There's a new trail system for Nordic skiers on top of the Alpine Plateau in the Cimarron Mountains near Blue Mesa Reservoir. For KVNF, Laura Palmisano speaks to Micah McKee, the co-founder of Arrowhead Nordic, the Montrose nonprofit that maintains the trails.
Laura Palmisano: Micah, can you explain where are these new trails?
Micah McKee: We are located and based out of the Arrowhead Mountain Lodge, which is exactly midway between Montrose and Gunnison, and then five miles up the Alpine Plateau Road. This is our second year. We started formally last year, and we have this year currently because of the snow conditions we were at about 75% of our total possible, which is about 35 kilometers of trails. We have currently about 20 kilometers groomed that’s available for both skate and classic, and we just finished packing out about 10 kilometers of snowshoe trails.
LP: What kind of winter sports are these trails meant for?
MM: These trails are designed for your cross country skiing enthusiasts, someone who wants to get out, actually both on snowshoes and on skis, and they are available for all types of the Nordic style of skiing.
LP: Why develop a trail system up on the Alpine Plateau in Cimarron?
MM: One of the really interesting and compelling parts is that in Colorado, typically the geography is fairly dramatic, which is wonderful for viewing, but it's not the best for cross country skiing. Cross country skiing ideally wants sort of a rolling terrain. Extreme hills and that sort of thing are generally not preferred. They're better for downhill alpine skiing. So in exploring Colorado, we stumbled upon the Arrowhead Mountain Lodge, and the terrain is surprisingly good for cross country skiing, in fact, exceptional because it is up on a mesa top. So we end up with a substantial amount of terrain that is just wonderful for cross country skiing.
LP: You are based in Montrose. Do you have property up in the area? How did you find it?
MM: We were looking for a cabin and actually stumbled upon the Arrowhead community, which is a community of 750 individual lots anchored by the Arrowhead Mountain Lodge. And we stumbled upon the community in the summer of 2023 in our search. We were up there for a couple of days and went to their—they have a weekly bingo in the summer—and happened to sit next to the owners, struck up a conversation and asked them if they'd ever considered having Nordic skiing on the properties that were around.
And the owner essentially looked at me and said, “We haven't. Why don't you do it?” And that's literally how it started. And they've been incredibly supportive of our efforts. We are structured and run on all private property, which is unique for ski areas typically.
LP: Arrowhead Nordic recently got nonprofit status as well. Can you discuss why you decided to go that route?
MM: We looked at a number of different ways that we could operate, and the greatest benefit was in working in a nonprofit status for what we're targeted in. We are a seasonal operation, we primarily operate for 122 days during the winter. So it's a fairly limited schedule and that also is beneficial. And we are organized actually as a fiscal sponsor of the Montrose Community Foundation, and they are the 501c3 that we are organized under.
LP: Are you mainly run by volunteers?
MM: We are 100% run by volunteers, yes. We are the essence of an old school bootstrapping shoestring operation where I pretty much personally fund almost all of the expenses that are not covered by donations.
LP: What kind of work goes into maintaining the trails?
MM: We created these trails from scratch. There was nothing or next to nothing where we've put all of these. We've literally had to go in and do an initial flagging and assessment of the best place for these trails and then do tree removal, ground management that incorporates mitigating any sort of water and environmental damage. And then on an ongoing basis, once the trails are actually laid out and created, we have to go back continuously with pruning operations to keep limbs and trees out of the way. As well as going back in on a seasonal [basis]. Typically in fall, we'll go back in and mow so that we're reducing the impact of the grasses and the sage so that we can actually operate with less snow than we would otherwise have to.
LP: Who are your volunteers and what are they doing?
MM: Right now we have a handful of volunteers in order to mark the trails, once we have snowfall. We have to go out and put poles about every 50 to 100 yards on every trail. So that's at this point, 20 plus kilometers. Where every so often we have a pair of poles. What the poles do is provide a visual reference. So when we're in the snowcat grooming, we can see ahead, especially in low light situations at night and in snowstorms, and that allows us to groom the same path over and over again, which gives us a much better base. But our volunteers help us by setting those polls and then by taking them in.
They also help us by checking the trails and the condition of the trails and providing that feedback to me. Since we are a volunteer organization, we're not there all the time, 24/7, so we have to rely on other people who are out skiing to provide us that feedback so that any repairs, any necessary changes if we need to close a trail, that sort of onsite feedback is incredibly valuable.
