I read a few of the threads posted about the Post article this morning and wanted to address a few things that the article didn't.
I am the President of Eclipse Snow Park. Suprised I'm a member of Newschoolers? I am 24 years old and was born and raised in Colorado. I am graduating this December from the Colorado School of Mines with an Mechanical Engineering degree. I am a diehard skier and love the park scene.
The Post, as news papers tend to do, overstated our positition in this mornings article. We have purchased 300 acres in Clear Creek county that include in part the old Saint Mary's Ski Resort. We are working on the rezoning process to revert it all to snow sports zoning designation. Once the process is completed we will be opening the existing T-bar lift currently undergoing renovation.
Hopefully within a couple of years we will have completed the required land swaps with the US Forest Service to fully enclose the Anchor Gulch and be able to open a full 300 acres of terrain. We are planning on making it exclusively Park. Currently however with only the T-bar open we will only be able to open approx. 60 acres and accomodate 250 people max per day.
One person in their thread expressed concerns about not having enough money for start up to make the park adequate. I feel like we have plenty of money to get the job done. We will have the lift up and running, a full size Bombardier snow cat being delivered next week, snow guns for blowing jumps and plenty of rails.
One person expressed concern in their thread about hiring Rick Fason as the Park Builder because of his skate rather than snow background. In my opinion the difficulty in building a park is not in designing the features on paper but actually constructing them. Rick is an A+ metal fabricator. I have a whole team of friends, professional skiers, and riders helping design and dimension the different park features. Rick is the guy who can actually throw down a weld line to get the job done.
Some people are concerned about lift ticket prices. I am very sensitive to this because I ski in Summit County and know how those guys can be. As far as season passes go, because we don't know when the season will actually start we don't know what we will do with that for this year.
Anyway take a drive sometime and come check out our progress. Take Fall River Road exit (one exit west of Idaho Springs)all the way until you see the lift 9 miles up.
I am interested in some of your input to help make this thing go. Having a project like this has always been a dream of mine, and the opportunity just fell in my lap. Our website is still being worked on www.eclipsesnow.com. As soon as its up you should be able to email me and give me feedback on ideas you have and I'll try to answer as many questions as I can.
-Michael
I am the President of Eclipse Snow Park. Suprised I'm a member of Newschoolers? I am 24 years old and was born and raised in Colorado. I am graduating this December from the Colorado School of Mines with an Mechanical Engineering degree. I am a diehard skier and love the park scene.
The Post, as news papers tend to do, overstated our positition in this mornings article. We have purchased 300 acres in Clear Creek county that include in part the old Saint Mary's Ski Resort. We are working on the rezoning process to revert it all to snow sports zoning designation. Once the process is completed we will be opening the existing T-bar lift currently undergoing renovation.
Hopefully within a couple of years we will have completed the required land swaps with the US Forest Service to fully enclose the Anchor Gulch and be able to open a full 300 acres of terrain. We are planning on making it exclusively Park. Currently however with only the T-bar open we will only be able to open approx. 60 acres and accomodate 250 people max per day.
One person in their thread expressed concerns about not having enough money for start up to make the park adequate. I feel like we have plenty of money to get the job done. We will have the lift up and running, a full size Bombardier snow cat being delivered next week, snow guns for blowing jumps and plenty of rails.
One person expressed concern in their thread about hiring Rick Fason as the Park Builder because of his skate rather than snow background. In my opinion the difficulty in building a park is not in designing the features on paper but actually constructing them. Rick is an A+ metal fabricator. I have a whole team of friends, professional skiers, and riders helping design and dimension the different park features. Rick is the guy who can actually throw down a weld line to get the job done.
Some people are concerned about lift ticket prices. I am very sensitive to this because I ski in Summit County and know how those guys can be. As far as season passes go, because we don't know when the season will actually start we don't know what we will do with that for this year.
Anyway take a drive sometime and come check out our progress. Take Fall River Road exit (one exit west of Idaho Springs)all the way until you see the lift 9 miles up.
I am interested in some of your input to help make this thing go. Having a project like this has always been a dream of mine, and the opportunity just fell in my lap. Our website is still being worked on www.eclipsesnow.com. As soon as its up you should be able to email me and give me feedback on ideas you have and I'll try to answer as many questions as I can.
-Michael
