I always get nostalgic this time of year when I see the slopes of Ski Broadmoor, a small local resort on the western slope of Cheyenne Mountain. Opened on New Year’s Eve 1959, the neighborhood destination consisted of just four runs and featured a pioneering snowmaking machine known as the “P henomenal Snowman.” Loggers and bulldozers worked overtime that summer clearing the runs that dropped 600 feet from top to bottom. The double chairlift advertised the ability to run 890 skiers up the mountain every hour. They didn’t scrimp on quality. The snowmaking machine alone cost $200,000 – just over $2 million in 2026 dollars. At the time of Ski Broadmoor’s grand opening, a one-day lift ticket cost $3.75. A season pass was $75. Lessons were $5. You could ski at night between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. for $1.50. Students at the Colorado Springs School skied every Friday afternoon during the winter, as part of their studies. The Broadmoor Hotel, which ran everything, sold the ski area to the city of Colorado Springs in 1986. Weather and insurance costs were a chronic challenge. City officials struggled to make a go of it, and a few people even resigned over accusations of unauthorized spending they deemed necessary to keep things going. Colorado Springs sold to Vail Resorts in 1988. It closed in 1991. Like many Coloradoans, we love skiing and would do more of it as a family if it wasn’t such a hassle (and costly) to get to a mountain to do it. The luxury of a local ski resort is almost dreamy, especially the prospect of knocking off work early to get a few runs in before dinner. Not having to navigate I-70 or Highway 24 in order to go up and ski seems almost too good to be true. Ski Broadmoor closed because the economics just didn’t work, and there’s little to suggest it would somehow work now – especially given a more litigious society and added environmental restrictions. So there the area sits quietly. Reopening the resort seems ripe for a Hallmark Christmas movie script: a local resident who left for the big city in search of big bucks returns one Christmas for a visit. He’s dejected and disillusioned. He runs into an old high school flame at the Broadmoor, spars a bit with her, but sparks fly, and then he decides to move back with his millions to reopen the resort with the love of his life as his business partner. By the next Christmas, Ski Broadmoor is glittering and glowing again, the couple is married and a new baby arrives just in time for the Christmas Eve service at the Pauline Chapel. A guy can dream. Ski Broadmoor isn’t the only area gone but not forgotten. A few years ago, our oldest son played baseball at Spurgeon Field inside Memorial Park. The original home of the Sky Sox, it’s a nice field but a shell of the stadium it once was. I envisioned the crowds and the hot dog vendors strolling the empty spaces once filled with ballpark seats. I have even stronger sentiment for Security Services Field off Powers Boulevard where the Sky Sox played until 2018. All our boys ran the bases after Sunday games. It was a great venue for Triple A baseball. Colorado Springs deserves a good minor league team. Downtown is teeming with buildings many of us can still see with our eyes but no longer house or are home to the businesses and people who were once the titans of their time. There’s the shuttered Kimball’s Peak Theater on Pikes Peak Avenue and Michelle’s Chocolatiers on Tejon Street. Just north of Michelle’s was the Chinook Bookshop run by Dick Noyes. The Broadmoor Hotel is a terrific local example of a business countering that trend, respecting and fiercely preserving tradition – and yet evolving to keep pace with the times. That’s why it’s 106 years old and remains a sparkling five-star resort. It knew when to handoff the ski business and has constantly evolved ever since. Happy and successful people are wise to steer clear of running into ruts – of being stubborn and obstinate in the face of an evolving world. We need to stand firm when it comes to our principles but adapt to meet the moment. Maybe I will write that Ski Broadmoor movie script yet, though I wish I could do it while eating a burger at Conway’s Red Top or over soup at The Hungry Farmer. Paul J. Batura is a local writer and founder of the 4:8 Media Network. He can be reached via email [email protected] or on X @PaulBatura. ...read more read less