13 replies to this topic

[tcs]

Howdy:

I am trying to find out the last season that Iron Mtn, CA operated.

I have reasonably good data indicating operation in the 90/91 season. Then things go blank. One rumor was that the area re-opened as "Kit Carson" around 94-96. Anyone got better info?

Thanks in advance.

TCS

[SkiBachelor]

From WELSAP:

Quote

In 1995, he leased the ski area to three individuals from New Zealand that renamed the area Kit Carson Ski Area. They claimed to have the required cash to run the ski area, but in the end didn't. They opened Chair 1 the day after Christmas, and chairs 3 and 5 about a week later. Chair 2 (the beginner chair) didn't even have chairs on the cable and Chair 4 never operated. They abruptly closed the ski area and left the resort in the beginning of February.

[ssstturns]

Many years ago I lamely skied there one day when Carson Spur up highway 88 to Kirkwood became hopelessly blocked. Map topography is quite a poor choice for a ski area. ...David

[KZ]

I went up there a year and a half ago. The place is pretty beat up and I think by now a new owner has probably bought the place. The private property is just about 65 acres and has the lodge, a few cabins and some other buildings. It has two lifts, one a beginner lift that is completley shot as well as and intermediate lift which looks to be in decent condition. The remaining lifts on the forest service land were slated to be pulled last summer but I believe it may be happening this summer instead. The mountain has been plagued by bad ownership over the years. Poor marketing, purchases and expansion that wasn't thought out really killed the area. An odd fact is that it was the first resort in california to allow snowboarding, and they had to be because with the bigger and better Kirkwood up the road, they would take any business they could get.

I would like to ski the area, maybe with some friends and snowmobiles but I haven't yet had the chance. If it is still for sale some interesting things can be done to the place, even though the slopes may not be the best, it would still be cool to have a private resort. Chances are some sort of development will take place, because for only a million dollars for the property, you could build a very nice mountain estate that isn't all that far from cililization. And if you were wondering, the parking lot closer to 88 and the inn are a seperate piece of property.

The best info is off of Welsap:

Quote

Regarding Iron Mountain Ski Area... I knew one of the former owners of the area. It definitely closed due to bad management and lack of money... it would most likely still be open today if the right people had run it. It had great views, great ski runs and a good variety of terrain.

The owner, unfortunately, had a vision that the ski area should have a minimum of 10 ski lifts and that would get people to ski there. So, whenever he had the chance, he acquired lifts even though he didn't have the money to buy them.

The area had 1,200 acres of terrain and five ski lifts. The trail map you have on the website is from around 1989, I believe... newer ones in the early 90s had more runs that were developed.

The area opened as Silver Basin in the early 1970s with two chairlifts (chairs 1 and 2-- the beginner and intermediate chair right below the main lodge). It was later re-named Ski Sundown. They closed in 1978 due to a lack of skier visits. It was sold in 1979 and re-opened as Iron Mountain. The new owner built two more chairlifts (chairs 3 and 4 on your trailmap) and opened the area in 1982.

During the summer of 1984, they installed chair #5 (a triple chair) and opened for business on Thanksgiving day. However, that year, insurance rates skyrocketed throughout the ski industry and the owner was unable to find affordable insurance. The forest service forced the owner to shut down the area the day after Christmas because his insurance policy had expired (our family was staying at the motel for Christmas vacation and were told we had to leave because the resort was being closed down). This same insurance price-hike affected a number of other ski areas, including Echo Summit, that same year.

The area remained closed until 1988, when the owner was approached by the US Forest Service about re-opening the area. He leased the area out to a new operator, who ran it until 1990 when they walked away. They never had the money to run the ski area, so marketing was non-existant and the ski area saw visits plunge to the 20,000 per year range.

The owner of the facility opened the area for the 1991-92 ski year and sunk lots of money into marketing -- a move that paid off with the resort getting more than 37,000 skier visits for the year. That summer, he purchased two chairlifts from the defunct Echo Summit Ski Area and two more chairlifts from a defunct ski resort in New Mexico. Those chairlifts were delivered to Iron Mountain but never installed.... in fact, they are still sitting unassembled in Iron Mountain's old parking lot; the chairs being crushed by each winter's snowfall.

He ran the ski area for the 1992-1993 ski season, with similar skier visits... he had been expecting more. The area would have been profitable, though, had it not been for the purchase and deliver of the four chairlifts the year earlier. That summer, he was unable to meet his financial obligations and filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy.

In 1995, he leased the ski area to three individuals from New Zealand that renamed the area Kit Carson Ski Area. They claimed to have the required cash to run the ski area, but in the end didn't. They opened Chair 1 the day after Christmas, and chairs 3 and 5 about a week later. Chair 2 (the beginner chair) didn't even have chairs on the cable and Chair 4 never operated. They abruptly closed the ski area and left the resort in the beginning of February.

The area has sat dormant ever since. An individual purchased the ski area during bankruptcy proceedings in 1997 or 1998 with the intent to re-open it, but they never found financing and filed for bankruptcy a year later. Another individual purchased the resort in 2000 and asked the Forest Service to allow him to run the area. Because the area had not been open for three years in a row, the forest service had taken away the special use permit for the area. They performed a study to determine the viability of a ski area in the region and decided that the Lake Tahoe area already had enough resorts and that it was doubtful if Iron Mountain would be successful since the previous owners were never successful.

