Ski Rio
New Mexico's best-known abandoned ski area, 910 acres and 2,150 feet of vertical in the Sangre de Cristos, which passed through nine owners in eighteen years before shutting in January 2000 and having its chairlifts sold off to New England and Canada.
- Region
- New Mexico
- Country
- USA
- Status
- abandoned
- Year opened
- 1982
- Year closed
- 2000
- Reason for closure
- Chronic financial instability across a long line of owners, compounded by unreliable natural snowfall, questioned water rights for snowmaking, and competition from Taos and Angel Fire nearby. The last operator, John Lau's JNC Corporation, hit trouble linked to the dot-com crash of 2000 and closed the area in January that year; it also owned Cuchara Valley in southern Colorado, which shut in the same year.
History
Ski Rio sat above Costilla in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of northern New Mexico, a few miles from the Colorado line, and on paper it had everything: 910 acres, 83 runs, 2,150 ft of vertical from a 9,500 ft base to an 11,650 ft summit, six lifts, an average of 260 inches of snow, night skiing, three hotels and condominiums at the foot. It opened for the 1982 season as the Río Costilla Resort, built by the Rio Costilla Cooperative Livestock Association, and it was the first area in New Mexico to allow snowboarders, in 1987. What it never had was a stable owner. It went through the Poma Group, a savings-and-loan subsidiary, the Resolution Trust Corporation, Magnolia Mountain, the Huffine brothers of Texas - who also owned Cuchara Valley in Colorado and ran the two jointly - and finally John Lau's JNC Corporation, which paid 2.9 million dollars in 1997. Its best winter was 1995-96 with over 70,000 skier visits; the Silvertree Restaurant burned down in an arson attack on New Year's Eve 1997 and was rebuilt in 1999. JNC ran into trouble tied to the dot-com crash and closed the area in January 2000, the same year Lau closed Cuchara, and a fraud episode followed in 2001-02 in which management took deposits without providing anything. Magnolia Mountain foreclosed in 2003. The day lodge was demolished in 2006 over foundation problems, and in June 2009 the two Poma triples were pulled out and shipped east - Alpha to Berkshire East in Massachusetts, Bravo to Calabogie Peaks in Canada, a platter to Mohawk Mountain in Connecticut - while the Riblet double was earmarked for scrap. The mountain has seen occasional snowmobile use but no skiing since. Note on the location: the coordinates mark Ski Rio Road, the access route to the base area, as the lifts themselves are no longer mapped.
Lifts
| Name | Type | Manufacturer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alpha | Chairlift - Triple - Fixed | Poma | Installed 1984-85. Removed in June 2009 and re-erected at Berkshire East in Massachusetts |
| Bravo | Chairlift - Triple - Fixed | Poma | The original 1982 lift, later renamed. Removed in June 2009 and sold to Calabogie Peaks in Canada |
| Charlie | Chairlift - Double - Fixed | Riblet | Installed in the summer of 1985; scheduled for scrapping rather than resale |
| Unnamed lift | Surface lift | Stadeli | One of three Stadeli surface lifts dating from the 1982 opening; a platter lift from the area went to Mohawk Mountain in Connecticut |
Runs
- Cinnamon Bear Bowl
- Smart Money
Sources and further reading
More in USA
Location
36.8696, -105.4491