Owners Explain Why Local Colorado Ski Area Will Remain Closed for Another Season

Hesperus, a small ski area just outside Durango, Colorado, won’t open for the third season in a row because of pending chairlift repairs and a lack of snowmaking capacity.

The gearbox for Hesperus’ lone chairlift, the Bighorn, failed in 2023, shuttering operations. Ahead of the 2024-25 season, the ski area announced again in a release that it would remain closed.

Matt Ericksen, the marketing director for Purgatory and Hesperus Ski Areas, told POWDER that snowmaking challenges, and the Bighorn repairs, are preventing Hesperus from opening during the 2025-26 season.

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Of those two problems, snowmaking is the biggest.

Ericksen said it was possible to repair the Bighorn, but doing so without addressing snowmaking capacity wouldn’t make Hesperus sustainable. He said that Hesperus is reliant on snowmaking to open by the holidays, an important time of year for the small ski area.

In 2024, an announcement from Hesperus stated that there were water sources nearby that could be used for snowmaking, but no agreement had been reached. 

“We know how much Hesperus means to local families and to Durango’s skiing heritage. It is disappointing not to have the hill open,” Ericksen said in a statement. “Our commitment has not changed: we want Hesperus to reopen in a way that is safe, sustainable, and positioned to serve this community well into the future.”

Hesperus was purchased by James Coleman, the founder of Mountain Capital Partners (MCP)—which also owns the larger Purgatory ski resort—in 2016. Purgatory is near Durango and became part of MCP a year earlier.

“​​We want to maintain the unassuming small ski area ambience while enhancing the overall skier experience in the future,” Coleman said in 2016, after the purchase.

MCP did not provide a timeline for reopening Hesperus.

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