Monarch smooths some rough edges

Small resort near Salida seeks to lure more Denver skiers

Joanne Kelley, Rocky Mountain News

Friday, January 20, 2006

MONARCH MOUNTAIN - Latte's in. Linoleum's out.

But don't look for this underdog ski area to glom onto glitz anytime soon.

While a feisty new investor group has brought in a Starbucks and spruced up the dated lodge, the tiny Monarch Mountain base area has grown so little over the years it practically makes the rustic Wolf Creek Ski Area to the south look developed.

Still, a few recent improvements here and there already have helped to boost Monarch's fortunes. Revenues this season are running about 18 percent ahead of last year. Skier visits also are up strongly. Monarch got about 150,000 skier visits last season.

"It's hard to know exactly why, but we're delighted we're up," said Bob Nicolls, the Monarch investor who put together the private group that bought the ski area in late 2002.

Favorable snow conditions, even at a Continental Divide location that gets more of the white stuff than most, have contributed to a strong season. The area has dropped its scattershot approach to marketing in favor of pitches to nearby urban areas and points south.

Monarch's main gathering spot has been getting a gradual makeover. A tiny, rickety sun deck has been replaced with a much larger one. Linoleum and lousy food have been replaced with wood paneling and some better grub.

"The day lodge was in pretty bad shape - and the food was miserable," said Nicolls, 47, who lives in Parker and runs a company that holds investments in apartment buildings in various cities.

He had been coming to Monarch with his family for years and had already bought the Monarch Lodge down the road when the area's general manager asked him whether he might be interested in buying the ski hill from its previous owners.

Nicolls and three friends bought 80 percent of the ski business, which sold for $5.5 million. Now, Nicolls and a partner have a contract to sell the nearby Monarch Lodge, a motel he laughingly describes as "two steps up from camping."

The remaining 20 percent of the ski operation is owned by an assortment of locals, including ski area CEO Rich Moorhead.

The area, about 20 miles from Salida, draws mainly from Colorado Springs and Pueblo. Out-of-state visitors come mostly from Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.

Although it's one of the state's oldest ski areas, it's also one of the least visited. Powder Magazine's Winter 2006 resort guide calls it "one of the most underrated resorts in the Rockies," while a recent Ski magazine issue described it as "off the radar of most of the state's skiers."

Discount passes for Colorado residents have narrowed the price gap between small ski hills and the big-time resorts such as Vail and Aspen. But smaller ski areas such as Monarch offer a "more pure, wilderness kind of experience," said Nolan Rosall, president of Boulder-based ski industry research group RRC Associates. "There's a whole group of skiers who really prefer that. It's not really a price issue."

Monarch officials insist that the drive time from Denver can be quicker than the trip to Summit County resorts, taking into account Interstate 70 weekend traffic.

The area is roughly 150 miles from Denver.

But Monarch still faces an uphill battle getting Denver skiers to visit.

"Psychologically, they (Denver skiers) are so used to the I-70 corridor," Rosall said.

While the main owners are relatively new, Moorhead has been with the ski area for three decades. He hasn't always been at the helm. His first stint involved shoveling snow to cover bare spots on the slopes during a particularly dry winter.

The area still shuns artificial snowmaking, depending instead on the typical bounty Mother Nature dumps each season.

"We've survived 65 years without it," Moorhead said.

And that's fine with Nicolls, who insists that man-made snow makes for inferior conditions.

"No one ever says, 'Let's go where the man-made snow is,' " said Nicolls. "It's a lot nicer when you don't have to hear the snow you ski on."

And Monarch doesn't need a bunch of high-speed chairs because it typically has no lift lines.

However, it does need more bathrooms. At peak periods, the ski area boasts longer lines at the loo than the lift.

While it's come a long way since the days when it relied on a six-hole outhouse, Nicolls sees more restroom facilities as a top priority.

"With skier visits way up, it's put a crimp on the bathrooms," Nicolls said. "It's an embarrassment, and it's going to get fixed next year. What we can't make any better is the snow - the pioneers of the sport went to places like Monarch."

In this case, the pioneers were workers in the Depression-era Work Projects Administration. The agency gave the ski area to the town of Salida, which later sold it for $1 to the manager, according to the ski area's Web site.

The area has changed hands often in recent years, but its current owners have no plans to sell.

"We need to make money and are, but that is not the primary focus," Nicolls said. "We are fortunate in that this is a labor of love."

kelleyj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5068