Small Colorado Ski Area To Shut Down Lifts, Pivot To Music Venue

Hoedown Hill, a small Colorado ski area that opened in recent years, is pivoting, offering live music instead of skiing and snowboarding for the foreseeable future.

In a news release dated November 5, 2026, Hoedown Hill’s operators, TWVC Hospitality, announced they will focus “exclusively on live music and outdoor entertainment.”

The move, the release added, builds on three seasons of multi-day music festivals that drew thousands of music fans each night, plus a free summer concert series.

Over the years, Hoedown Hill’s stage has welcomed Third Eye Blind, Cold War Kids, Plain White T’s, and other artists. TWVC’s CEO, Tyler Lind, said in the release that music has always been the “heartbeat of Hoedown Hill.”

“Every festival, we’ve watched thousands of people come together on this hill and have the time of their lives,” he said. “That’s what Hoedown Hill does best, so we’re going all in on it.”

According to TWVC, Hoedown Hill won’t offer skiing, snowboarding, or tubing this winter. The company added that it will announce any winter programming as plans develop.

Hoedown Hill hosted a grand opening in January 2024. The ski area became a new, close-to-home option for northern Colorado skiers, filling the gap left by Greeley’s Sharktooth ski area, which closed in 1986. 

The digs were modest—spanning four surface lifts, ten acres, and 200 vertical feet, according to the Indy Pass—but perfect for learners or skiers looking to hit jumps or slide rails. They also made skiing more accessible and affordable, with lift tickets around $30. The other closest ski area, Eldora Mountain, is nearly two hours away by car without traffic.

The press release didn’t mention warmer weather as a factor in Water Valley’s decision to shift the focus of Hoedown Hill, which sits at a lower elevation than the average Colorado resort. But the ski area, like others in Colorado, dealt with the warmest winter on record this past season, which made operations difficult.

In February, Lind told CBS that had they known how the 2025-26 season would pan out, they would have been financially inclined to stay closed that winter.

“We started this hill, and we had the warmest winter, the first year, in recorded history. Last year was the warmest winter in recorded history, a new record, and this winter’s been twice as warm as both of them,” he said. “And it’s an impossibility that we never imagined having to overcome.”

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