In the 1930s, a group of daring visionaries believed they could build a European-style ski resort high in the Colorado Rockies that might one day rival the grand destinations of the Alps. Their chosen site was Mount Hayden, rising above the ghost town of Ashcroft near Aspen—a snowy paradise they hoped would become a winter sports haven, complete with cutting-edge aerial tramways, bobsled tracks, and a charming alpine village. While the project made it as far as establishing the Highland Bavarian Lodge and drawing up sweeping plans, history ultimately had other ideas. World War II, financial struggles, and shifting priorities would eventually lead to the abandonment of what could have been one of the most ambitious ski resorts in North America.
Origins and Early Ambitions
The vision for “Ski-Hayden” germinated in the 1930s when a group of wealthy winter sports enthusiasts set out to create the European-style ski resort in the Colorado Rockies. A chance encounter in 1932 at a California party between Aspen local Tom “TJ” Flynn and Olympic bobsled champion Billy Fiske sparked the idea. Fiske, along with his friend Theodore “Ted” Ryan (an heir operating out of New York), dreamed of an American ski destination to rival the great resorts of the Alps. They zeroed in on the Castle Creek Valley near the ghost town of Ashcroft, just south of Aspen, as the ideal location. Fiske even reportedly exclaimed, “This is it!” upon seeing snow-laden Mount Hayden and the surrounding alpine meadows in 1936, convinced the terrain could “supersede St. Moritz” in Switzerland as a world-class ski paradise.
With that conviction, Fiske and Ryan teamed up with Flynn and other backers, including investor Robert Rowan and Denver businessman Tom Harrison, to form the Highland Bavarian Corporation in 1936. Backed by family wealth and high society connections, the group raised funds to jump-start Aspen’s first major ski enterprise. By late 1936 they constructed the Highland Bavarian Lodge at the confluence of Castle and Conundrum Creeks, about 12 miles up Castle Creek Valley from Aspen. This log lodge became the nucleus of the envisioned resort, opening on December 26, 1936, as Aspen’s first ski lodge. At $7 per night (around $120 today), guests received rustic but upscale accommodations: a Bavarian-themed retreat with hand-crafted bunk beds, a grand double-sided stone fireplace, and an Austrian chef preparing hearty meals. Importantly, the lodge offered ski touring excursions on the surrounding slopes–a taste of the ski terrain that the partners hoped to fully develop.
From the outset, the founders’ ambitions were grand. They imagined a winter sports paradise in Colorado that would obviate the need for Americans to travel to Europe. As one promotional brochure boldly proclaimed: “Aspen, Colorado, is a place where you can indulge in winter sports without having to get a passport, wrestle with the Atlantic, stop in Paris at the expense of your health, and come all the way back again.” This cheeky pitch (penned by humorist Robert Benchley in a brochure titled How to Aspen) underscored the project’s initial vision: to create a stateside answer to the Alps, complete with Old World charm and modern ski facilities.
Grand Plans: Terrain, Design, and Infrastructure
The Highland Bavarian investors quickly set about mapping an expansive ski resort centered on Mount Hayden (13,300 feet) near Ashcroft. In 1936–37 they enlisted renowned European mountaineers André Roch of Switzerland and Dr. Günther Langes of Italy–both expert skiers and avalanche specialists–to survey the area’s potential. After exploring the Elk Mountains on skis, Roch and Langes concluded the terrain was ideal for a “Euro-style” ski area, favoring the upper Castle Creek Valley around Ashcroft (beneath Hayden Peak) over areas closer to Aspen due to better sun exposure and lower avalanche risk. Their endorsement set in motion extraordinarily ambitious plans for Ski-Hayden.
At the heart of the design was a massive aerial tramway that would whisk skiers from the valley floor at Ashcroft up to a high saddle near Mount Hayden’s summit. Plans called for an octagonal tram cabin carrying dozens of skiers nearly 4,000 vertical feet over a span of about 3.2 miles to an elevation of around 13,000 feet. Surveyors even plotted the tram route by 1938, envisioning it as a European-style “tellaferry” (or teleféric cable car) climbing from Ashcroft to the ridge. From the top station near Electric Peak, skiers would access a vast network of runs: roughly 15 ski trails were flagged to descend nearly 5,000 vertical feet from Mount Hayden down into Castle Creek Valley. These runs included open alpine bowls (such as the broad American Bowl on Hayden’s flank) and long pistes dropping through timber into the valley. The scale of vertical drop–far exceeding most ski areas of the era–promised an unrivaled downhill experience.
But downhill skiing was only part of the grand vision. Langes, in particular, outlined a full winter sports Mecca. His report proposed not just ski pistes and lifts, but also facilities for ski jumping, bobsled and skeleton sledding tracks, and even skijoring (skiers pulled by horses). He suggested damming a swampy area north of Ashcroft to create an ice skating and hockey lake, and building a ski jump stadium as a dramatic focal point for the resort. In essence, the Ski-Hayden complex would host every alpine sport imaginable–echoing the all-encompassing winter resorts of the European Alps.
