Dozens of young athletes from Ski & Snowboard Club Vail honored her Saturday evening at Vail’s Ford Amphitheater, swarming the stage and carrying balloons — 82 of them white for her World Cup victories, eight red for her world championships medals, three gold for her Olympic medals. Vonn moved from the modest slalom hills of Minnesota to Vail when she was a girl, getting the big-mountain experience she needed to become America’s greatest female downhiller.

“I moved to Vail when I was 12 years old, along with my four siblings, and we enrolled at Ski Club Vail,” Vonn said. “It was honestly the best decision my family could have made. My journey of becoming a downhiller began (there). Without the help of Ski Club Vail, and all of those runs down Gold Peak, I don’t know if I would have won those World Cup races.”

After Vonn became the first American woman to win an Olympic gold medal in downhill at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, taking home a bronze medal in super-G as well, Vail renamed its International run Lindsey’s. International was the venue for women’s World Cup races in Vail before it built new downhill race courses at Beaver Creek.

“Renaming International to Lindsey’s was honestly one of the most meaningful things that’s happened to me,” Vonn said. “I hope to ski down it with my kids someday.”

When Vonn retired in 2019, her 82 World Cup wins were the most by a woman and only four behind Ingemar Stenmark’s record of 86. Mikaela Shiffrin, who grew up in Vail with Vonn as a role model, broke Stenmark’s record in 2023 and now stands at 97. Vonn saluted Shiffrin in her induction speech.

“Mikaela has won an insane number of World Cups, and she’s far from being done,” Vonn said. “It gives me great pride to know the next generation is reaching even higher than I was able to. I know she will inspire someone else, just like me. Congratulations to Mikaela on everything that you’ve done and will do in the future.”

Among the many locals she thanked was Dr. Tom Hackett, a prominent Vail orthopedic surgeon who helped her come back from numerous injuries.

“Even though I have my mother’s positivity, it hasn’t been all sunshine and roses,” Vonn said. “I’m grateful for everything that’s happened to me, all of the highs and all of the lows. (The lows) all taught me something very special — grit.”

Others inducted included John “Johno” McBride, a former U.S. men’s downhill coach from Aspen who was instrumental in the careers of Bode Miller and Daron Rahlves; Bjorn Erik Borgen, who helped Vail land world alpine championships in 1989, 1999 and 2015; Sigurd Rockne, a native of Norway who was a founder of the Breckenridge ski area; Ross Anderson, a Native American who grew up in Durango to become a speed skiing racer.

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CFI, which uses automated infrared counters on several peaks and statistical modeling estimates on others to develop its annual estimates, said the number of 260,000 in 2023 was the lowest since 2015 when the nonprofit began its annual estimates.

The closure of the Decalibron Loop, which includes three popular fourteeners near Fairplay, was one factor in the decline, but numbers fell in several other areas as well.

“Hiking Colorado’s fourteeners last year was like stepping into a time machine and coming out in 2015,” CFI executive director Lloyd Athearn said in a news release. “After six seasons of increasing use, it has been all downhill since 2020. Closure of the Decalibron loop for half the season was the biggest factor, but use was down last year in three of Colorado’s seven ranges containing fourteeners, including the popular Front Range closest to the Denver metro area.”

The Decalibron loop was closed in 2023 due to landowner liability issues, which have largely been resolved with the passage of Senate Bill 58 this year. That legislation provides legal protections for landowners who allow the public to recreate on their land.

Athearn said it’s hard to know what is driving the decline, but he has two theories: Slower population growth in Colorado and changing age demographics.

Colorado’s population grew nearly 15% from 2010 to 2020, according to census figures, but the influx of newcomers slowed over the past two years. Also, Athearn suspects that the baby boomers who popularized backpacking and peakbagging are aging out of the fourteener culture.

“My Millennial colleagues — another massive generation — are buying houses, having kids and taking on more work responsibilities,” Athearn wrote in a follow-up email. “That likely translates into less time or money to get out to play regularly. Meanwhile, my son is in that Gen Z age group. While his friends are all pretty athletic and outdoor-oriented, I know many of his peers are not.

“We may be in a period of shifting age booms and busts,” Athearn added, “where those who have been large cohorts of active folks with time, money and health to be out climbing peaks are now facing lack of time, money or compliant bodies to do this physically demanding stuff.”

