Monarch – Bob Nicolls didn’t even learn how to ski until he was 30. Now 47, he has spent much of the past four years thinking about little else.
Nicolls and a group of Colorado investors spent $5.1 million in 2002 to buy Monarch Mountain, outside Salida. Their idea was to preserve the pure, small-resort ski experience, while keeping its profits growing.
Their philosophy appears to be working.
Revenues are up more than 17 percent for the season. Skier visits are on track to top more than 165,000 this season, up from 142,190 last winter. Sales of season passes, which start at $239, were up more than 13 percent last fall.
Inside Monarch’s 1950s-era lodge, retail business was up 63 percent through January, and equipment rentals spiked 43 percent.
Now the question is how to continue the growth without losing the area’s low-frills appeal.
“These are good times for places like Monarch,” said Michael Berry, president of the Lakewood-based National Ski Areas Association. “Small and medium ski areas across the country are doing as well as they ever have. People are finding the more affordable, less intimidating, family-friendly experience appealing.”
With lift lines that rarely exceed 10 minutes, the 800-acre mountain can handle the crowds, but the lodge facilities have been feeling the strain. The group plans within the next year to break ground on either a $1 million expansion of its existing lodge or a second, smaller lodge.
“At pinch points, we need more bathrooms,” said Nicolls. “We need another food-service outlet, and we need more under-roof space.”
Monarch ski area was built in 1939 by Works Projects Administration workers and has long turned a profit. This year, it is projected to top $1.4 million in net income, up from $905,000 four years ago.
“We’ve been around for almost 70 years, so it must be working,” said Monarch’s longtime chief executive, Rich Moorhead, who is a minority owner.
“Monarch always made money, but we’ve taken it from where it was and grown it,” Nicolls said.
Many industry leaders believe that ski areas without developable real estate have trouble surviving, a perception that drives Nicolls crazy.
He knows real estate – his Denver-based company, First Pacific Investments, owns about 4,000 apartment units in several Western states.
“When you’re just selling lift tickets, you do have to have tight control on your expenses,” he said. “But I guarantee we’re more profitable than any of the (bigger resorts) on a pound-for-pound basis.”
Nicolls admits that it’s tough to compete with the marketing might of ski-industry giants such as Vail Resorts, especially in metro Denver.
Located roughly 150 miles southwest of Denver, the Monarch ski area instead targets its advertising in Colorado Springs and Pueblo, as well as the popular drive-in markets of Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas.
Traffic from New Mexico is also up significantly this year at Monarch. That state is having one of its worst snow years on record, so Monarch has offered free skiing to season- pass holders at Angel Fire and Pajarito.
More than 750 people have taken advantage of the exchange to date. Nicolls said he hopes those skiers will come back next year – because more visitors will fuel long-term plans to add more extreme terrain, such as No Name Bowl, off its north side.
“The only thing that matters to me is making it a better place to ski,” Nicolls said.
Staff writer Julie Dunn can be reached at 303-820-1592 or jdunn@denverpost.com.
165,000
Projected skier visits this season for Monarch Mountain, up from 142,190 last winter; season passes are up 13 percent
$1.4 MILLION
Monarch’s projected net income this year, up from $905,000 in 2002, when the mountain was bought for $5.1 million
63%
Rise in Monarch’s retail business through January; equipment rentals are up 43 percent
