Today marks 150 years since Colorado became the 38th state on August 1st, 1876.  Colorado has long been known as the Centennial State since its induction into the United States coincided with the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.  Since the USA was celebrating its Semiquincentennial earlier this summer, Colorado decided to up the game by dubbing this its…

With the Paradise Parking Expansion going full bore, the current task on hand is sorting all the fill we are creating as we need different materials for different parts of the project.  The fine, clean fill will be used for compaction around culverts as well as for making a smooth and compacted final surface grade.  1-2″ rock will be compacted…

Last week I had the opportunity to take a Wilderness First Responder class with Buena Vista Mountain Adventures.  Traditional Medicine is centered around the idea that a patient can always be moved quickly to a higher level of care, but Wilderness Medicine starts with the idea that help is hours or even days away.  There is a big focus on…

She may not be the most well-known to those who have not worked at Monarch, but I want to assure you that Carol Novak has been one of the biggest driving forces here for the past 20 years.  She keeps our leadership team in line and on task and her famous powder day WOHOO’s are a staple that keep all…

Our Lift Maintenance team has been preparing for a haul rope splice on Breezeway.  There is a lot of work that goes into preparing the lift for a splice.  The carriers must be taken off, then the haul rope is lowered from several towers and rigged to pull tension off the section to be spliced.  This rigging is under a…

Our Property Maintenance team has been hard at a project to improve the flow in the Rental and Lesson Center.  One of the big improvements will be these new tech benches that were a great collaborative effort from our Rentals, IT, and Property Maintenance crews.  Our Rental Techs are very excited as these benches will allow them to set skis…

This week Zach Moore and myself, alongside Olivia Hyyppa from SE Group, were invited by Copper Mountain to present at the 6th Annual Ski Conservation Summit.  We presented to a room full of climate scientists, Forest Service specialists, and ski area operators on Monarch’s No Name expansion.  It is amazing that our work on No Name has become an example…

An ongoing project every summer is timber cleanup in our tree islands that we call “Buff and Cut”.  This hand work is focused on cleaning up slash, leaners, blow-down, high stumps, and jackstrawed trees to get everything as close to the ground as possible.  It is a meticulous project but the end result is apparent to all who ski the…

Summer is construction season all over Colorado, not just at Monarch.  While driving around, you may have noticed these big yellow mats at the entrances/exits to constructions sites.  These FODS mats are manufactured vehicle tracking pads that are used to stabilize constructions entrances to minimize sediment from leaving the project site, increasing environmental compliance.  This preventative measure is one of…

For those who have been following our grading project on Mule Train, I wanted to give you the final update for the summer.  After Lowry Contracting got the grading knocked out our summer crew got the area seeded and covered with erosion control blankets.  These blankets hold the dirt and seed in place until the specialized seed mix can take…