As usual, the two most popular fourteeners in 2023 were Mount Bierstadt and Quandary Peak, both of which were estimated to be in the range of 25,000 to 30,000. Bierstadt’s number usually comes from an infrared counter, but it was stolen last year, for the second year in a row, after being in operation for only six days. Quandary’s counter recorded more than 29,000. CFI’s “best-guess” numbers put Mount Elbert at 22,000, with Grays and Torreys at 21,000.

The Decalibron loop, which was in the range of 20,000 to 25,000 in 2022, fell to something between 7,000 and 10,000, CFI said.

The Colorado Fourteeners Initiative, which is based in Golden, was created in 1994 to protect and preserve Colorado’s 14,000-foot peaks through stewardship and education.

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The Post will update this list regularly as areas open.

Colorado 2024-2025 ski area open dates

Arapahoe Basin: As soon as conditions allow in October

Keystone: mid-October, pending early season conditions

Loveland: As soon as conditions allow in late October or early November

Winter Park: As soon as conditions allow in late October or early November

Breckenridge: Nov. 8

Copper Mountain: Nov. 8

Vail: Nov. 15

Eldora: Nov. 15

Purgatory: Nov. 16

Monarch: As soon as conditions allow in November

Steamboat: Nov. 23

Beaver Creek: Nov. 27

Crested Butte: Nov. 27

Aspen: Nov. 28

Snowmass: Nov. 28

Telluride: Nov. 28

Granby Ranch: Nov. 28

Powderhorn: Nov 29

Howelsen Hill: Nov. 30

Sunlight: As soon as conditions allow in early December

Echo Mountain: As soon as conditions allow in December

Ski Cooper: Dec. 11

Aspen Highlands: Dec. 14

Buttermilk: Dec. 14

TBD: Wolf Creek, Silverton

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Eldora’s owner, Powdr Corp. of Park City, Utah, announced last week that it had reached an agreement to sell Killington Resort in Vermont to an unspecified owner, and that it was putting Eldora up for sale along with Mount Bachelor in Oregon and SilverStar in British Columbia. Powdr’s announcement said the privately held company intended to retain Copper Mountain and Snowbird resort in Utah.

Tregaskis is seeking to reassure the Eldora community that there is “no cause for alarm,” that the ski area is profitable, and that it should be “a very attractive purchase” for potential buyers. Eldora will open a new lodge in the base area this winter that will house a children’s ski school, a home for Ignite Adaptive Sports, restrooms and food-and-beverage facilities.

Eldora has 680 acres of skiable terrain with four dozen trails, along with a Nordic center for cross-country skiing. It is the only Colorado ski area with regular RTD service from the Front Range.

“I want to assure you that Eldora will conduct business as usual this winter, with no changes to the upcoming season,” Tregaskis wrote. “Eldora will remain on the Ikon Pass and continue providing access through its own passes and day tickets.

“Eldora’s hardworking staff will continue to serve the community with the same dedication we always have, and Eldora will remain the same backyard winter playground for Nederland, greater Boulder, and Colorado’s northern Front Range,” he added.

Powdr acquired Copper Mountain in 2009 and Eldora in 2016. Little is known about Powdr’s finances because it is not publicly traded, but Patrick Scholes, a Wall Street analyst for Truist Securities who focuses on lodging and leisure companies, including ski resorts, said he hasn’t “heard anything that Powdr has had financial difficulties.

“Eldora is extremely unique, given its proximity to Denver. I have to imagine demand is strong, with University of Colorado students,” he continued.

Powdr said the reason for selling four of its nine ski areas is to “strategically manage Powdr’s portfolio in alignment with our founder’s and stakeholders’ goals,” adding that the company aims to “balance our ski business with new ventures in the national parks sector and Woodward.”

Woodward is an “adventure lifestyle” company with action-sports programming at Copper Mountain, Park City, Snowbird and six other resorts. Powdr already has concessionaire contracts with Death Valley and Zion national parks, and it plans to bid for more.

“The concessions we run at Death Valley are a motel called Stovepipe, a gas station, and convenience store,” said Stacey Hutchinson, communications vice president for Powdr. “Zion will be Zion Lodge. POWDR has grown a great hospitality business over the three decades since our inception, mostly on (forest service) land, so we’ll apply our expertise to national parks. And, it presents an opportunity for us to provide year-round employment to our seasonal workers — this would let us provide health insurance and other benefits.”

