Ski Windsor? Not just blowing snow

WINDSOR – We swear we’re not making this up.
Colorado’s next ski resort likely will open late next year – in Windsor.
Developer Martin Lind and his staff of water wizards will spend this winter installing and testing state-of-the-art snowmaking equipment at Water Valley South, the newest phase of Lind’s successful Water Valley residential, golf and commercial complex in south Windsor.
The ski-and-snowboard area will carry the same name – Pelican Falls – as the new, nine-hole executive golf course that will begin play next summer.
The north-facing slope that flanks the southern edge of Pelican Falls will offer 40 acres of skiable terrain for three months of the winter, December through February, Lind said.
“We haven’t decided whether we’re going to have a T-bar or a gondola,” Lind said, tongue lodged firmly in cheek – or maybe not.
Lind has enlisted TST Inc. Consulting Engineers of Fort Collins to figure out how to put a ski resort, regardless of size, in a place where no one would believe it should be.
All of this, of course, is dependent on water – something that Water Valley has in abundance.
“Isn’t it just wonderful?´ said Tom Dunkle, director of water engineering for Lind’s Windsor properties. “We’re really going to do this!”
Dunkle said he had designed an “enclosed system,” one that draws water from Water Valley’s winter storage reservoirs to feed the snowmaking apparatus. When the short season ends, runoff from the melting snow is returned to the lakes.
“We’ll lose a little to evaporation, but when it melts it will go right back into our storage,” Dunkle said.
TST has been in contact with Whittier Canada Enterprise Inc., North America’s largest supplier of snowmaking equipment, with projects at Vail, Beaver Creek, Copper Mountain and Steamboat among its credits.
TST partner Don Taranto said they had learned from Whittier, among other things, that the art of snowmaking is about as technology-laden as space travel.
“This stuff can really be pretty technical,” Taranto said. “The first thing they asked us was the latitude and longitude of the site. They plugged that information into their computer, and said, ‘This can’t be right.’ We assured them it was.”
The workings for making snow, including complex hydraulic system and computer monitoring equipment, will dovetail with the golf course’s irrigation system.
Golf course architect Mike Heinz, who is making Pelican Falls his debut project after years of working with renowned Castle Rock golf architect Jim Engh, is aware of the ski plans, but not overly enthusiastic about them, Taranto said.
“He just wants to make sure we don’t screw up his golf course,” Taranto said.
Some long-time Northern Coloradans know that Lind and company are not exactly blazing a trail by building a ski area in Weld County.
Among them is Ed Goodman, a civil engineer who recently joined TST. Goodman said he recalls after-school ski trips to Sharktooth, a ski area of about the same magnitude as Pelican Falls, located just a few miles east on the same escarpment that flanks the south bank of the Poudre River.
“It wasn’t much, but it was fun,” Goodman said. “We really had a good time there.”
Sharktooth opened in 1971 and closed its single Poma lift, a device with a disk the size of a dinner platter that skiers put between their legs for a surface trip up the hill, in 1986.
Lind said topography and orientation of the Pelican Falls slope made it a natural for year-round golf/ski activity.
“We already know that because of that northeast slope, that golf course will not play in the winter,” Lind said. “It’s not like we lose anything by putting skiing in there.”
Lind said an outdoor skating rink would help fill out the mini-resort, and a ridge-top restaurant at the lift summit would be “hot chocolate-ville.”
Lift options for the area include a Denver-made product called the Magic Carpet, a ground level conveyor designed for “bunny hills” at some of the nation’s most popular resorts. Taranto said his firm was also looking at T-bars and Poma lifts, and even used double and quad chairlifts.
While skiing is not TST’s signature specialty, the firm has worked on resort projects in Colorado.
“I told Martin he was crazy,” Taranto said. “I told him that a couple of times. He just doesn’t listen.”

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