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Wolf Creek Ski Area (WCSA) is a ski area in southwest Colorado, located on the Wolf Creek Pass between Pagosa Springs and South Fork. It is best known for receiving more average annual snowfall than any other resort in Colorado, at about 430 inches per year. History First site on top of the pass During the 1930s, people were taming the mountains of Colorado by building highways and mountain passes. US Highway 160 was constructed as a new project connecting the San Luis Valley to Pagosa Springs. Prior to 1936, Cumbres Pass was the only direct route through the mountains in this area, and during heavy snowstorms it often closed. The construction project between San Luis and Pagosa Springs was dubbed Wolf Creek Pass. By 1938, construction on Highway 160 over the pass was complete. That same year, a group of budding skiers from the San Luis Valley, including a farmer named Kelly Boyce, created the Wolf Creek Ski Club and installed a rope tow on the north side near the summit of Wolf Creek Pass. Kelly's lift was driven by an old Chevy truck with tickets at $1 per day. Charles Elliott, who helped Boyce launch skiing at Wolf Creek Pass, grew up in the San Luis Valley and taught himself to ski on homemade boards at age 21, hiking up Wolf Creek Pass in 1934. With the help of four separate ski clubs on both sides of the pass—in the San Luis Valley to the east and Pagosa Springs to the west—Kelley and Elliott built the first rope tow and organized a ski patrol in 1936. The following year the four clubs unified into Wolf Creek Ski Club, and over the next five years Elliott led the construction of shelter cabins and additional rope tows. At the outset of WW II, at least three of the individuals active in the development of Wolf Creek Pass as a ski area served as members of the 10th mountain Division, Charles Elliot, Dick Long and Bob Wright. ( The inspired bunch of volunteers (and they were all volunteers) who built the first ski runs at Wolf Creek were a hearty bunch who loved skiing and the mountains. But finally, following the end of WW II, the hardy skiers of the Wolf Creek Ski Club grew bored with the 150-yard rope tow on the base of Thunder Mountain and began to look around for options. In 1955, Edward Sharp and Ronald Major, skiers from Monte Vista, were discussing possible ski lifts and locations for a new ski area. Present site south of the continental divide In the Journal, The San Luis Valley Historian the author records an interview with W. Edward Sharp, "Late in the summer..(1954)..I was at the Chuck Wagon Dinner the night before the Stampede Rodeo..(in Monte Vista). I was talking to Ronald Major, a fellow member of the Wolf Creek Ski Club. He said he had just gotten some information on a Poma Lift manufactured in France. It was similar to a T-bar tow. He thought we could buy one for $10,000, about half the cost for a T-bar. If we could finance it, we ought to buy one for Wolf Creek. Ronald Major was a member of the Ski Club, probably since its inception in 1935. He, like many others, spent his Sunday afternoons skiing at the top of Wolf Creek Pass. Several of the good skiers, Kelly and Dick Boyce, Bob Wilkinson, Dick Long and Bob Wright didn't like riding the rope tow they had.... (Many) had learned to ski while in the 10th Mountain Division during World War II. So, we got together some other members of the Ski Club and talked about it. They were enthusiastic about the possibilities. We decided we could form a nonprofit corporation and sell bonds to raise the $20,000 necessary to put in this lift. We'd pay off the bonds out of income from the ski area. That fall we appeared before the Chambers of Commerce of Monte Vista, Alamosa, Del Norte, South Fork, and Pagosa Springs and told our story of the need for the new lift. While doing this organizational work during ski season, a committee of the best skiers in the Ski Club decided we ought to relocate the ski area. They found..(an area)..a little way down the road, on the east side of the Continental Divide. This location was larger and, over time, could be developed into a more diverse ski area. We estimated the tow lines would be much longer than the old site, making the cost about $15,000, it seemed ideal for what we wanted, so we applied to the Forest Service for a permit to use it. After many meetings with the Chambers of Commerce and other committees, we formed a corporation of 1000 shares at $25 a share for a total of $25,000...We spent the winter of 1954-55 talking up the new lift, making plans for the new area, forming the corporation, raising the money, getting Forest Service permits, and so forth. All along we met good response from businessmen, skiers, and the Forest Service." W. Edward Sharp and the original board called for the first "Investors" meeting at his office building in Monte Vista on June 6, 1955, where the plans for the initial investment of nearly $20,000 of stock sale was to be discussed. The corporation was called The Wolf Creek Ski Development Corporation. Original board members were W.E. Sharp, president, R.R. Reynolds, secretary, W.H. Arrowsmith, treasurer and Leonard Gustafson, Myron Cochran, Boyd Brown, Dave Goodman, John LaRue, Charles Elliott, and Earl Clark as directors. There was representation from Pagosa Springs, South Fork, Creede, Monte Vista, Sargent, and Alamosa. After the stock was sold and the $15,000 was raised, a Poma lift was ordered from France and the construction was begun in 1955. In 1956, the corporation elected Ed Sharp as permanent president and continued to operate the area as a public corporation. Most of the people involved in the leadership over the years were from the east side of the Pass, from Monte Vista and Sargent. On the west side of the pass (in Pagosa Springs) the coordinators were George Yamaguchi, June Lynch, and Dave Goodman. Other families closely involved were the Wylies, the Corrigans, Lynches, Coxes, and the Chambers. On the east side of the Divide there was Ed Sharp (the Ski Corporation president), Kelly Boyce (Ski Corporation vice-president) and his sons, Bob and Dick Boyce, Charles Elliott, Bob Williams, Howard Walker, John La Rue, Bob Wright (the father of Susan, of Wolf Creek's “Susan’s Run”). Johnny Baird, was in the Forest Service Supervisor's office in Monte Vista, was the contact person for all negotiations with the Forest Service since the entire ski area and base area was on U.S. Forest Service land. Comments from the early Ski Corporation efforts were published in the 1996 brochure of the Colorado Ski Hall of Fame at which Ed Sharp had been interviewed and was subsequently inducted: "Ed, a civic leader from Monte Vista, had a vision which he turned into Wolf Creek Ski Area, dedicating his earlier years to the development of a small family ski area in Southwestern Colorado. After skiing around the area for fifteen years, he and some friends got the initial idea for expanding the ski area on Wolf Creek Pass, which at that time, ha.... Discover the Kelly Boyce popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Kelly Boyce books.