By the Decade Steamboat Resort celebrates six decades

| BY EUGENE BUCHANAN

Hank and Rosie Perry with family at the base of Steamboat Resort. Perry, an investment broker, was involved in funding the resort’s early years. A Poma lift takes riders up the mountain behind them.

Cue

the Grateful Dead. Because what a long, strange trip it’s been, indeed, for Steamboat Resort, which heralds in its 60th season this year with its biggest investment in resort history, and – perhaps more importantly – great early season snow.

Alterra Mountain Co., a joint venture between KSL Capital Partners, LLC and Henry Crown and Co., purchased parent company Intrawest five years ago, joining Steamboat with 12 other resorts in North America. The ski area is wrapping up the second phase of its $200 million Full Steam Ahead base area redevelopment and onmountain improvement project. This winter you’ll see a new après ski plaza, a ski beach, Skeeter’s ice rink and Steamboat Mountain Stage for live performances.

Lift-wise, this season you’ll also see the new Wild Blue gondola, leading to the Greenhorn Ranch beginner’s area near Bashor Bowl. Next year, Wild Blue will become the longest and fastest 10-person gondola in the U.S., taking riders from the base all the way to the top of Sunshine Peak. New lifts and terrain, including a 650-acre expansion into Pioneer Ridge, will make Steamboat the second largest resort in Colorado at 3,620 acres.

“It’s exciting times,” says resort President and COO Rob Perlman. “Celebrating our 60th anniversary as the Full Steam Ahead project comes to life illuminates how far we’ve come. The spirit and vision that created Steamboat Resort 60 years ago is truly alive and well.”

For a trip down memory lane, we combed the archives for a few decade-by-decade highlights from the ski area over the past 60 years.