Eldora is not the only Colorado ski area for sale. In February, Denver-based Alterra Mountain Corp. announced an agreement to buy Arapahoe Basin. That transaction is still pending while the U.S. Justice Department considers whether the sale presents antitrust issues.

Powdr bought Eldora from a trio of investors — Bill Killebrew, whose family sold California’s Heavenly ski area to Japanese investors in 1990, Chuck Lewis, who founded Copper in 1972, and Graham Anderson, a former Sun Valley ski racer. The trio bought it in 1991 when it was on the brink of closure, investing heavily in snowmaking and other upgrades.

“I have been through three different sales in my long career in ski-resort management, the most recent being the purchase of Eldora by Powdr in 2016,” Tregaskis wrote. “In every case, the new owners brought positive change and financial investment.

“Eldora itself has had several different owners since it was founded in 1962, and every owner invested heavily in Eldora’s infrastructure and guest experience,” he added. “The bottom line? While a new owner has yet to be identified, I am very optimistic that the next stewards of this special place will inject excitement and a new wave of capital investment.”

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What it lacks is adequate creek access for visitors to stop and savor its beauty or hike along its banks. The highway, U.S. 6, is off-limits to runners and cyclists because its five dark tunnels are so narrow, and pullouts are scarce — with some posing traffic dangers. Motorists get only occasional glimpses of the soaring canyon walls above because the curving highway commands their full attention.

That’s going to change over the next two years, thanks to an ambitious construction project that will dramatically improve recreational access to the canyon. Jefferson County’s Open Space division is spending $80 million to extend the Clear Creek Canyon trail three miles upstream from its current terminus at Tunnel 1, which is located two miles west of Golden. About 1.25 miles of new trail is slated to open just west of Tunnel 1 next year, with another 1.75 miles to follow in 2026. Eventually the trail will connect with Clear Creek County trails through Idaho Springs and beyond.

If $80 million seems like a lot for three miles of concrete trail, it is. But the complexity of the project, with a narrow creek and highway hemmed in by steep mountainsides, presents major engineering hurdles. In some sections, the trail is being built on elevated concrete viaducts resembling the sweeping roadway decks of Interstate 70 as it runs through Glenwood Canyon.

The project includes seven new bridges over Clear Creek, one new bridge over the highway, a new underpass beneath the highway and two new trailheads with restrooms and parking spaces for 170 cars. A park at one of the trailheads will feature a one-mile loop for hikers and creek access.

“It’s pretty wild,” project manager Scot Grossman said while providing a guided tour of the area in mid-August. “What we’re doing is a generational project.

“This has statewide and national significance,” he continued. “We’re creating safe access to the creek, as well as all the recreational amenities – rock climbing, slack-lining, tubing, rafting, fishing, gold panning. I love the idea of little kids growing up in Golden 15 years from now, they get their little bike posses together on Saturday and ride up the trail to go fishing, climbing, or to ride a lap at Centennial Cone (park) and ride back down.”

“We’re building this for 100 years”

Great Outdoors Colorado — which distributes Colorado Lottery proceeds — provided a $7-million grant for the current construction project. The Denver Regional Council of Governments chipped in another $10.25 million. GOCO previously gave the Clear Creek Canyon trail effort $10.5 million for segments that have already been completed.

But the remainder of the $80 million is coming out of the Jeffco Open Space budget, which is funded by a dedicated 0.5% sales tax that voters approved in 1972. That tax is not subject to the restraints of the TABOR amendment, approved by Colorado voters in 1992, which limits the amount of revenue governments in the state can retain and spend.

“Most of the open space programs around the Front Range have a similar sales tax,” Grossman explained. “Ours predates Tabor by 20 years or so, so there’s no sunset (provision) on it, which is really fortunate for us. Other agencies have a 10- or 15-year sunset, and they have to go back to the voters to re-up their funding.”

CDOT is also working on the project in an effort to create safer motorist access to creek attractions than has been the case in the past. “They’re the other landowner here,” Grossman said. “Their mission is to get people through the canyon safely and efficiently. Our visitors, when they stop, they pull out in every little nook and cranny. Doors open, dogs come out, strollers, bikes. It’s just not a safe environment to recreate in.”

In 1871 a narrow-gauge railway began service in the canyon from Golden to the mining towns of Clear Creek County. The current construction project takes advantage of some of its grades. Prior to the construction of Interstate 70 in the 1960s and ’70s, Clear Creek Canyon was the primary route to the mountains for Denver motorists. .

