The owner of Eldora Mountain Resort, Powdr, on Thursday announced plans to sell the Boulder County ski area.
Powdr also announced it had inked a deal to sell Killington and Pico ski areas in Vermont to local investors and was listing SilverStar Mountain Resort in British Columbia and Mt. Bachelor in Oregon for sale alongside Eldora.
The company has enlisted financial firm JP Morgan to help with the potential sale and a spokesman said more details would come as the process unfolds.
The resort operator said its arrangements with Alterra Mountain Co. providing Ikon Pass access to Eldora would not change for the 2024-25 ski season. The Park City, Utah-based Powdr was founded in 1994 by entrepreneur John Cumming with the Alpine Meadows and Park City ski areas.
He acquired Copper Mountain ski area in 2009 and purchased Eldora in 2016 from his friend Bill Killebrew, who had owned the resort with two partners for more than 25 years.
Powdr evolved in the last 30 years into what it calls an adventure lifestyle company. It sold Alpine Meadows on Lake Tahoe in 2007, which is now part of Alterra Mountain Co.’s Palisades Tahoe ski area. When Powdr missed a deadline to renew an historic and inexpensive lease for critical private land at its Park City Mountain Resort, Vail Resorts, which owned the adjacent Canyons ski hill, swept in with a new offer for the private landowner in 2014 and took over the resort in a $182.5 million deal that created the country’s largest ski area.
Last year Powdr sold Lee Canyon ski area in Nevada to Durango’s Mountain Capital Partners.
Stacey Hutchinson, Powdr’s vice president of communications, said the plan to sell ski areas are part of an effort “to strategically manage Powdr’s portfolio in alignment with our founder’s and stakeholders’ goals.”
Powdr’s Woodward Experiences offers year-round BMX, skateboard, snowboard and ski training facilities and programs at 10 locations across the country. In May, the National Park Service tapped Powdr’s newly created Destination Zion Lodge as the visitor services concessionaire at Zion National Park, replacing Xanterra Parks and Resorts, which has served visitors in the Utah park since 1972. In January, the company took over concessions at Death Valley National Park.
“We aim to balance our ski business with new ventures in the national parks sector and Woodward,” Hutchinson said in an email.
The 680-acre Eldora celebrated its 60th season of operation in 2023 following a $10 million investment by Powdr. In October Eldora will open its new 12,000-square-foot Caribou Lodge, which will house the Ignite Adaptive Sports nonprofit and the resort’s ski school. Ski patrollers at Eldora recently voted to unionize, citing patroller turnover and a need for higher wages to meet the cost of living in Boulder County.
Eldora plans to open for the 2024-25 season Nov. 15 and a statement from the company said the ski area “will continue to conduct business as usual” as it courts potential buyers.
“Until the sales of these four resorts (including Killington) are finalized, we will remain dedicated to our current operations at those ski resorts, plus Copper and Snowbird, which we are retaining, Woodward camps and mountain centers, and our two National Park concessions contracts,” Hutchinson said. “In addition, we are dedicated to a seamless transition at all four resorts.”
The U.S. resort industry has undergone intense consolidation in recent years as Vail Resorts and Alterra Mountain Co. peddle multiresort season passes. Vail Resorts has 37 North American ski areas and Alterra owns 19. Mountain Capital Partners has grown to nine North American ski areas and Boyne Resorts has 11. Powdr has been a partner with Alterra Mountain Co. since the debut of the Ikon Pass in 2018, offering unlimited access at its Eldora and Copper Mountain ski areas.
Alterra Mountain Co., which operates the Winter Park ski area and owns Steamboat ski area, in February announced plans to acquire its Ikon Pass partner Arapahoe Basin. The U.S. Department of Justice in June said it was taking a closer look at the acquisition, asking for national skier surveys and Arapahoe Basin visitation statistics as it studied a potential antitrust issue with Alterra’s growth in Colorado.