The Aspen Skiing Company, known locally as Ski Co, is a commercial enterprise based in

Aspen, Colorado Aspen is a home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Pitkin County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 7,004 at the 2020 United States Census. Aspen is in a remote area of the Rocky Moun ...

. The Aspen Skiing Company operates the

Aspen/Snowmass Aspen Snowmass is a winter resort complex located in Pitkin County in western Colorado in the United States. Owned and operated by the Aspen Skiing Company it comprises four skiing/snowboarding areas on four adjacent mountains in the vicinity of ...

resort complex, comprising four ski areas: Aspen Mountain, Aspen Highlands, Buttermilk, and Snowmass.

History

The company was founded in 1946 by Friedl Pfeifer, an Austrian ski instructor and racing champion,

Walter Paepcke Walter Paepcke (June 29, 1896 – April 13, 1960) was a U.S. industrialist and philanthropist prominent in the mid-20th century. A longtime executive of the Chicago-based Container Corporation of America, Paepcke is best noted for his founding of ...

, a successful

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

industrialist, Judge William E. Doyle, James J. Johnston, and H. F. Klock. Paepcke also founded cultural institutions in the city, such as the

Aspen Institute The Aspen Institute is an international nonprofit organization founded in 1949 as the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies. The institute's stated aim is the realization of "a free, just, and equitable society" through seminars, policy programs ...

and the

Aspen Music Festival The Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) is a classical music festival held annually in Aspen, Colorado. It is noted both for its concert programming and the musical training it offers to mostly young-adult music students. Founded in 1949, the ...

. The Aspen Skiing Company established the Aspen Mountain ski resort on Aspen Mountain above the town of Aspen, Colorado. The first chair lift, Lift-1, opened on December 14, 1946, and was the world's longest

chairlift An elevated passenger ropeway, or chairlift, is a type of aerial lift, which consists of a continuously circulating steel wire rope loop strung between two end terminals and usually over intermediate towers, carrying a series of chairs. Th ...

at the time. In 1950, the company hosted the FIS World Alpine Championships, the first international skiing competition in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

. In the following decades, the company opened

Buttermilk Buttermilk is a fermented dairy drink. Traditionally, it was the liquid left behind after churning butter out of cultured cream. As most modern butter in western countries is not made with cultured cream but uncultured sweet cream, most m ...

in 1958 and the Snowmass (originally the Snowmass-at-Aspen Ski Area) in 1967. In 1993 the company assumed ownership and operation of

Aspen Highlands Aspen Highlands is a skiing mountain in Aspen, Colorado. It is famous for the Highland Bowl, which provides what some people consider some of the most intense, wild, and fun skiing in the state. The Aspen Skiing Company operates Aspen Highlands. ...

, which was founded in 1958 by Colorado Ski Hall of Famer: Whip Jones. Previously, Jones had successfully sued Aspen Skiing before the Supreme Court for antitrust violations in ''

Aspen Skiing Co. v. Aspen Highlands Skiing Corp. ''Aspen Skiing Co. v. Aspen Highlands Skiing Corp.'', 472 U.S. 585 (1985), was a United States Supreme Court case that decided whether a dominant firm's unilateral refusal to deal with a competitor could establish a monopolization claim under Sect ...

'' The company didn't pay dividends until it was bought by

Twentieth Century Fox 20th Century Studios, Inc. (previously known as 20th Century Fox) is an American film production company headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles. As of 2019, it serves as a film production arm of Walt Dis ...

in 1977, which is when the ticket prices began to increase. In the 1970s, ticket prices were just over 10 dollars a day; now they are more reflective of industry averages. In 2012, the Aspen Skiing Company built a 3-megawatt methane-to-electricity plant in

Somerset, Colorado Somerset is a census-designated place (CDP) and post office located in and governed by Gunnison County, Colorado, United States. The Somerset post office has the ZIP Code 81434. At the United States Census 2010, the population of the 81434 ZIP ...

, at Oxbow Carbon's Elk Creek Mine. In addition to managing and operating four ski areas, the company operates and owns hotels including The Little Nell and The Limelight, both in Aspen, and The Limelight in Ketchum, Idaho, and Snowmass, Colorado. The company also operates on-mountain and off-mountain restaurants and operates a skiing and snowboard school, The Ski and Snowboard Schools of Aspen Snowmass. The school provides group and private lessons at all four mountains and teaches all levels of students from beginner to expert. The managing director of the ski school is Jonathan Ballou who was appointed in spring 2017, succeeding Katie Ertl who was appointed to Senior Vice President of Mountain Operations. The ski season typically runs from Thanksgiving Day to mid-April, depending on weather and snow conditions. The Aspen Skiing Company is currently owned by the

Crown A crown is a traditional form of head adornment, or hat, worn by monarchs as a symbol of their power and dignity. A crown is often, by extension, a symbol of the monarch's government or items endorsed by it. The word itself is used, partic ...

family of

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

. The Crowns also own significant holdings in

General Dynamics General Dynamics Corporation (GD) is an American publicly traded, aerospace and defense corporation headquartered in Reston, Virginia. As of 2020, it was the fifth-largest defense contractor in the world by arms sales, and 5th largest in the Uni ...

and Wall Street's

JP Morgan Chase JPMorgan Chase & Co. is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered in New York City and incorporated in Delaware. As of 2022, JPMorgan Chase is the largest bank in the United States, the w ...

. The President and

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

of the company is Mike Kaplan, who succeeded Pat O'Donnell. Aspen Skiing Co. announced in March 2022 a $23M 'makeover' plan at Buttermilk, which should be completed in time for the 2022-2023 ski season.

Lobbying

The Aspen Skiing Company supported the

Water Rights Protection Act The Water Rights Protection Act () is a bill that would prevent federal agencies from requiring certain entities to relinquish their water rights to the United States in order to use public lands. The bill was introduced into the United States Ho ...

. The bill would prevent federal agencies from requiring certain entities to relinquish their water rights to the United States in order to use

public lands In all modern states, a portion of land is held by central or local governments. This is called public land, state land, or Crown land (Australia, and Canada). The system of tenure of public land, and the terminology used, varies between countrie ...

. In 2012, a court ruled "in favor of the ski companies... that seizing the privately held water rights usurped state water law." However, the

United States Forest Service The United States Forest Service (USFS) is an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 154 United States National Forest, national forests and 20 United States Nationa ...

decided to pursue a "new regulation to demand that water rights be transferred to the federal government as a condition for obtaining permits needed to operate 121 ski resorts that cross over federal lands." The

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the ...

ski industry supported the Water Rights Protection Act because it believed the legislation was "needed to block a water extortion scheme by the Forest Service to withhold government permits unless the companies relinquish their valuable water rights." Vice President of the Aspen Skiing Company David Corbin testified to the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water and Power that the company would go out of business without the water.

References

External links

*Aspen Skiing Company
Aspen/Snowmass website
{{Authority control Roaring Fork Valley Hospitality companies of the United States

History

Lobbying

See also

References

External links