The Aspen Skiing Company, known locally as Ski Co, is a commercial enterprise based in
Aspen, Colorado
Aspen is the List of municipalities in Colorado#Home rule municipality, home rule city that is the county seat and the List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous municipality of Pitkin County, Colorado, United States. The city population ...
. In 2023 it reorganized internally under a new umbrella company called Aspen One. The Aspen Skiing Company operates the
Aspen/Snowmass resort complex, which comprises 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, a
Chicago
Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
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 and the
Aspen Music Festival. The Aspen Skiing Company established the
Aspen Mountain Ski Resort on the mountain of the same name, above the town of Aspen, Colorado. The first chair lift, Lift-1, opened on December 14, 1946, and was the world's longest
chairlift 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 (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
. In the following decades, the company opened
Buttermilk 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, 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.''
The company didn't pay dividends until it was bought by
Twentieth Century Fox 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, 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 hotels 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 the spring of 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 family of
Chicago
Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
. The Crowns also own significant holdings in
General Dynamics and Wall Street's
JP Morgan Chase. The President and
CEO 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 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 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 within the United States Department of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture. It administers the nation's 154 United States National Forest, national forests and 20 United States Natio ...
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 is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...
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.
See also
*
Aspen Community Foundation
References
External links
*Aspen Skiing Company
Aspen/Snowmass website
{{Authority control
Roaring Fork Valley
Hospitality companies of the United States