of the West is parked under widespread high pressure for at least the next week and possibly longer.

 

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Yes, Eldora has had 9" in 48hrs. Other front range is a bit less. Snowing a few more inches tonight, etc... Though with the bitter cold and some breeze the snow was very weird off groomers today. Super funky grippy, slow and grabby (yank your ski tips around kida stuff). Ironically not the best snow in spite of being new.

 

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Forgot to mention in the earlier post this am that Eldora decided to shut 4 lifts today. Less than fully crowded, lifts with long rides and no lodge nearby, allows shorter turns of the staff standing outside etc...

Supposed to be colder tomorrow by another 5-10F before coming back up partway to reasonable temps.

 

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Another home race weekend for me. Not a lot, but several inches of new snow keeping things skiing quite nice (5" total spread over both days). Today even warmed up into the 20's for the first time in a while. Small field for 4 race runs today meant I was able to get a bit over 10K vertical on the backside steeps after the race was over.

Also a very busy weekend. Surprising how there were lines on the 6pack and Corona lifts but nothing crazy long in spite of truly crazy amounts of cars. Even showing up as early as I did I was stuck in traffic through Ned and up shelf road. They had to close the access road a couple of times due to being parked out.

I should have taken a few more pics on a scenic nice snow day but didn't.

Pano of the SL start in between race runs

Full pen on Corona lift lines (double the pen for singles line, but it moved quite fast)

 

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What a weird weekend at Eldora.

Power went out to the entire resort on both days. at ~11:30a on Saturday for 3+ hours (the 6 pack is the only lift they can run 'normally' when power goes out. so everyone headed into get lunch... or mostly stood in lines to try to get lunch. Racing team pulled the plug on programs for the day after about 1.5hrs of no power.

Then Sunday had the weird fun of driving up in the rain(!) all the way to ~8700 foot elevation. Fortunately snow at Eldora but a very tahoe esq dense cream cheese. With snow ending just as the resort opened. Skied very nicely though and 'felt' deeper due to the density. With the sun out it was way too warm. At least upper 30's which of course everyone commented on since it was so different than the past 3 weeks. Eventually at just after 2p the entire resort lost power again. This time 'only' for 25 minutes. But given the time of day, patrol roped off the entirety of the backside forcing everyone to the frontside. By the time things had recovered it was just prior to 3p anyway ending my day.

Not exactly deep, but it was a nice surprise (no snow had been forecast to make it over the divide).

I did manage first tracks as it were in both Salto Glade and on run #3 on the backside for me also Moose Glade. This is in Salto:

"untouched" start of Moose glade at 9:37am

A lot of bored guests waiting for the Sunday power outage to be over. Lots of them started hiking uphill from here (Indian Peaks lift), but I held my ground and had a 'deadline' of about another 5-10min before I was going to start. It's a fairly long slog to get to the frontside (not too bad to go to Corona if it is just the one lift that is down).

 

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I missed most of the best snow weekend of Feb being sick. But whole family made it up today (bizarrely Jr's school was off today too). Great snow with roughly 2 feet the past four days. 5" overnight and 9" in 24hrs (an under report as at least 6" hit the web snowstake during the day yesterday).

Gotta know where the leftovers are though.

 

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Wow, been a while since I posted to this thread. Nothing big, but a fair bit of small new snows over the past 7 or 8 days. Looks quite warm next week though.

Some wetter/denser snow March 30th for example:

1st & 2nd tracks on Moose glade for the day

Salto

Undercast for Eldora meant cold and dreary overcast for the front range... The 'lake' is Barker Res on the edge of Nederland.

 

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Today was very cold for April (10F start, 21F departure). Final day of training for Jr which ended early so we pulled the plug early too (planning to head up I70 tomorrow). Mix of sunny and flurries all morning. Weird snow conditions with dust on crust type stuff in some areas and nicely soft and much deeper in others. Somehow I managed to get exactly no pics of others skiing today.

Only 2" of extra fluffy this morning

Unless you know where to be the only one making tracks... Then you get more like 6-8"

Most of these are mine, a couple are not...

I'll take untracked any day... etc.. (many other similar pics of untracked or my own tracks).