Now, Jeffco’s Clear Creek Canyon Park is in the process of stretching up the canyon along the creek from Golden to Clear Creek County. The first segment opened in 2021 with the debut of the $19-million Gateway trailhead just west of the intersection of U.S. 6, Colorado 93 and Colorado 58. From there, the existing trail extends 1.75 miles to Tunnel 1.

The Clear Creek Canyon trail will be the middle segment of the greater Peaks to Plains trail, which eventually will extend 65 miles from the foot of Loveland Pass through Georgetown, Idaho Springs and Clear Creek Canyon to the confluence of Clear Creek with the South Platte River in Adams County. It is already complete from the Clear Creek Gateway trailhead to the Platte, near 74th Avenue and York Street, via Golden, Wheat Ridge and Denver.

“We’re building this for 100 years,” Grossman said. “We really want to make sure this is here for three or four generations. That takes time. The geologic, ecologic and hydrologic challenges are immense. We have world-class whitewater here that gets really high in the spring. And, you can see the geologic constraints. We’re in a deep canyon with rock everywhere.”

A floating trail, like a mini-Glenwood Canyon

Construction manager Jeff Hoge, a cyclist, already is looking forward to exchanging his hard hat for a cycling helmet.

“I can’t wait for this,” Hoge said. “I’m a cyclist, I grew up here, and I’ve never been able to ride a bike legally on U.S. 6. That’s exciting. As far as the construction part of it, this is a dream job for a construction manager.”

The three-mile section now being built will climb 300 feet from Tunnel 1 to Huntsman Gulch. All of it will be wheelchair accessible and comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, which means maximum grades of 5%. The walls of the canyon soar 1,000 feet over the creek, which often is very narrow, which is why construction engineers opted for building a viaduct through those sections. It also has less impact on creekside vegetation, they say.

“This is a heavy civil construction project, but we really pride ourselves on having a really light touch, a really surgical approach, because at the end of the day we are an open-space organization,” Grossman said. “We’re a balance of recreation and conservation.

“That viaduct, I think, perfectly sums up ‘heavy civil’ with a light touch. That is a difficult thing to engineer and build, but the impact on the land is way smaller and lighter than cutting out (a streamside slope) and filling back in,” he added.

To create the viaduct supports, workers drill 30 to 40 feet through surface rock and soil until they reach bedrock. Then they drill another 12 feet into bedrock to anchor concrete columns that will support the deck on which more concrete will be poured for the trail.

“This is our new tool, a ‘floating trail,’ a mini-Glenwood Canyon — same design principles,” Grossman said. “We’re basically building a 10-foot-wide road. It’s like what CDOT is doing on Floyd Hill right now — same concept, just smaller.”

The first new trailhead, about a mile upstream from Tunnel 1, will include a roadside parking lot that can accommodate 40 cars, along with a bridge over Clear Creek to the trail.The second new trailhead, at Huntsman Gulch, will offer a place to park, linger and explore which Grossman calls “a park within a park.” The parking lot will be built to handle 70 cars, and there will be a bridge across the highway to the trail. Another bridge will take visitors over the creek to a secondary trail accessing a shady one-mile hiking loop with a natural surface.

When the Huntsman segment is complete in 2026, it will leave a six-mile gap between Huntsman and a segment of the project upstream that opened in 2017, providing access to Jeffco’s Centennial Cone Park near the Clear Creek County line. Grossman said filling that gap, which would complete Jeffco’s part in the Peaks to Plains trail, could take another seven to 10 years depending on funding.

“This is a really big project,” Grossman said. “There’s a lot of money invested from taxpayers of all kinds — federal, state, local, people who play the lottery.

“I start every presentation I give with how privileged I am to do this, to have the responsibility – which is weighty – to do stuff like this for generations to come,” he added. “I’m just a nameless face three generations from now, but this is a legacy for all of us.”

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That’s the outlook according to Dan West, one of the state’s leading forestry experts, who spends a lot of his time in airplanes every August, evaluating forest health across the state.

“From the air, everything is looking very green,” said West, an entomologist for the Colorado State Forest Service and a member of the faculty at Colorado State University. “I was down in Durango last week, looking at the southwest corner and man, they are green. Fields are green, as opposed to tan, as they were a year ago. Everything looks really nice down there.

“Same for the central part of the state,” he continued. “The whole Gunnison Basin has been above-average in precipitation — they’ve been getting the afternoon monsoonal flow — so things look like we’re setting up for a really good season.”

