Preparations for Howelsen Hill’s 109th winter season are underway and this year, there are 59 scheduled events at North America’s longest continuously operating ski area, along with a handful of festivals and celebrations. 

“Snowmaking has been going great so far this year,” said Howelsen Hill Manager Brad Setter during a Parks and Recreation Commission meeting on Wednesday. “We started end of October, went on 24-hour operations around Nov. 4, pretty marginal (temperatures) all fall so far but the new swing arms we’ve got are performing really well.” 

This year, the ski area has taken on two main projects, the first of which was to refurbish the Poma lift that runs up the face of the hill. The lift was in need of a new bullwheel that was put on earlier this year. 

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“We had that manufactured in France,” Setter explained. “They had to build it from scratch because they don’t have these in stock anymore.” 

The Poma lift was originally built in the 1960s for Steamboat Resort and was later dismantled and reassembled at Howelsen Hill in the early 1970s. 

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The Poma is now updated with the new bullwheel and several other mechanical fixes. 

The second major project is currently underway. The pumphouse improvements project is now funded for Phase 2, which includes the addition of a new pump that will be able to handle Howelsen’s full capacity of 3 cubic feet per second. The current machine can only do about 60% of that, according to Setter. 

“Next year we will get our new pump,” Setter said. “It will be a much larger pump. It’ll be able to pump the full 3 cfs and then it’s going to get piped into the existing piping.” 

Once the new pump is installed, Phase 3 of the project will begin, in which additional piping will be added at a new intake location from the Yampa River. There will also be an added snowmaking line going up Mile Run so the full 3 cfs can be pumped at once. 

The ski area will also bring back its Nordic Ambassador Program this winter. Ambassadors are in charge of greeting skiers on the Nordic trails, offering information and checking passes and tickets. 

“This is a volunteer-based program where folks can volunteer their time and come out to ambassador Nordic trails throughout the season,” said the city’s recreation supervisor for skiing, Hayley Powell. “In turn, they get a free Nordic Howelsen Hill pass for the season.” 

Powell also referenced the online ticket service where users can purchase day tickets without having to rely on visiting the ticket office during business hours only. 

The city has also hired a new full-time staff member to groom Nordic trails, meaning there will be two full-time workers handling the grooming process. 

Regardless of the additional staff member, the ski area will not be doing full grooms seven days per week despite requests from Nordic trail users last season. 

“We did bring those requests to City Council when we did the season wrap-up with them, and asked for direction on that,” Setter said. “They did not support increasing the budget to cover seven-day-a-week full-grooms. We still groom seven days per week but we are going to continue with our normal grooming schedule and operations.” 

The ski area is also transferring to a new online map called Nordic Pulse. The new map will offer grooming updates in real time and will offer a place where the city can add bulletins for races, Stables Lot closures and anything else that should be shared with the community. 

Nordic Pulse is embedded on the city’s website. 

“We have 13 kilometers of trails, we groom seven days per week,” said operations supervisor Micah Ness. “Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday we’ll be doing the full grooms. That will include Blackmere trail. Monday, Wednesday, Friday are those partial grooms, but you can expect the Rodeo Loops, the base area, as well as Bluffs Loop or Meadows to be groomed — one or the other.”

The Howelsen Hill ski season is scheduled to run Nov. 30, 2024 through March 30, 2025, conditions permitting.