Pikes Peak Region Trail Finder

(John Topolnicki Sr., photographer, courtesy of the Summit Historical Society Topolnicki Collection)

BY R. SCOTT RAPPOLD
THE GAZETTE

BRECKENRIDGE • “Do you think we could ski here?”

Trygve Berge pondered the question. He was working for a lumber company building a yard near the hole that would become Dillon Reservoir. But his real passion was skiing.

A Norwegian ski champion, Berge ran a ski school in Michigan during summers and had helped develop skiing in Aspen. He gave a long look at Summit County’s spiny Tenmile Range, still snow-covered in August.

“It looks like they get good snow,” he replied.

A few months later, he and lumber company owner Bill Rounds were on top of Peak 8, toasting champagne to the success of their new ski area. The next winter, on Dec. 16, 1961, the Peak 8 Ski Area opened for business, with one double chairlift, a short T-bar for beginners and $4 lift tickets.

Fifty years later, Breckenridge regularly ranks among the nation’s most-visited ski areas, with 1.6 million skiers and riders last season. It sprawls over four mountains, and resort officials hope to expand to a fifth. The growth amazes the few who have been skiing the resort since the early days.

Take a video journey back in time to the early days of skiing here.

But even more dramatic is the change to the town itself. In 1961, it resembled nearby Alma more than a modern resort metropolis. The mines that sparked its construction were long gone, and Breckenridge was a quiet place of less than 350 people, where a car driving down Main Street was enough to turn heads.

“It was really quiet,” said Robin Theobald, a native who was 10 when skiing arrived. “If somebody went down the street, you knew who it was.”

(Courtesy of the Denver Public Library, Western History Collection)

The Rounds and Porter Lumber Co. bought much of the town, and Bill Rounds and others monitored snowfall. The slopes were northeast-facing and a little windy, but they thought the area would be great for skiing.

See more photos from Breckenridge's mining days and skiing revival here.

The town was run-down, full of unsightly rock piles left over from the mines and dredge boats that once chewed up the Blue River.

Said Berge, who signed on to run the ski school: “It was kind of a desolate place, but we were all excited because something was going to happen.”
The first season, 17,000 skiers came.

Interstate 70 was not yet completed, so many skiers came from the Pikes Peak region.

Maureen Nicholls, then a teacher in Colorado Springs, skied here in 1963 with a ski club. The skiing on Pikes Peak, which still had a small area, was “pretty horrendous,” but here was a resort with a modern chairlift, fancy lodge and a town that had a charm of its own.

She was living here by 1964. Lots were marketed for second homes to Front Range residents for $1,000 to $2,000.

The new area struggled; some days operators wondered if they would sell a lift ticket at all.

Berge left after Aspen Ski Corporation bought it in 1970, wondering if the area would survive.

The new owners expanded to Peak 9 in 1972. That year saw 200,000 skiers. Some old-timers grumbled that this skiing thing would never last.

Change came slowly. The ski area built a post office and bowling alley. Shops opened. A supermarket meant residents no longer had to drive to Leadville for groceries. Hoosier Pass, linking Breckenridge with South Park, was paved.

Let Vail, opened the year after Breckenridge, get the big-time races and competitions. Breckenridge became known as a family-oriented ski area.
Snow-making began in 1982, after a snow drought, and 673,129 skiers came. The upper bowls, originally thought to be too windy for lifts, were opened, as skiers pushed the bounds of skiable terrain. Peak 10 lifts opened in 1985.

Breckenridge saw 1.3 million visitors in 1992. Peak 7 opened in 1993. Until Vail opened Blue Sky Basin, Breckenridge was Colorado’s largest ski area.

“I’m impressed by the growth, because we didn’t see it that way,” said Berge. “We didn’t think it was going to get that big.”

With a population 10 times that of 1960, with many thousands more who come to live and work for the season, Breckenridge barely resembles the old hardscrabble mining hamlet.

But locals have worked hard to preserve that mining legacy.

“The history of the town is important. I think part of what makes Breckenridge not unique among ski areas, but different among ski areas, is it is a mining town,” said Theobald, a developer who restores old buildings here.

And the skiing’s not bad either. Breckenridge has worked to shake off a reputation as a beginner and intermediate hill, by pushing the lifts to higher and steeper places.

Said Theobald, “The back bowls at Vail are like nothing else in the world, but as far as I’m concerned, the front bowls at Breckenridge are pretty darn unique.”

Breckenridge, owned by Vail Resorts since 1996, continues to push for expansion. The resort wants to build lifts on Peak 6, but unlike past projects, it’s not just skiers complaining about everyone else ruining their hike-to powder.

Some here are against it. Citing increasing traffic in town and on the highways, they wonder, how big is big enough for the area? The proposal is being considered by the U.S. Forest Service.

For Nicholls, the former Colorado Springs teacher who still lives here, there have been inconveniences. Just to ski, she drives to a parking lot, rides a bus to a gondola, rides a gondola to the base and then gets on the chairlift.

The new “freshman class” of seasonal residents comes every fall, and she rarely knows the people she sees on the streets.

“You miss going to the post office and knowing everybody there. Now I can’t say that happens. I’d prefer not to go to the post office now. It can be quite busy with the lines,” she said.

But she said the changes have been worth it. Skiing is now linked with Breckenridge, and with jobs, a strong local economy, well-funded schools and ever-rising skier numbers, it seems a mutually beneficial marriage.

“I think you just have to grow with the town and if you don’t like the changes it’s time to move on,” said Nicholls. “I doubt if I ever will move on.”
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Breck’s birthday party

Breckenridge will celebrate the 50th birthday of the ski resort with a weekend of events.

The lifts began running Dec. 16, 1961. After the lifts stop Friday, people will gather outside the Breckenridge Theatre, 121 S. Ridge St., for cupcakes, a champagne toast and a special anniversary beer brewed by Budweiser; free beer for those wearing their season passes. There will be fireworks at 5:15 p.m., followed by a free concert by Los Lobos at 6 p.m. at the Riverwalk Center, 150 W. Adams Ave.