A skier sustained a head injury at Eldora Mountain Resort and was taken to the hospital by helicopter on Monday afternoon.
About 1:08 p.m., the Boulder County Communications center received a report that a skier had a head injury, according to Carrie Haverfield, a Boulder County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson. The skier, a 24-year-old man, was seen sliding down one of the runs and was believed to have a head injury, Haverfield said.
No one saw the man hit his head, and there was no visible trauma to the man or his helmet, she said.
The man was taken to the hospital by a Med Evac helicopter.
Eldora’s ski patrol, the Nederland Fire Protection District, American Medical Response and the sheriff’s office responded to the call.
A person was driven to a hospital Tuesday morning after an injury at Eldora Mountain Ski Resort that involved arterial bleeding, which nearly prompted a helicopter transport.
The person was injured in a non-collision incident, according to Boulder County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Carrie Haverfield. Haverfield did not know the confirmed cause of the injury.
A medical helicopter was requested but was not sent, Haverfield said. On Tuesday, wind gusts at Eldora were expected to be as high as 34 mph, according to the ski resort website.
Information about the person who was injured was available.
The Nederland Board of Trustees voted unanimously Tuesday night to approve the $120 million purchase of the Eldora Mountain Ski Resort, bringing an end to the town’s roughly 16-month effort to capture ownership of the closest ski resort to Denver.
Nederland will pay for the purchase through revenue bonds that are backed by the resort’s earnings, including those from lift ticket rentals, food and drinks, and other activities at the resort. The town says that residents are not responsible for repaying those ponds, nor is the town’s general fund on the hook. Once the debt is paid off, Nederland has said, free cash flow could exceed $5 million. Nederland announced its intention to purchase Eldora in July and has been exploring the possibility since August 2024.
Nederland, a town of about 1,500 people nestled next to the Barker Reservoir, is purchasing Eldora from POWDR, a Utah-based company that bought the resort about a decade ago and also owns Copper Mountain. POWDR will continue to operate Eldora for the next two winters. From there, the company 303 Ski will operate Eldora. The town believes it can build a financial reserve in the first few years of ownership that would cushion the blow of a bad snow year. Eldora’s 700 employees will become municipal staff.
Nederland also plans to annex the mountain, which will allow it to collect sales tax revenue and control land use. The town anticipates that sales tax revenue could bring as much as $2 million annually.
A memo to the trustees says that the resort’s facilities and core infrastructure are well maintained and are positioned to support continued and sustainable operations.
“The resort is in good overall condition and represents a high-quality, viable asset for the community,” the memo says.
As the purchase enters its closing stage, Nederland now needs to obtain a special-use permit from the U.S. Forest Service that’s on “substantially the same terms” as the current permit held by Eldora, according to the asset purchase agreement. Nederland must also enter a new agreement with Alterra Mountain Company to stay on the Ikon Pass.
Through the asset purchase agreement, Nederland purchases “key assets” that are vital to keep the ski area operating, from land to buildings to equipment to permits.
Bank of America and RBC Capital Markets are co-underwriters for the revenue bonds.
Ned heads and Eldora powder hounds were cautiously optimistic in a July community gathering about the town’s move to purchase the mountain. Some saw it as potentially a big risk, while others saw it as an opportunity for the small town to bring in more revenue and open the mountain during the offseason.
Town officials said that there will be more community engagement opportunities about the purchase in the future.
NEDERLAND, Colo. — The Town of Nederland is moving toward its purchase of Eldora Mountain Resort, with final transaction documents set for review by the town’s Board of Trustees Tuesday.
The acquisition could be finalized before the end of the year.
For skiers like John Thompson, who spent 107 days on the slopes last year with about 90 of them at Eldora, the potential purchase is a big deal.
“It’s our once-in-a-lifetime chance to do this, and if we don’t do it now, we’ll never get it again,” Thompson said.
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Pictured: John Thompson, owner of Mountain Man & Eldora Mountain Resort enthusiast
The town plans to finance the purchase through revenue bonds tied to lift tickets, rentals and food sales, according to the document.
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Pictured: Eldora Mountain Resort
State Senator Janice Marchman, a democrat who represents Boulder County, sees multiple benefits from the acquisition, particularly for workers who lost their jobs after the Caribou Village Shopping Center fire in October.
“It’ll be good for revenue,” Marchman said. “It’ll be good for the workforce, and it’ll be really good for all of the surrounding areas, as people continue to come up.”
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Pictured: State Senator Janice Marchman, District 15
However, some residents remain cautiously optimistic, concerned about how a poor snow season could impact the town’s other budgeting decisions.
With the town closing in on the sale, Sam Bass, Director of Marketing at Eldora Mountain Resort, provided a statement to Denver7 that said, “The sale process is underway and the timeline is unknown, but all of us here at Eldora are looking forward to a bright future under the Town of Nederland’s stewardship.”
Meanwhile, Thompson and other Eldora enthusiasts hope local ownership will return the mountain to its small-town roots.
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Pictured: Welcome sign to the Town of Nederland
“Eldora has always been one of the smallest resorts in Colorado,” said Thompson. “It’s always been the place where people go, where they don’t want to spend $1,000 at Vail, they want to just go for the afternoon.”
Documents indicate final authorization of the purchase could come in mid-December.
Read our previous coverage on Nederland’s plan to purchase Eldora below:
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Although it is common for ski resorts to make their own snow this early in the season, one of the challenges is having the perfect conditions to make the snow.
The temperature has to be just right, and there hasn’t been too many windows to make snow recently because of the warmer weather.
“We can only make snow when it’s below freezing. And as you know, there haven’t been too many below freezing stretches yet this early winter,” Marketing Director at Eldora Sam Bass explained. “But we’ve been seizing the moment, as it were, and just trying to grab every hour we can of snow, making weather.”
For opening day, Eldora has enough snow to cover 1,000 vertical feet of terrain from top to bottom.
“There isn’t a whole lot of terrain open, but what we’ve got open is really well covered,” Bass said.
Eldora opens for ski season Friday despite one of the driest starts in CO
With the lack of snow, Eldora has not seen any changes to trips or interest from skiers. Bass described Eldora as a “backyard” local ski area that doesn’t see a lot of out-of-state destination traffic.
“We do not have any lodging, so we don’t see any hotel bookings or, you know, cancellations or anything like that,” Bass said. “Judging by the response to what we’ve been posting on social media, we’ve got a core crew of very, very excited local skiers and riders that are going to be here tomorrow (Friday) and through opening weekend.”
Bass said there’s about 8-6 inches of snow, depending on where skiers stand on the mountain. Bass doesn’t anticipate Eldora will run out of snow.
However, Bass did say Eldora plans on using man-made snow for the next few weeks.
“If we don’t get natural snow, we’re prepared to make all the snow we need to get basically the whole mountain open, as long as we get some below freezing temperatures. And it does look like we’re going to get those temperatures fairly soon,” Bass added with some optimism.
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