Steamboat
Epic! That word is spoken enthusiastically on powder days in Steamboat. My backcountry companions say it often; we can be a bit smug about our tele excursions into unofficial terrain like Way Right, Drunken Indian, Storm King and North Woods. But the truth is, Back in the Day, Loris and Buddy Werner and their friends had truly epic ski adventures. In the 1950s, they’d drive up Rabbit Ears to the top of Hogan Park Trail… before it was a marked Forest Service route. They’d put skins over their alpine skis and break trail all the way to what is now Morningside. That’s seven miles. Once there, they’d build a snow cave, light a fire and settle in for the night.
Epic! That word is spoken enthusiastically on powder days in Steamboat. My backcountry companions say it often; we can be a bit smug about our tele excursions into unofficial terrain like Way Right, Drunken Indian, Storm King and North Woods. But the truth is, Back in the Day, Loris and Buddy Werner and their friends had truly epic ski adventures. In the 1950s, they’d drive up Rabbit Ears to the top of Hogan Park Trail… before it was a marked Forest Service route. They’d put skins over their alpine skis and break trail all the way to what is now Morningside. That’s seven miles. Once there, they’d build a snow cave, light a fire and settle in for the night.
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Courtesy Tread of Pioneers Museum<br />
Ski area founder Jim Temple on Storm Peak summit, 1957.<br />
Courtesy Fetcher Family Collection/Bill Fetcher<br />
Ski Area founder Jim Temple<br />
The Temple Family<br />
teamboat’s story starts with the dream of Jim Temple, whose vision persisted in the face of disbelief,<br />
discouragement and the inevitable obstacles. His wife, Audrey Light Temple (of the family that started F.M. Light,<br />
<strong>Steamboat</strong>’s oldest store), contributed to the legacy, starting the Winter Sports Club’s Little Toots program for its<br />
youngest skiers in 1957.<br />
Jamie and Jeff Temple continued their father’s dream, founding Storm Mountain Ranch and Marabou Ranch,<br />
both conservation developments as well as private communities.<br />
Ski Area Visionary<br />
By Jean Wren and Rolly Wahl<br />
Born in 1927 into a hard-working ranching life on the Little Snake River in north Routt County, Jim Temple<br />
grew up irrigating and putting up hay in the summer that he fed to cattle by team and sled in the winter.<br />
An avid skier, Jim spent seven winters in Sun Valley, Idaho. This skis-on experience gave him the knowledge<br />
to dream of creating a destination resort on <strong>Steamboat</strong>’s Storm Mountain.<br />
Jim started his feasibility study in 1955. He drove a Jeep to the summit with Gates Gooding. He took Forest<br />
Service Supervisor Paul Hauk to the top of the mountain by horseback. He organized snowcat trips from 1956-’58<br />
with Marvin Elkins, pulling Winter Sports Club skiers from Rabbit Ears Pass to the top of the mountain to ski to<br />
the valley floor.<br />
In summer 1958, Jim climbed the mountain with <strong>Steamboat</strong>’s young American ski hero, Buddy Werner, showing<br />
him a tree where the top lift terminal would be located. “Bud climbed that tree and tied a white handkerchief in the<br />
top,” he remembers. Jim surveyed from the bottom terminal to the handkerchief for <strong>Steamboat</strong>’s first chairlift line.<br />
In the meantime, Jim bought four ranches at the base of the mountain with a combined total of more than<br />
1,000 acres. He believed it was significant that the ski area would be built on working ranch land from <strong>Steamboat</strong>’s<br />
proud agricultural heritage.<br />
As founder and president of Storm Mountain Ski Corporation, Jim built a Pomalift and with a double chairlift<br />
under construction, he opened Storm Mountain Ski Area in the winter of 1960-’61. “I looked at the mountain,” Jim<br />
remembers, “with the lift running and ski slope covered with laughing children and with a feeling of euphoria, I<br />
said, ‘I’ve done it!’”<br />
Jim believed the mountain had great potential. He had no doubt that in time it could become a popular<br />
destination resort like Sun Valley. His vision, faith and dogged determination inspired the creation of one<br />
of the world’s premier ski areas and started the bull wheels turning for the future economic prosperity of<br />
Northwest Colorado.<br />
Jean Wren was an accomplished writer and historian who died in 2002. Rolly Wahl was the longtime editor of<br />
<strong>Steamboat</strong> Magazine. This article originally appeared in the Winter/Spring 1998 edition of the magazine.<br />
STEAMBOAT MAGAZINE | SKI SEASON 2012/13 | 69
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