Winter Park Resort marks the golden anniversary this week of its Mary Jane expansion, a move that gave it a second base area with a sassy side — its motto is No Pain, No Jane — catering to advanced and expert skiers.
Although the slopes of Mary Jane have yet to open for the season because of poor snow conditions throughout Colorado, the resort announced over the weekend that opening day will be Friday; an anniversary celebration is planned for Saturday, with a skier parade, birthday toast with cake, live music, photo booths, fireworks and anniversary swag.
And even after 50 years, Karol Ann Groswold, the daughter of former Winter Park chief executive Jerry Groswold, said the mountain still attracts serious skiers who like to work for their turns.
“I think the Mary Jane spirit is still alive,” she said. “It truly is a cult. People go to the Jane because they want some really good terrain, some steep and deep. There’s just a sense of appreciation and passion for the true art of skiing — hard-core, true passion for skiing.”
Mary Jane’s roots go back a lot further than five decades, though. In fact, they predate Winter Park itself — owned and operated as one of Denver’s mountain parks — which opened in 1940.
In 1933, a small group of skiers calling itself the Colorado Arlberg Club cleared the first trail on the mountain where the modern Mary Jane complex would open more than 40 years later. The Mary Jane Trail was about 1.5 miles long, with 1,500 feet of vertical drop. Since there were no lifts and no roads, members hiked up and skied down. Two runs in a day was the goal.
“Young blades, young bucks, devil-may-care,” recalled the late Dr. Karl Arndt, one of the club’s original nine members, in a 1989 interview in the Rocky Mountain News. “We skied and drank Casper Moon, which was a bootleg liquor from Casper, Wyoming. It must have been good, because it cost a dollar and a half a gallon. We had great fun.”
Arndt said he always seemed to be injured from “jammed-up knees,” but he wouldn’t be deterred. “I would take some codeine or a slug of whiskey and ride down in misery.”
Hardy souls were skiing nearby Berthoud Pass in those days, too. A rope tow was installed there in 1937. The Arlberg Club folks disapproved. “We weren’t impressed by rope tows coming into vogue,” said Arndt, the lone survivor of the original nine club members when he died in 2006 at 97. “We were kind of stuffy about it at first. We thought the younger people were being pampered. It wasn’t true mountaineering. We worked hard for our fun.”
Winter Park opened on Jan. 28, 1940. With a rope tow.
Mary Jane’s namesake was a well-known madam of the 1880s during the area’s mining days who came to own the Mary Jane Placer. It was located where the Mary Jane base is now.
The 1976 Mary Jane expansion, which increased Winter Park’s skiable terrain by 80%, was overseen by Jerry Groswold, son of Thor Groswold, a Norwegian immigrant who founded Denver’s Groswold Ski Company in 1932. Jerry Groswold was Winter Park’s chairman from 1969 until 1975, when he became its president and chief executive.
The Mary Jane expansion was “his baby,” as daughter Karol puts it.
“It was a huge undertaking,” Karol said. “I remember very vividly when he took over. He was just living, breathing the entire thing. I’ve never seen a man work so hard and be so passionate about it.”
He was a larger-than-life figure, a legend in Colorado skiing, the man in charge at Winter Park for 22 years. Karol has fond memories from when she was a little girl, skiing the Mary Jane trail with her dad, well before it became part of Winter Park.
“It felt really steep,” she said. “There was always powder — glorious, fabulous powder. A snowcat would come and pick us up.”
She was 16 when the Mary Jane expansion debuted on Jan. 10, 1976, giving the resort a steep side in contrast to the tamer slopes of the Winter Park side. When Groswold took over in 1975 and moved up to Winter Park, Karol continued to live in Cherry Hills with her mother until she finished high school.
“I remember driving up with my friends, and they were all guys,” said Karol. “I never skied with girls because they didn’t do the bumps. We would just go up there and tear it up non-stop. It was such a magical time. People skied, they loved the sport, new technology was coming along — it was so exciting.”
