{"id":16495,"date":"2025-09-18T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/hesperus-ski-area-to-remain-closed-for-2025-26-season\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T21:58:41","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:58:41","slug":"hesperus-ski-area-to-remain-closed-for-2025-26-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/hesperus-ski-area-to-remain-closed-for-2025-26-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Hesperus Ski Area to remain closed for 2025-26 season"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Skiers
Skiers and snowboarders take in a sunset at Hesperus Ski Area this season. Hesperus officials will add some days to its schedule before closing for the year March 19. (Christian Ridings\/Courtesy Hesperus Ski Area)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Hesperus Ski Area will remain closed this winter despite a desire from local skiers and the ski area\u2019s owners to reopen the hill 10 miles west of Durango.<\/p>\n

When reached for comment, a Purgatory spokesperson sent an announcement from the beginning of the 2024-25 ski season<\/a> saying Hesperus\u2019 broken-down lift and lack of snowmaking capacity will keep the hill closed for the upcoming season. The announcement specified that lift-accessed skiing and uphill travel, wherein skiers attach skins to the bases of their skis and walk up the hill before skiing back down, will remain unavailable.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe love Hesperus and believe that this small ski area is crucial to keeping snow sports accessible here in our community,\u201d last year\u2019s release said. \u201cHowever, at this moment, as we face this extremely expensive repair, we have to consider Hesperus\u2019 longevity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before the 2023-24 ski season, a gearbox critical to running Hesperus\u2019 one-and-only Bighorn ski lift broke \u2013 a $200,000 fix<\/a>. Additionally, the release said that Hesperus did not possess enough snowmaking capability to ensure the hill could remain open throughout the winter, which called into question its long-term economic viability.<\/p>\n

James Coleman, founder of Mountain Capital Partners bought Hesperus in 2016, a year after the purchase of Purgatory Resort. After the acquisition, former owner Jim Pitcher told The Durango Herald<\/em><\/a> that he was \u201cthrilled to pass the torch to James Coleman and confident that his team can make improvements to take the Hesperus Ski Area to the next level.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some improvements<\/a> were made, including upgrades to the parking lot, lift control and drive system, and upgrades to the rental fleet. Yet, locals have asked Mountain Capital Partners to invest more money into improving different aspects of Hesperus to improve its longevity.<\/p>\n

Matt Gerhardt, a longtime Durango resident who learned to ski at Hesperus, said it is disappointing that Coleman and Mountain Capital Partners still have not done more to breathe life back into Hesperus. He said the ski area played an important role in the Durango community, offering an alternative to Purgatory, and that the ski area needed improvements long before Coleman bought it.<\/p>\n

He wonders why Coleman purchased the ski area \u2013 \u201cknowing all these things full well\u201d \u2013 only to shut it down. He wonders if maybe it was to eliminate competition for Purgatory Resort.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a great resource to the community,\u201d Gerhardt said.<\/p>\n

Gerhardt wants the hill to come back, which is why he started making #SaveHesperus stickers after it closed. By spreading the message, he hopes it will start a community dialogue and convince Mountain Capital Partners to reopen Hesperus. Still, he is not very optimistic.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason that I made the stickers was just to encourage conversation,\u201d he said. \u201cHopefully they start hearing it from enough people that we want it brought back that hopefully they\u2019ll do something about it, but I\u2019m not going to hold my breath.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gerhardt said one way he could see Hesperus coming back is if it were bought by members of the community.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be nice to see it purchased as a co-op or something of that nature and run as more of a community-supported mountain, rather than a corporate afterthought,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

One reason listed in last year\u2019s announcement stating that Hesperus would remain closed said that Mountain Capital Partners had not secured a source of water to make snow at Hesperus \u2013 a major hurtle to ensuring the hill could operate with natural snowfall becoming more erratic.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is imperative for us to be able to make snow to guarantee reliable conditions that keep guests coming year after year,\u201d the release said. \u201cAlthough plentiful water supply options are available and could be used, Hesperus does not currently have access to those sources. Several solutions have been identified, but an agreement has not yet been reached.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are no conversations about the community buying Hesperus. And to date, there have been no further announcements about whether Mountain Capital Partners has allocated the money to fix Bighorn\u2019s gearbox, or if an agreement to secure water to make snow at Hesperus has been reached.<\/p>\n

sedmondson@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

remains that one day lifts will resume spinning at local hill<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16496,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[378,28,866,712],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-16495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-alpine-skiing","tag-headlines","tag-hesperus","tag-purgatory"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16495"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21192,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16495\/revisions\/21192"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16495"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=16495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}