I have two gentlemen that helped me go into some of the more narrow trails that we've created and we need to move snow in order to reduce what's called camber or the lean of the trail. So we have to flatten the trail out basically before we groom it. So we go in there with shovels and we'll spend a day basically moving snow by hand in order to get a shovel flat and then groom that.
LP: How do people access these trails and is there a fee associated with them?
MM: Our trailhead is just to the south, on the south side of the Arrowhead Mountain Lodge, which is a full service lodge providing lunch and dinner. And the fee to use the trails is $20 per day. And we also have season passes, season memberships, and all fees go towards all of our grooming and maintenance costs.
LP: Is there ski rental up there?
MM: We do not have ski rental as we don't have any physical facility on site yet, or employees.
LP: How popular have these trails been?
MM: Surprisingly, we weren't really sure what to expect. We have the Arrowhead Improvement Association, which is the neighborhood that's adjacent to the lodge. They have about 150 people that stay over winter, and we probably have a good two to three dozen folks from that that have already become members with us and have skied in our skiing on a regular basis. In general, we have on the weekends between 30 and 50 people every day. Weekdays obviously is a little bit quieter, but we're seeing some amazing traffic.
LP: And given that it's been a dry winter, how are the conditions?
MM: They're difficult. I think everyone who's in skiing will tell you that they're difficult. It's hard to manage, you know, two feet of snow and then three weeks of nothing, and then two feet of snow, and it's very difficult. We've been very fortunate in that we got a very early pack on in the December 1st storm, so we've had a great base.
We have, as everyone does, we have some thin areas and some spots that we haven't been able to open yet because of lack of snow. In general, we have full coverage right now and, and hopefully if we get some snow next week, we should get through the winter reasonably well.
LP: As a Nordic ski enthusiast, how would you compare this trail system to say the Grand Mesa or Ironton outside of Ouray?
MM: The most distinguishing characteristic of Arrowhead Nordic is that we are based out of a full service lodge. So the skiing experience fundamentally is completely different in that you have a full service destination. You can even stay overnight. There are 13 lodge rooms available, so it gives much more of a resort feel to, just the arrival and the fact that you could have a meal there that adds phenomenally to it. Our trail system is structured so that the trails that are within the, what we call the base area or closest to the lodge, are really exceptionally set up for beginner [and] intermediate skiers. We have a large open meadow providing more than five kilometers of fairly flat rolling terrain.
We have a large open field that we groom flat that we call practice flats. So the stuff next to the lodge is really good for beginner and intermediate. And then our new addition, which is called the Blue Mountain Addition, has some exceptional advanced and expert terrain. Some of the expert stuff, we haven't gotten enough snow yet to open up, but we expect to have some of the hardest trails in the state when we do open them.
LP: And you and your wife Susan, are the ones who founded Arrowhead Nordic?
MM: Yes, we are the founders, the operators, the funders, the primary volunteers, the ones you will typically see out, either skiing or on snowmobiles doing the maintenance.
LP: And what drives that passion in you?
MM: I grew up and learned to ski at Devil's Thumb Ranch out of Winter Park, and getting here reminded me tremendously of that experience and of where Devil's Thumb was in the mid-eighties.
So it felt very comfortable to me, the drive to create the trails and begin to really work with, for instance, we're having conversations with CB Nordic right now about how we integrate and work together with them. It's really about, for me, creating the infrastructure and the baseline for increasing participation in Nordic.
As a young athlete, there was not much structure. When I was young and racing, it was really sort of seat of the pants. You know, you went here and did a few things and then went there and there wasn't a very supportive structure. And one of the things that we've really tried to do from the very start is to work with juniors and to work with the youth and younger athletes.
We have a wonderful relationship with the CMU Nordic Ski team, and they've been up a couple of times and we're looking to have them up again, and we're looking to create a similar relationship with Western as well. To support both of those organizations in their efforts and to help train their athletes to give them a variety of terrain and a variety of opportunities and events to participate in that will support their efforts.
Ideally. You know, it'd be great to have an athlete come out of western Colorado and go to the Olympics. That would be a huge win, I think, for everybody.
LP: Thank you for your time, Micah.
MM: You're very welcome. Thank you very much.