The onset of fall colors is primarily triggered by shorter days and longer nights, but environmental factors do play a role, resulting in variations from season to season.

West is predicting a normal season this year, which would mean seeing the first signs of color change — “a tinge of yellow,” as he put it — around Sept. 9 in the northern regions of the state. As such, the peak there would occur somewhere between Sept. 16-27.

West predicts the peak coming to the Interstate 70 corridor the last week of September.

Healthy forests make for awesome leaf-peeping. And, when it comes to aspen trees specifically, West said they seem to be doing great with few exceptions.

“I mapped almost no disturbance in aspen stands,” West said. “When I say disturbance, I’m talking about insects and disease. Some years we have environmental conditions that are perfect for fungal issues on leaves. We didn’t have that develop this year. That’s usually (caused by) a wet spring, followed by a really warm trend. We didn’t see that this year, so we didn’t end up with foliar issues — the fungi that feed on the foliage of aspens. We mapped almost no foliar issues in aspen.

“There are very small, isolated pockets of defoliating insects,” he added, “but nothing that’s widespread, nothing like what we’ve seen in years past, where the whole Grand Mesa was affected. It just hasn’t happened this year. It’s setting up to be a really good season.”

The 30-day forecast for September by the Climate Prediction Center of the National Weather Service calls for above-average temperatures and below-average precipitation. That may not be good news for ski areas hoping to fire up the snow guns in a few weeks, but it’s great news for fall foliage season.

“That sets us up for another great show,” West said.

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Among their favorite treats were the Castle Pines milkshakes, which quickly became part of tournament lore.

The legendary milkshakes will be available again this week for pros and spectators during the BMW Championship. For those who have never savored their creamy cold goodness, here’s a tip: The word “ambrosia” comes to mind.

The shakes were so tied to The International’s two-decade run that one pro cited a famous “Shake-Off” between two tour pros when The Denver Post did a 20-year retrospective of the tournament in 2005. A TV network covered the shake showdown during a rain delay, which saw slender Mike Hulbert drink six in 13 minutes. Charles Howell III managed only four.

“One of my favorite memories is Mike Hulbert winning the milkshake contest last year,” Duffy Waldorf told The Post. “That was a classic. I always thought the shakes were great there. But to have a competition, that’s what golf pros should be doing. He put Charles Howell right under the table. It’s always some little guy that wins the hot-dog-eating contest.”

The idea for Castle Pines milkshakes came from The Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village Golf Club near Columbus, Ohio. Jack Nicklaus designed Muirfield Village and Castle Pines, and The Memorial is known as “Jack’s tournament.” Castle Pines founder Jack Vickers lured Memorial tournament director Larry Thiel from Muirfield to take that position at Castle Pines. Keith Schneider came with him, becoming Castle Pines’ head pro.

“They did them with soft-serve (ice cream),” at Muirfield, recalled Schneider, now the general manager at Castle Pines. “When I came out here, I remember saying to Mr. Vickers, or our chef, ‘We need to do milkshakes out here.’ The chef came up with the idea that we could do Häagen-Dazs, because Häagen-Dazs is so much better, which it is. The key is the Häagen-Dazs.”

Castle Pines milkshakes come in chocolate, vanilla and strawberry, but chocolate is probably the flavor for which they are best known.

“I used to drink a lot of them when I weighed 140 pounds,” said Schneider, who is retiring this year after 43 years at Castle Pines. “Now I’m a lot more than that. I have one in the spring and one in the fall.”

Lisa Walker-Straten, who manages the dining room and halfway house at Castle Pines, has kept the milkshake tradition going. She estimates the club serves 200 to 300 per week for members and their guests.

“We don’t add any milk, we just keep our ice cream softer,” she said. “It’s pretty much just straight Haagen Dazs. It’s got to be the right consistency. You want it just soft enough, kind of like a Frosty. You can eat it with a spoon. They are really tasty.”

Part of the secret, Walker-Straten said, is how they are made. They don’t use blenders because the consistency wouldn’t be right. They use commercial Hamilton Beach milkshake machines with “agitators” that mix them to the ideal consistency. She has provided technical expertise to those who will be making the shakes out on the course this week.

“Months ago they asked me for the recipe,” she said. “I didn’t tell them every single thing, because I can’t give them all my information. I’m curious to see if they really and truly are following my recipe. I want to see if they are doing it correctly.”

She’s flattered, of course, that the shakes will be part of the show this week.

