Major Ski Resort Poised to Spring on Colorado’s Lake Catamount

Steamboat loves skiing. It has produced more U.S. ski team members than any other town. That may help explain why serious local misgivings about the side effects of growth seem unlikely to halt construction of what may be the last major new ski resort in America.

“Isn’t that a great epitaph for the Yampa River Valley?” asked Routt County Commissioner Ben Beall, a vocal opponent of the project. “Yeah, we love to ski. But does that mean we need another ski area?”

Elsewhere, environmentalists have used federal laws, particularly those protecting wetlands, to frustrate many major development plans. But Lake Catamount, named for the mountain lions who roamed the hills above, has obtained all the necessary federal permits.

The first attempt at building a resort at man-made Lake Catamount, seven miles south of Steamboat, went bankrupt in the 1970s.

“We’ve been though all the hoops. It’s not a question of if, but how,” said Jerry Blann, manager of the latest attempt. Blann said the resort will do everything it can to avoid creating the kind of theme-park atmosphere that pervades Aspen and Vail.

In Blann, developers got a veteran ski executive and former ski racer. His father was manager of Mt. Bachelor in Bend, Ore., and Blann himself managed the Aspen Skiing Co. for 18 years and Bear Mountain, Calif., for four.

The resort ultimately will offer 14 lifts, including a gondola, and skiing on 2,000 acres with a vertical descent of 3,155 feet. When completed in 15 to 20 years, it will be able to accommodate 12,000 skiers daily. That would put it in a class with the neighboring Steamboat resort and resorts such as Beaver Creek and Snowmass.

The master plan calls for 3,756 residential units and 1,000 hotel rooms. In addition, it will be the only resort in the nation to offer a lake and marina next to its village. Blann says the resort’s northern exposure will give it an edge over Steamboat, which faces west.

Despite the competition and a flattening-out of skier numbers nationwide, Steamboat executives support Catamount, a project their company once owned. They believe it will attract more skiers.

Rod Hanna, director of public relations for Steamboat who is also president of the Steamboat Chamber of Commerce, says surveys show skiers aren’t as likely to return to Steamboat as to Vail, Summit County or Aspen, for example. Skiers visiting those areas can ski at three or four areas on the same ticket.

“After a week here, they want more choices,” Hanna said, adding that Steamboat and Catamount probably will offer a common ticket.

“There will be $100 million in the ground before the first skier gets in a lift,” said Blann. That’s not likely to be before the 1997-98 season, because Routt County officials must approve the base village and other important facilities.

The county officials remain apprehensive about the impact of the project. Despite population growth of 16% in the last decade, Steamboat hasn’t suffered as much of a housing shortage or strip-mall explosion similar to that found in Vail and Aspen.

It has retained much more of the Old West influence, be it cowboy or mining.

Yet even if they “have the best design in the world,” said Beall, “if you add 10,000 folks down there, there are 10,000 more folks breathing in the valley.”