{"id":798630,"date":"2019-08-18T08:00:28","date_gmt":"2019-08-18T14:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=369543"},"modified":"2019-08-19T10:35:44","modified_gmt":"2019-08-19T16:35:44","slug":"creation-and-growth-of-summit-countys-ski-areas-shaped-the-mountain-sports-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/creation-and-growth-of-summit-countys-ski-areas-shaped-the-mountain-sports-community\/","title":{"rendered":"Creation and growth of Summit County\u2019s ski areas shaped the mountain sports community"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Peak 8 Ski Area, the predecessor to the current Breckenridge Ski Resort, is depicted in this drawing from the 1961-62 season. The drawing shows the original half-dozen runs at the ski area.<\/strong>
Courtesy Summit Historical Society<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Breckenridge Ski Resort co-founder Trygve Berge points out several locations from his perch at The Crown coffee shop above Breckenridge\u2019s Main Street. Few structures resided in the footprints of these contemporary buildings when he first visited six decades ago.<\/p>\n

He waxes nostalgic about how property was alarmingly cheap to purchase. He emphasizes how there was hardly anyone here. Historical records chronicle the Rocky Mountain mining town\u2019s population dipping to 383 in 1960. Scouring his memory, Berge recalls that number being closer to 200 \u2014 maybe fewer.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was becoming Alma or some of these ghost towns,\u201d Berge said about Breckenridge. \u201cMountain towns with very few people, very little going on. \u2026 (The ski area) changed it totally.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now 87, the 1956 Olympic Norwegian Alpine skier still skis more than a half-century after he first arrived to scout the potential of a ski area. Berge was invited by Bill Rounds, of the Kansas-based Rounds and Porter Lumber Co., along with fellow Norwegian Olympic downhiller Sigurd Rockne. In 1960, the trio toasted to the town\u2019s future near the current location of the upper terminal of the Colorado SuperChair on Peak 8.<\/p>\n

Fast-forward 59 years to this past June: Berge hops off the Independence SuperChair at tree line on the resort\u2019s Peak 7. It\u2019s just a short ski north along the Tenmile Range from where he, Rockne and Rounds toasted in 1960. On this warm, sunny day, Berge sticks to trails below tree line, though many others ride the Imperial Express SuperChair to ski from just below the summit of Peak 8.<\/p>\n

Rising to 12,840 feet, Imperial is the highest chairlift on the continent and serves as an emblem of what Summit County resort skiing has become nearly three-quarters of a century after Arapahoe Basin Ski Area, the oldest remaining ski area in the county, opened in 1946.<\/p>\n

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Max Dercum, founder of Arapahoe Basin Ski Area, is in his element skiing some early morning powder at the ski area.<\/strong>
Courtesy Edna Strand Dercum, Summit Historical Society<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Dreaming big<\/strong><\/p>\n

As impressive as Imperial is, Berge wanted more. He once dreamed of Breckenridge resort offering skiing all the way north to Peak 1 in Frisco with a monorail connecting the two towns. He even considered connecting Breckenridge across Tenmile Canyon to Copper Mountain on the other side.<\/p>\n

Berge said his European-style vision was a hard sell for the local mining families, but soon enough, he was teaching their children how to ski. Berge and Rockne started Breckenridge\u2019s ski school in 1961 with just 13 pairs of rental skis.<\/p>\n

Day by day, the Peak 8 Ski Area \u2014 as it was known when it opened with 1,764 acres in 1961 \u2014 laid the snowy tracks for the town\u2019s ski future. Two more ski areas, Keystone and Copper Mountain, opened in the early \u201970s. The cluster of four ski areas, along with the completion of the Eisenhower Tunnel in 1973, suddenly made Summit County a popular ski destination easily accessed from Denver.<\/p>\n

Over the next 40 years, Summit County grew to become a hub of winter sports and home to Olympic-caliber athletes.<\/p>\n

Case in point: On a winter day, it\u2019s not uncommon for the world\u2019s best park and pipe snowboarders to be training at Breckenridge while some of the world\u2019s best downhill skiers train over at Copper. Among them are Olympians Red Gerard and Chris Corning, who call Summit County home. Riding the lifts alongside them are young Summit locals.<\/p>\n

\u201cRed Gerard, Chris Corning \u2014 all of these people are not just pie in the sky,\u201d said Rodey Robinson, director of development for the Team Summit sports club. \u201cThey are real people our athletes associate with on a daily basis. Having that, they are not just on a pedestal. They are people working hard. That opens eyes to what is possible. It\u2019s not just a dream.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Max and Edna Dercum, founders of Arapahoe Basin Ski Area, ski in surplus Camp Hale parkas, baggy ski pants, cable bindings and long Northland skis.<\/strong>
Courtesy Summit Historical Society<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Building a culture of skiing<\/strong><\/p>\n

Edna and Max Dercum worked to realize their dreams, too. The couple founded A-Basin in 1946 after driving their 1940 Ford convertible from their home in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

In her autobiographical book, \u201cIt\u2019s easy, Edna, it\u2019s downhill all the way,\u201d Edna wrote that the first time she heard about Arapahoe Basin was during the annual early March Mine Dump downhill ski race at Loveland Pass. A fellow racer named Larry Jump turned, pointed at the nearby snow bowl and informed her that\u2019s where the race would be held next year.<\/p>\n

