Majority Sale Of Powderhorn Brightens Future For Colorado Resort
A deal to make the managers of Powderhorn Mountain the majority owners of the western Colorado mountain promises to build upon recent upgrades.
Pacific Group Resorts, a ski and snowboard resort owner based out of Park City, has been operating Powderhorn since 2018 for the majority owners, the Gart family famous for ski retailing in Denver.
Now, as full-on owners of the 1,600-acre mountain, PGR will add investment capital to future on-mountain projects, according to Powderhorn officials.
Tops on the list of improvements is expected to be replacement of the fixed-grip West End chair which has, since 1972, handled all traffic up Powderhorn's blue-black section on the west side of the mountain. That will match it up with the high-speed Flat Top quad on the other side, which went up in 2017.
In 2020, the Garts installed top-to-bottom snowmaking equipment as a hedge against unpredictable winters because of the mountain's proximity to the high desert of the Colorado Plateau to the west.
The ownership shift means the Gart family, which bought Powderhorn at auction in 2011 and retains minority interest, will focus on development of some 800 acres at the base of the mountain.
A couple of years ago, their first move was building six "tiny homes" a short walk from the base, available for nightly rentals. Officials say the investment has been a success. The tiny homes join a small cluster of condos with walk-to lift access.
Although the land available for development is steep, officials expect to innovate -- like they did with the tiny homes -- to "create a truly different experience that is fun and funky and unusual while being extraordinarily affordable."
Located less than an hour's drive from Grand Junction, Powderhorn first opened in 1966 on the northern slope of the massive Grand Mesa -- the world's largest flattop mountain. It is a member of the Indy Pass family and, recently, has begun building up its summer mountain biking facilities.