I dropped by the area on Thanksgiving weekend 2003 and was told by a caretaker that the area had been sold again to an individual who was hoping to do a land-swap with the forest service to make the ski area land private property. ; If that happened, his plans were to develop housing at the top of the mountain and open it as a private ski area for home-owners only. The ski lifts are still there, but are in very poor condition. The day lodge and motel are also intact but heavily vandalized.

I have some crummy pictures of the place on my other computer, so if you would like to see them, let me know. I may be up there again in a few weeks, and if I am I will take some more photos.

Here is a trail map, chairs 1 and 2 will be all that is left after the other lifts are removed:

 iron_mtn_trail_map.jpg (861.41K)
Number of downloads: 76

[SkiBachelor]

I would really like to get pictures of the other lifts that I didn't get to when I was there but I kind of doubt that will happen now.

[Bill]

The forest Service is in talks with Mad River to remove the remaining lifts, so if you want pics, then someone needs to go snap some before they disappear. :)

[Emax]

I'd like to have my drive and control system back. The stinker never paid in full for it.

[SkiBachelor]

I heard quite a few people are angry at the old old owner. I guess people still stop by expecting the new owner to pay for it when he's not responsible for it.

Emax, If happen to know which lift the drive and control system was installed (one of the Riblets I presume) you could maybe get it back by talking with the caretaker or the U.S. Forest Service when the lifts are removed. However, if you do call the caretaker up, I would be really nice to him about it since he might just help you out. He was telling me how some people from a company stopped by and bitched at him because they haven't been paid for the projects they did yet.

[Lift Kid]

KZ, on Jan 28 2006, 12:26 PM, said:

I went up there a year and a half ago. The place is pretty beat up and I think by now a new owner has probably bought the place. The private property is just about 65 acres and has the lodge, a few cabins and some other buildings. It has two lifts, one a beginner lift that is completley shot as well as and intermediate lift which looks to be in decent condition. The remaining lifts on the forest service land were slated to be pulled last summer but I believe it may be happening this summer instead. The mountain has been plagued by bad ownership over the years. Poor marketing, purchases and expansion that wasn't thought out really killed the area. An odd fact is that it was the first resort in california to allow snowboarding, and they had to be because with the bigger and better Kirkwood up the road, they would take any business they could get.

I would like to ski the area, maybe with some friends and snowmobiles but I haven't yet had the chance. If it is still for sale some interesting things can be done to the place, even though the slopes may not be the best, it would still be cool to have a private resort. Chances are some sort of development will take place, because for only a million dollars for the property, you could build a very nice mountain estate that isn't all that far from cililization. And if you were wondering, the parking lot closer to 88 and the inn are a seperate piece of property.

The best info is off of Welsap:
I have some crummy pictures of the place on my other computer, so if you would like to see them, let me know. I may be up there again in a few weeks, and if I am I will take some more photos.

Here is a trail map, chairs 1 and 2 will be all that is left after the other lifts are removed:

attachment

I would like to see the pictures!!! Make sure you take more before the area and its lifts disapear!

[Lift Dinosaur]

Where exactly was/is Iron Mountain?

From the trail map, it looks like if you went to Chair #4, you're hosed and can't get back!

[SkiBachelor]

Here's a topo map of the area from topozone.com. If you fallow the road North East (click the right arrow) you will run into Kirkwood in about 4 clicks. The ski areas are pretty close to one another, like 8 miles. Looking at the topo, the resort is really spread out.

http://topozone.com/map.asp?lat=38.6413&lo...d83&layer=DRG25

[ssstturns]

SkiBachelor, on Jan 28 2006, 06:33 PM, said:

Here's a topo map of the area from topozone.com. If you fallow the road North East (click the right arrow) you will run into Kirkwood in about 4 clicks. The ski areas are pretty close to one another, like 8 miles. Looking at the topo, the resort is really spread out.

Not only is it spread out but the elevations are at the low end of other Tahoe resorts. The big ski resort a few miles up the highway has a base elevation higher than the top of Iron Mountain's highest lift. Thus the more northerly lift that appears like it might offer a bit of interesting terrain was often closed. A lot of storms hit the Sierra with 6000 to 7000 foot snow levels so those slopes were at best marginal. There appears to be quite a bit of terrain that might offer powder tree skiing on fresh days. However the low elevation makes that more often skiing in dense high water content snow aka cement. I'd guess a lot of the former customers during years it operated were families of beginers and novices and that they got few repeat customers of intermediates and above. Creditors were wise to pull the plug on owner's ambitions. Tahoe of course has quite a number of resorts not all of which do that well. If someone was interested in opening up a new resort there is far better terrain at higher elevations on national forest service lands to do so.

...David

This post has been edited by SkiBachelor: 28 January 2006 - 07:19 PM

[tcs]

Hey Zack Thanks for the info. It answers most of my questions.

I was curious for two reasons:

1. Updating my Lost CA ski area data base (roughly 150 areas).

2. Helping a friend who is doing some research involving NorCal ski areas.


One puzzlement: I assumed that the lifts in the parking lot were removed from the area, but somone said there were two more from Echo Summit.

I'm confused. How many lifts still standing? How many in the parking lot? Any removed from site?

Cheers, TCS

[SkiBachelor]

The two lifts that are in the parking lift are from Echo Summit while all 5 were still standing when I was there this summer.

B3B, what lifts have been removed so far? I presume 5 since that was the easiest to access but what about Chairs 3 and 4?