\u201cMax looked at me,\u201d Edna wrote in the book, \u201cand I looked at him, and he nodded at me. I realized that was where Max bought our mining patents.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later that month, Arapahoe Basin Corp. was formed, and that summer, Max and seven others constructed the ski area that would open that winter.<\/p>\n

The new ski area had a literal connection to the area\u2019s mining history: The track cable used for one of the ski area\u2019s earliest lifts came from a mine near Monarch Pass.<\/p>\n

\u201cSoon we would see this cable, which for years had trammed tons of silver ore off a rugged mountain, serve as a track for moving thousands of skiers,\u201d Edna wrote.<\/p>\n

The Dercums soon began operating the Ski Tip Lodge. It was in mid-July 1954 \u2014 five years before the idea of a Breckenridge ski area came to be \u2014 when a few of the lodge guests wanted to check out Peak 10, which they heard had some of the state\u2019s best lingering snowfields. Edna drove her Jeep up the old Briar Rose mining road to the base of the snowfield. She remembers one guest attempting to ascend with his skis on before tumbling down the snowfield, his new jeans painting a 500-foot blue streak.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith a wet, cold rear, he said, \u2018I think I\u2019ll head back to Chicago and leave my skiing for the winter,’\u201d Edna wrote.<\/p>\n

For those who decided to stay year-round, A-Basin was at the heart of the Summit County ski community. Then in 1970, Max and co-founder Bill Bergman opened Keystone, laying out the ski area with a focused blend of recreation and ecological expertise.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2019The only way the trails can be laid out correctly, Edna,\u2019 he told me one day, \u2018is to know the entire mountain,’\u201d Edna wrote.<\/p>\n

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Max Dercum, founder of Arapahoe Basin Ski Area, christens a new triple lift at the ski area after Keystone bought A-Basin more than three decades after the ski area was founded in 1946.<\/strong>
Courtesy Edna Strand Dercum, Summit Historical Society<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Ski bum lifestyle<\/strong><\/p>\n

One guy who got to know the entire mountain was Scott Toepfer, a Summit County resident who spent his career as an avalanche forecaster and now hosts visitors at the Summit Ski Museum in Breckenridge. Toepfer has been around since his family bought a three-bedroom cabin in 1962 in Loveland Pass Village across from the current site of the Snake River Saloon. In 1974, he moved here full time, met then A-Basin owner Joe Jankovsky on a lift ride and was hired before they\u2019d reached the top. The job was installing the new Lenawee Lift, though it didn\u2019t come to fruition that summer.<\/p>\n

Without a paycheck, Toepfer and friends resorted to eating chipmunks and porcupines as a way to get by. Still, to Toepfer, it was better than living in Denver.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were there for the absolute purity of the love of skiing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Toepfer relents that his idyllic perspective of Summit County is slowly slipping away with each crowded day, but lest he forget the free-spirited people who made this community what it is.<\/p>\n

\n
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The Dercum family \u2014 Rolf, from left, Max, Edna and Judy \u2014 celebrate first place finishes at the 1970 National Vet\u2019s Race at Vail. The Dercums founded Arapahoe Basin Ski Area and helped to found Keystone Resort.<\/strong>
Courtesy Edna Strand Dercum, Summit Historical Society<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

One of those people, CJ \u201cCrazy John\u201d Mueller, knows the peaks of Summit County perhaps better than anyone. Mueller was at the heart of Summit County\u2019s free-spirited ski community in the 1970s. Thinking back to those wild days, Mueller remembers the Roman Candles ski jumps at A-Basin. He remembers Berge\u2019s front-flip off a self-made jump in front of the Bergenhof lodge at the base of Peak 8. And he remembers when, in 1984, Breckenridge became the first ski resort in the state to welcome snowboarders, a move Berge said helped to save the ski industry, though Mueller disagrees<\/p>\n

But what Mueller remembers more than anything is an old Summit County saying that speaks to its spirit:<\/p>\n

\u201cYou stay mostly because of the people,\u201d he said. \u201cI think it\u2019s really, really true. When you hear that song from \u2018Annie Get Your Gun,\u2019 \u2018There\u2019s no people like show people,\u2019 we changed the words to \u2018There\u2019s no people like snow people.\u2019 And really, there\u2019s not.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, 73 years after A-Basin\u2019s founding, Summit County\u2019s ski areas continue to shape the community. But it all started with the vision of transplants like Berge and the Dercums, who found their slice of heaven on earth here in the Colorado Rockies.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wonder if we will get to ski in heaven?\u201d Edna wrote in in the final line of her book. \u201cIf Saint Peter gives me wings, I think I\u2019ll trade mine for skis.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Edna Dercum takes a moment to relax during her first day at Arapahoe Basin Ski Area in 1946.<\/strong>
Courtesy Edna Strand Dercum, Summit Historical Society<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Peak 8 Ski Area, the predecessor to the current Breckenridge Ski Resort, is depicted in this drawing from the 1961-62 season. The drawing shows the original half-dozen runs at the ski area.Courtesy Summit Historical Society Breckenridge Ski Resort co-founder Trygve Berge points out several locations from his perch at The Crown coffee shop above Breckenridge\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-798630","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-19 06:19:14","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=798630"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":798661,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798630\/revisions\/798661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=798630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=798630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=798630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}