“Absolutely,” she said. “It’s just part of who we are.”

Shakes are available at select concession areas on the course for $9. Toppings are available for an additional $2.50.

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You might have a good feel for which two teams have the most talent, but what if one loses its star quarterback to a season-ending injury in November? You also might know that La Niña winters often result in above-average snowfall for Colorado’s high country, but sometimes La Niña winters result in well-below-average snow. That’s why meteorologists hedge when predicting conditions before Labor Day. Nevertheless, they try.

“I think the sports analogy is great,” says Alan Smith, a full-time meteorologist for the OpenSnow forecasting and reporting service. “You’re predicting future events, and you’re taking information that you have, but there’s so much information you don’t have, like injuries. You never know if a player on a team is going to suddenly explode that season – or regress.”

Still, anyone with an Epic or Ikon pass can’t help but wonder what kind of winter we will have. Labor Day is less than two weeks away, and the first Colorado ski area openings are apt to come in mid-October, most likely on man-made snow. So Smith provided his tentative 2024-2025 United States Winter Forecast Preview on the OpenSnow website.

Usually forecasts this time of year focus on the fluctuation of El Niño and La Niña in the eastern Pacific Ocean near the equator. Last ski season played out during a weak El Niño. Currently we’re in a transitional “neutral” status, but not for long.

“La Niña is favored to emerge during September-November (66% chance) and persist through the Northern Hemisphere winter 2024-25 (74% chance during November-January),” according to the Climate Prediction Center of the National Weather Service, which has issued a La Niña watch.

What does that mean for skiers and snowboarders in Colorado? Like betting on the Super Bowl this time of year, it’s all about the odds.

“El Niño and La Niña tend to get rated from weak to moderate to strong,” Smith said. “We never know for sure, but the trends seem to be pointing toward a weaker episode this year.”

Smith researched the six most recent weak La Niñas to see how Colorado resorts fared.

“Four of the six years were snowier than average, so that’s pretty decent odds,” Smith said. “However, one of those was well-below average. “That was in 2017-18, a very dry winter. If you expand it out to look at all La Niña years, Colorado does seem to have a boom-or-bust potential with La Niña.

“It tips the odds slightly in favor of being an above-average winter in the ski regions of Colorado,”  he continued. “But sometimes the winters that end up below average that are La Niñas can be well below average.”

The winter of 2021-22 was a moderate La Niña and snowfall was decent, featuring a slow start but strong spring snows. The winter of 2022-23 was a weak La Niña that capped off a rare three-year “triple dip” La Niña. That was a fantastic season for Colorado resorts.

“November was cold and snowy,” Smith said of the 2022-23 winter. “It really jump-started the season, and it was consistent all season long — one of the most consistent winters I remember seeing.”

Last winter, under a strong El Niño, was slightly above average for snowfall. Now we get to guess the odds for this winter.

“There’s just so many factors you don’t know,” Smith said. “If you’re just looking at history, the odds tell us it’s slightly better than a 50-50 chance of being an above-average winter. But there’s always going to be that chance it could be a well-below-average winter.”

Colorado’s first ski area opening dates over the past five seasons

2019: Arapahoe Basin, Oct. 11

2020: Wolf Creek, Oct. 28

2021: Wolf Creek, Oct. 16

2022: Arapahoe Basin, Oct. 23

2023: Arapahoe Basin, Oct. 29

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For the past 13 years, Powder Daze lured Front Range skiers and snowboarders during the summer heat to its Littleton store, which would be crammed with last year’s skis, boards and boots at clearance prices. Powder Daze continued a Colorado skier ritual that began in the 1950s when Gart Bros. invented the Labor Day ski sale. Just last year, Christy’s director of brand marketing, Randy England, was touting an expanded Powder Daze at the Littleton store that was a combination winter gear kickoff sale and snow sports expo.

Not this year, though. The Littleton store and other Front Range Christy locations will have summer inventory on their floors — primarily, patio furniture — when Powder Daze begins Friday as an online ski and snowboard sale. Summer goods in Christy stores will be on sale for up to 50% off, while ski and snowboard gear online will be on sale for up to 60% off. A limited amount of last season’s ski gear will be available in Littleton and some Colorado mountain stores.

England is calling it an “End of Summer Event,” while hinting that in-store ski and snowboard sales are coming in October.

