Will There Ever Be a Ski Resort Near Fort Collins? [VIDEO, INTERVIEW]

Will there ever be a ski resort in the mountains just west of Fort Collins?

The short answer?

Probably not.

People have tried to build one numerous times over the years, and it seems that the public sentiment against it, the red tape that needs to be cut, the restrictions that must be dealt with, and the overall complexity of the issue makes the project unmanageable.

Many people are probably like me on this issue--living with mixed feelings.

On one hand, though I love Steamboat so much I should probably just marry it, I do get sick of living here and driving there. It is an even three hours from northwest Fort Collins.

Since Summit County is a bit closer in mileage, a lot of people from Northern Colorado buy one of Vail Resorts' Epic passes, which gives unlimited access to Arapahoe Basin, Keystone, and Breckenridge. They are still almost 3 hours away. Try to make that drive at the wrong time, and it can easily turn into a four hour ordeal. Sometimes it can last even five to six hours. Brutal. (See How To Avoid Skiing Traffic on I70).

Intrawest and Powdr Corp Resorts have teamed up to offer a Winter Park/Copper Mountain pass, but the routes to get to both of those are the same--right up I70. Winter Park is off the interstate, but from Fort Collins, most of the drive is still along I70.

The traffic on I70 is bad enough to cause some people in Fort Collins to give up on those resorts.

Given these drive times, having a resort just to the west of us would be very attractive.

I guess I should mention that Eldora, just west of Boulder in Nederland, is closer than these resorts. However, it is much smaller than most of the resorts mentioned above, and doesn't seem to get the snow amounts, either. For me, it's not an attraction. I'd rather drive further for higher quality skiing and riding.

Cameron Pass and the Rawah Wilderness Area

Cameron Pass is just over an hour from Fort Collins. Its proximity would make it possible for people from Northern Colorado to take much easier day trips and, like many people in Denver, to enjoy powder days at a moment's notice.

Plus, it receives great snow amounts. Not as much as Steamboat or Wolf Creek, necessarily, but it gets plenty of snow.

When driving to Steamboat via Highway 14, sometimes find myself thinking "Put a chairlift right there and I don't have to drive another hour and a half to make some turns!"

On the other hand, I love the seclusion of Cameron Pass. Driving over it, it would be very hard to imagine the commercialization of an area that is right next to Walden, the official moose viewing capital of Colorado. To be sure, if there was a resort near the peak of Cameron, the wildness of the area that now exists right off the paved road would disappear. There would be fewer, if any, moose grazing alongside the road during summer sunsets. More people would simply drive them into the woods. The area would be changed beyond recognition, and for many people, this is no good.

Stephen Meyers of the Coloradoan wrote a great piece on this, and answered some questions I have long had about this issue. In our interview in the video below, he also taught me some things I didn't know.

• A few developers have attempted to put ski resorts around Cameron Pass and in Rocky Mountain National Park
• Rocky Mountain National Park had a resort in it called Hidden Valley until 1991
• There used to be a ski resort in Windsor, named Sharktooth