It was actually rather crowded for April. This is usually the lift with zero lines at all, but not today. Had a short 2-4 minute line most of the day.

Then it was time for team stuff to end the ski day.

 

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I'm pretty sure this is the first and so far only closing day I've been at Eldora for. Usually I'm hitting elsewhere all April and early May. But the GM of Eldora is retiring (officially in 2 weeks, but...) and has done so much to assist the ski team (I'm on the BOD). So focusing on community first for Easter. After picking up a solid foot of snow from the storm, what was open skied pretty phenomenally actually (to my surprise). Of course the counter to that is about 14 trails including vast majority of the off groomer stuff was already closed. way too much melting in places from the prior week of warmth.


I was able to get a solid 2 hours on Corona lift on backside including what I'll call the run of the day: Alpenhorn. For whatever reason the snow on there was simply the best mid-winter, soft and fun (at least for the am). Plenty of 'pond' skimming despite the cold start to the day. Eventually warming into the upper 30's with some great transition to corn snow for a bit. I left early at about 1:30p with a lot to get to back home. The shocker was that they nearly parked out for the day with WAY more people and crowds than I would have ever expected.

Edit to add to following: Eldora official YTD snowfall ended up at 219" though I can testify to seeing at least a couple storms where the webcam snowstake got 1-2" more than than the reported snowfall in a few storms. I tracked Eldora snowfall meticulously once upon a time to establish ~230" as their average snowfall (averaged over 10 pretty representative seasons). So at the very least within one foot of average if not pretty much dead-on average given the slight underreporting that seems to happen (I know a patroller up there who also believes underreporting occurs in some of the larger storms. Also, Patrol is not the one measuring for snow reporting purposes so...).

Special message to exactly one person...

The Easter bunny made an appearance

Breezy for the first hour or so

very unusual sight at Eldora (monoboards)

Look at the ridiculous crowd at top of International trail above the the ramp. Also note the previously bare sections of trail upper left...

Sometimes this:

Leads to this:

The crowd watching got bigger and bigger as it warmed up

 

[jamesdeluxe]

This just in:

Nederland announces plans to purchase Eldora ski area; Colorado town's trustees say deal could be done by the fall

Eldora Mountain ski area could soon have a new owner. Trustees of the neighboring town of Nederland announced on Tuesday a plan to purchase the Colorado resort.

www.cbsnews.com

 

[ChrisC]

This just in:

This is a bad idea. I assume there were few buyers or low-ball offers that you would sell to a small (1600 pop.) municipality that needs to raise money from a bond offering and hire managers.

Instead of following the proven roadmap of Bridger Bowl or Bogus Basin, where operating profits are reinvested in the ski area, Nederland has a vision more akin to that of the Venezuelan government (ski area or oil will sustainably fund infrastructure and the future).

Town of Nederland, Colorado to Buy Eldora

The Colorado town located closest to unincorporated Eldora Mountain Resort plans to purchase the mountain from Powdr Corporation by October. A signed term sheet comes after months of negotiation an…

liftblog.com

The Colorado town located closest to unincorporated Eldora Mountain Resort plans to purchase the mountain from Powdr Corporation by October. A signed term sheet comes after months of negotiation and work behind the scenes between Powdr and the Town of Nederland. Powdr will continue to operate the mountain for two years until a "coalition of Front-Range ski industry veterans" takes over. The town plans to quickly add summer activities, a first for the 63 year old mountain. "Nederland aims to turn Eldora into a year-round, community-driven asset– expanding recreation, sparking local jobs and outdoor industries, and weaving sustainability and social equity (i.e. workforce housing) into every run, trail, and event," said an announcement from Nederland's Board of Trustees. "These economic development opportunities will give the Town a long-needed, sustainable way to fund infrastructure." Eldora will remain partnered with the Alterra-owned Ikon Pass as it has been since Ikon's inception in 2018.

I especially enjoy the line:
Turn Eldora into a year-round, community-driven asset– expanding recreation, sparking local jobs and outdoor industries, and weaving sustainability and social equity (i.e. workforce housing) into every run, trail, and event.
Even Berkeley/San Francisco might not use such language when buying a private business. A ski area will fund Nederland's social equity. Might as well add some DEI initiatives, too.