“We want to meet the guests where they are now, in season, and not try to anticipate what they may want on a promotional level in the off-season,” England said. “If we think back to the old days of the (Gart Bros.) Sports Castle downtown in Denver, and people standing around in 98-degree parking lots, it’s hard to get excited about putting on a ski jacket when you’re about to pass out.”

Rival Epic Mountain Gear will begin its Epic Drop sale on Friday, which marks a shift for the company. The past two years, Epic didn’t begin its ski and snowboard discount extravaganza until Labor Day weekend.

“We know what our friends next door are doing,” England said of Epic. “It’s great for them. I hope they’re wildly successful on that shift.”

Christy Sports, meanwhile, is focused on moving summer goods now and pushing ski sales closer to ski season.

“We loved our times in the legacy of what Gart started,” England said. “But we want to operate our business in-season and give our guests things they can use now. We’re happy to sell skis, we have them available year-round, but I’d rather get you excited about something you can walk out the door and use right away.”

England said the decision also is related to trends and marketing pressures in the outdoor industry as a whole following COVID.

“The outdoor industry saw a huge boom,” England said. “That boom did not continue, as booms generally do not, because consumers had gear and the industry was trying to catch up with supply-chain challenges to the point where there was a glut of inventory. In the last year or two, as you can see from all the big players, from REI to everybody else, everyone is making an adjustment to get back to a level baseline.”

For Christy, with 35 stores in four states, each store is focused on moving summer inventory, which varies in type depending on the region. In resort locations that can mean bikes or mountain apparel. In the Pacific Northwest, it’s gear related to water sports. In Denver it means patio furniture.

Epic Mountain Gear is offering discounts of up to 60% on skis, snowboards, bikes, accessories and apparel. The Epic Drop sale will run from Friday through Sept. 22. The purchase of any new bicycle from participating Epic Mountain Gear shops — excluding the Frisco store — entitles the buyer to free annual tune-ups with 25-point safety checks and standard adjustments.

Through Epic Mountain Gear’s Junior Trade program, parents can buy new or used gear for their kids during the Epic Drop sale at discounted prices. When their kids outgrow that set of gear, parents can trade it in for new gear and get a credit worth 50% of the original purchase price. Junior Trade prices will increase in October. Appointments are highly recommended.

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The experience was made possible by Big City Mountaineers, an Arvada-based non-profit that organizes backcountry trips for youths who might not otherwise get to experience the outdoors on such a grand scale.

“It was beautiful,” said Kim, 14. “We saw so many cool lakes and cool places where we camped, just beautiful scenery. I love the girls I got to go with, so that made it even better, and the scenery was just amazing.”

Like Colorado Treks and Camping to Connect, other Denver-based non-profits with similar missions, Big City Mountaineers provides “transformative outdoor experiences to youth from historically disinvested communities.” BCM does it by partnering with youth agencies that work in those communities. Kim participated through Denver City Lax, which creates opportunities for youths in “underserved neighborhoods” by providing access to lacrosse, academic guidance and “enrichment” experiences.

Kim’s backpacking trip three weeks ago was her second with Big City Mountaineers. Last year’s trip took them to the Flat Tops Wilderness northwest of the Vail Valley.

“It gives you so many different life lessons that you get to learn firsthand,” Kim said. “It’s also just a super-fun experience. Backpacking is not something a lot of kids get to do, especially ones that don’t have a lot of access to that type of stuff. Getting to learn all the things you get to learn is amazing for any kid of any age.”

Kids in the Big City Mountaineers program go on a series of three separate trips — a day hike, a “front-country” overnighter and finally the weeklong trip.

“When you’re backpacking, it’s not just about you,” Kim said. “A lot of stuff you do is for the good of the group. When we were doing some of the harder days – there’s a big uphill part, and there was a really steep part we had to go down – it was so helpful to have these other girls around you who were going through the exact same thing.”

Big City Mountaineers is a national organization that operates in Colorado from a headquarters in Arvada. Other regions are based out of the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, Minneapolis, Boston and Birmingham, Ala. The cost is free to the youths who take part, and all of their equipment is provided. It is supported by fundraisers, donations and grants. This year it received a $60,000 grant from the Colorado Outdoor Recreation Industry Office.

“There’s a lot of research coming out now, and I think people who participate in outdoor recreation know this intuitively, that getting outside — especially immersive ways of getting outside — has enormous benefits for your mental health, your physical health, your social and emotional well-being,” said BCM’s executive director, David Taus. “The communities we’re working with are most in need of these sorts of experiences, and they are the least likely to go outside in this way.”

