#Breckenridge #Colorado
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| Peak 8 Ski Area in 1961 |
Breckenridge Ski Resort co-founder Trygve Berge points out several locations from his perch at The Crown coffee shop above Breckenridge’s Main Street. Few structures resided in the footprints of these contemporary buildings when he first visited six decades ago.
He waxes nostalgic about how property was alarmingly cheap to purchase. He emphasizes how there was hardly anyone here. Historical records chronicle the Rocky Mountain mining town’s population dipping to 383 in 1960. Scouring his memory, Berge recalls that number being closer to 200 — maybe fewer.
“It was becoming Alma or some of these ghost towns,” Berge said about Breckenridge. “Mountain towns with very few people, very little going on. … (The ski area) changed it totally.”
Now 87, the 1956 Olympic Norwegian Alpine skier still skis more than a half-century after he first arrived to scout the potential of a ski area. Berge was invited by Bill Rounds, of the Kansas-based Rounds and Porter Lumber Co., along with fellow Norwegian Olympic downhiller Sigurd Rockne. In 1960, the trio toasted to the town’s future near the current location of the upper terminal of the Colorado SuperChair on Peak 8.
Fast-forward 59 years to this past June: Berge hops off the Independence SuperChair at tree line on the resort’s Peak 7. It’s just a short ski north along the Tenmile Range from where he, Rockne and Rounds toasted in 1960. On this warm, sunny day, Berge sticks to trails below tree line, though many others ride the Imperial Express SuperChair to ski from just below the summit of Peak 8.
Dreaming big
As impressive as Imperial is, Berge wanted more. He once dreamed of Breckenridge resort offering skiing all the way north to Peak 1 in Frisco with a monorail connecting the two towns. He even considered connecting Breckenridge across Tenmile Canyon to Copper Mountain on the other side.
Berge said his European-style vision was a hard sell for the local mining families, but soon enough, he was teaching their children how to ski. Berge and Rockne started Breckenridge’s ski school in 1961 with just 13 pairs of rental skis.
Day by day, the Peak 8 Ski Area — as it was known when it opened with 1,764 acres in 1961 — laid the snowy tracks for the town’s ski future. Two more ski areas, Keystone and Copper Mountain, opened in the early ’70s. The cluster of four ski areas, along with the completion of the Eisenhower Tunnel in 1973, suddenly made Summit County a popular ski destination easily accessed from Denver.
Over the next 40 years, Summit County grew to become a hub of winter sports and home to Olympic-caliber athletes.
Case in point: On a winter day, it’s not uncommon for the world’s best park and pipe snowboarders to be training at Breckenridge while some of the world’s best downhill skiers train over at Copper. Among them are Olympians Red Gerard and Chris Corning, who call Summit County home. Riding the lifts alongside them are young Summit locals.
“Red Gerard, Chris Corning — all of these people are not just pie in the sky,” said Rodey Robinson, director of development for the Team Summit sports club. “They are real people our athletes associate with on a daily basis. Having that, they are not just on a pedestal. They are people working hard. That opens eyes to what is possible. It’s not just a dream.”
Courtesy Summit Daily.