Once the Eldora acquisition is complete, Nederland plans to annex the ski area, which operates partially on private land and mostly in the Roosevelt National Forest. Annexation could add $1-2 million in annual tax revenue to the town’s general fund. Eldora’s 700 staff will eventually become municipal employees, offering new benefits to them. “To the Powdr team: Thank you for stewarding the mountain thus far,” wrote the town trustees. “We take our responsibility seriously and we are forever thankful for your belief in us to continue your legacy.”


The town plans to issue municipal revenue bonds backed by the resort’s earnings, not tax revenue for the purchase. The total sale price remains confidential. The mountain is profitable, though, and projections show the town could build a $10 million reserve in the first few years of ownership. “The Town will also be exploring opportunities for grants and private-sector dollars to help lower the total debt,” an FAQ noted. The sale is expected to close by the beginning of October if everything goes smoothly.

So Nederland is going to take $10M out of Eldora? Good luck funding capital improvements.



I foresee an Eaglecest situation: buying a used, super low-capacity 'pulse' gondola from Austria with no ability to install it. That's a separate story, but I do not think a pulse gondola has enough capacity to meaningfully increase summer revenues.

 

[jamesdeluxe]

This is a bad idea. I assume there were few buyers or low-ball offers that you would sell to a small (1600 pop.) municipality that needs to raise money from a bond offering and hire managers

Interesting. If Nederland hadn't stepped up and proposed to purchase it, what would've Powdr done? Sell it to an entity that the town believes will be even worse than Powdr?

 

[ChrisC]

Interesting. If Nederland hadn't stepped up and proposed to purchase it, what would've Powdr done?

What they did at Mt. Bachelor: Take it off the market.

Who Will Buy Mt. Bachelor? No One, as POWDR Commits to Keeping Oregon Ski Area "Indefinitely"

Bachelor commits to upgrading antiquated power supply, free season passes for kids 12 and under; Eldora, Silver Star remain for sale

www.stormskiing.com

Powdr is not acting in any benevolent way. Assume Nederland came the closest to the asking price.

Vail and Alterra do not seem to be engaged in bidding wars; Vail's stock is down, it cannot conduct secondary offerings, is unlikely to borrow (rates), and has just ousted its CEO. Alterra appears to be more measured and has primarily been engaging in lower-cost partnerships.

Similar to residential real estate, prices are holding steady, but transaction volume is significantly down.


This also appears to be what happened with the Telluride transaction/sale. Alterra claims that there is almost $100 million in deferred maintenance and lack of investment, and that amount needs to be deducted from the valuation. (Really, does perhaps the most beautiful town in Colorado deserve to be a Top 10 USA ski resort if it cannot build more than one high-speed quad every 20 years - its pinnacle being a nearly 3-year-old unfinished summit lodge? That's more like the investment level of a second/third-tier mid-Atlantic ski area - not a $250/day lift ticket.)


I find it humorous that Eldora's acquisition is being led by a neophyte, newly hired town manager, Jonathan Cain (<1 year on the job). The non-profit entities of Mad River Glen, Bridger, and Bogus have performed well; state and municipal ski areas, however, have not. (Note: I believe Cannon Mountain has a $30-50M tram replacement coming up. Should NH have considered getting a ski operator for Cannon, similar to Mt. Sunapee or Winter Park? Yes.)

Eldora Mountain Acquisition FAQs 3.0 | Town of Nederland

Tuesday, July 8th, 2025, 2:15pm

townofnederland.colorado.gov

Full financial data in hand. The seller has opened its books to Town leadership, underwriters, and advisers, allowing us to fine-tune projections. While we cannot disclose exact figures, we can share that mountain revenue will cover our municipal bond obligation. Current models show we can build a reserve of $10 million in the first couple of years. This reserve will sit in the Mountain Recreation Enterprise Fund to pay debt obligations during poor snow years. We also project some excess cash flow; however, this does not become meaningful until the subordinate bonds are paid off - something we aim to accomplish within ten years but hopefully sooner through grants and donations. After that, free cash flow will fall between $2M - $5M+, and we can reinvest those funds in streets, sidewalks, and water infrastructure.