It started with a stabbing

When he was 12 years old, Dominic Lucero was stabbed by a neighborhood kid on the way home from Horace Mann Middle School in north Denver. That was in 1993, the year of Denver’s infamous Summer of Violence, when there were 74 homicides in the city. Nearly half of them were teenagers.

Lucero said he and the boy who stabbed him were in the habit of bullying each other.

“It was the culture of our people, of the machismo culture,” said Lucero, the founder of Colorado Treks. “I was taught to throw a jab and a hook before I was taught to say please, thank you, I love you and I’m sorry. I say Colorado Treks was established in 2016, but really it was established in ’93 when I got stabbed. Part of my spirit got taken, but something activated me.”

Like Big City Mountaineers, there is no cost for youths on trips organized by Colorado Treks. Outings include rock climbing at Staunton State Park, fishing clinics, horseback riding in the Flat Tops, camping, hiking fourteeners and skiing. It is funded through grants and a fundraising gala. The goal is to introduce what Lucero calls “the medicine of the mountains” to youths who may be in dire need of it.

“If my past, present and future is my 10-mile radius, what kind of life experience is that?” Lucero said. “When you’re not given access to the medicine cabinet, you’re talking about generations of illness — mind, body and spirit. How we heal here is through culture. We believe cultura cura, culture cures. Is it gang culture, is it drug culture, sex, violence? Or, is it the outdoor culture, the culture of music, sports? Culture cures, but also culture can kill. We try to reconnect and reactivate our culture and the identity of our indigenous culture.”

Lucero calls the rock-climbing outings “BIPOC on the Rock” to drive home that participants are reclaiming part of their heritage.

“We teach our participants when we’re rock climbing, these rocks have been touched by our ancestors for thousands of years,” Lucero said. “We’re reconnecting to them. We also acknowledge that lack of medicine has led to why our people in urban communities have more incidents of violence and substance misuse — because we’ve disconnected from this medicine for generations.”

Nature for healing, brotherhood

Camping to Connect is a mentorship program that uses outdoor recreation and immersion in nature to help young men of color working through issues that include mental health and “healthy masculinity,” It started six years ago in New York City, opened a Denver office in 2021, and began organizing camping trips last summer.

Like BCM and Colorado Treks, there is no charge for participants. All three organizations stress that people of color should never feel as if they don’t belong in the outdoors.

Camping to Connect organizes weekend camping trips and day hikes, funded through an Outdoor Equity Grant of $95,000 through Colorado Parks and Wildlife. The Outdoor Equity Grant program was created by the legislature to provide opportunities for youths “from communities who have been historically excluded, so that they have equitable opportunities to get involved in recreational activities and experience Colorado’s open spaces, state parks, public lands and other outdoor areas,” according to CPW spokeswoman Bridget O’Rourke.

“If we look at camping in movies, you usually don’t see people of color,” said Manny Almonte, founder and chief executive of Camping to Connect. “And when you do, it’s a horror movie, and the first person who gets killed by a bear is the person of color. And it’s displayed that way, like that person of color is not familiar with the outdoors, that’s why they get killed. That person of color shows fear, like they don’t belong there, and that’s what people digest.

“Stereotypes become the reality,” Almonte continued, “and that’s one of the biggest challenges for us. Our program uses nature as a place for healing, connection, community building and brotherhood. Our program is called Camping to Connect, not Connect to Camp. We don’t go out there necessarily to teach the kids about the outdoors. We go out there to teach the kids about community and create space for them to talk about life, to sort of take them back to the tribe, being around the campfire.”

In the process, though, they learn how to pitch a tent, start a campfire safely and follow Leave No Trace principles.

“The goal is for them to like it enough to want to come back, then get to love it, then to care for it,” Almonte said. “It’s a social justice issue, combined with an environmental justice issue.”

Lifelong lessons

For Kim, the Medicine Bow backpacking trip came at a good time. She welcomed the chance to get her mind off the  “craziness of being a middle schooler and then going to high school this year,” she said. “I got to be in nature with these girls that I love to be around. I think it was really important, having a break.”

More important, though, were the life lessons the trip reinforced.

“When you’re backpacking, it’s not just about you,” Kim said. “I got to learn how to be helpful, how to be encouraging, how to be helping everyone for the good of the group. I think that was really important. As I get older, that’s something really important to learn and understand.”

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