Plans for the base area were equally elaborate. Architect Ellery Husted drafted concepts for an alpine village at Ashcroft–dubbed a “Williamsburg Village of the West” for its quaint, historic stylings that would serve as the resort’s communal hub. The ghost town of Ashcroft, a former silver mining camp, was acquired by the investors in 1937 to provide the site for this base village. The idea was to transform Ashcroft into a Swiss-style ski village with shops, hotels, and amenities for thousands of visitors. Langes envisioned an initial 50-60 bed hotel to open quickly, followed by expansion to an eventual 4,000–6,000 guest bed capacity in multiple lodges and chalets. Importantly, he advocated for tiers of accommodation–from luxury to modest–to welcome all income levels of skier. Summer use of the facilities was also planned, including guided mountaineering, horseback riding, and scenic tram rides, to make the resort a year-round attraction.
In summary, the Ski-Hayden project in the late 1930s was extraordinarily bold and ahead of its time. A state-of-the-art tramway, dozens of ski runs, an alpine village, and a multi-sport winter park were on the drawing board. Had it been realized, it would have been one of North America’s most extensive ski resorts, conceived in the spirit of St. Moritz or Chamonix but on Colorado soil. The groundwork seemed to be laid: the land was secured, surveys completed, and the skiing potential proven. All that remained was to marshal the resources to build it.
Early Progress and Publicity
In the late 1930s, momentum began building behind the Ski-Hayden dream. The Highland Bavarian Lodge became the staging point for early operations and a tool for publicity. Throughout the winter of 1936–37, guests at the lodge would strap climbing skins to their skis and trek up Richmond Ridge or into the Hayden Peak basin to sample the powder, then ski back down to the valley and the cozy lodge. The corporation even cleared a primitive ski trail and offered 50-cent sleigh rides farther up Castle Creek to give skiers easier access to higher terrain. For those less inclined to hike, a gentle practice slope across the creek from the lodge provided ski lessons and hosted Aspen’s first organized ski races in February 1937. European ski instructors like the famed Otto Schniebs visited, and even the German national ski team trained at the lodge in 1937, lending international cachet to the fledgling resort.
The lodge itself, with its authentic Bavarian ambiance, served as a living advertisement for the European flavor of the project. Traditional alpine decor and jovial après-ski gatherings were the norm. In fact, under the eaves of the lodge was painted the slogan “Ski Heil!” – a popular pre-war German skiing greeting–alongside Bavarian folk art figures. (Only later, after World War II, would that phrase take on awkward connotations, but at the time it underscored the founders’ Continental ski heritage.)
The Highland Bavarian Winter Sports Carnival in early 1937 drew crowds to Castle Creek for ski races and festivities, affirming Aspen’s emergence onto the American ski scene. Local newspapers and national magazines began taking note of Aspen as a rising ski destination. Ted Ryan even produced Technicolor ski films showcasing Aspen’s powder slopes: in Chicago in 1937 he screened footage of expert skiers schussing five miles down Mount Hayden to Ashcroft, thrilling audiences with the area’s potential. Skiers and sportsmen on the East Coast and in Europe were hearing the buzz about “Ski-Hayden.”
To attract capital and political support, the team aggressively promoted its vision. In 1936 they published the whimsical How to Aspen brochure (written by humorist Robert Benchley) to entice investors and society patrons. Famed Austrian ski guide Andre Roch and Italian ski racer Count Langes were paraded as marquee advisors for the project. In 1939, Tom Flynn–the project’s on-site manager and unsung workhorse–launched a lobbying blitz for public funding. He traveled tirelessly between Denver and Washington, D.C., campaigning for government backing of the tramway as a job-creating infrastructure project in the late Depression era. His efforts bore fruit: in March 1941, the Colorado Legislature passed an emergency measure authorizing $650,000 in state bonds (equivalent to about $10 million today) to finance the aerial tramway up Mount Hayden. That funding was to be backed by a federal Reconstruction Finance Corporation loan, a remarkable commitment of public money to a ski resort venture. By this time, the vision had gained considerable legitimacy. Even skeptical observers had to acknowledge the serious momentum behind Ski-Hayden.
As Ted Ryan wrote in an April 1940 letter amid the push for funds, a new ski film of “Otto Schniebs and a party of five famous champions zooming down Mt. Hayden” was “perhaps the most thrilling ski picture ever filmed,” vividly illustrating the promise of the terrain. By late 1941, it seemed the pieces were finally falling into place: the land, the plans, the expert endorsements, and now the financing for Ski-Hayden were secured or within reach.
Financial Hurdles and Controversies
Behind the scenes, however, not everything was as idyllic as the promotional imagery suggested. The Ski-Hayden project faced significant financial and managerial challenges even before the war derailed it. The initial capital raised from the founders and early stock investors proved insufficient to cover the immense cost of the planned development. By 1938–39, the Highland Bavarian Lodge was struggling to turn a profit as a business, especially once the focus shifted toward planning the big ski area up the valley (and away from smaller day-to-day lodge operations). The lodge opened only sporadically after 1938 due to the uncertain finances. In letters preserved by the Aspen Historical Society, manager Tom Flynn sounded the alarm: the lodge needed repairs, bills were piling up, and creditors were suing the Highland Bavarian Corp over unpaid debts. The ambitious development had outpaced the private funding available. To keep the venture afloat, the company was forced to issue more stock to investors as a stop-gap measure.
Tensions grew among the partners as well. Flynn, based on-site in Aspen, was working overtime to promote the project and court funders, while key figures like Ryan and Fiske were often absent (Ryan was recuperating from a serious ski injury in the Northeast, and Fiske had business and personal engagements in New York and London). One account noted that the two acted like “distracted absentee owners,” leaving Flynn to shoulder much of the burden. Frustration mounted as construction on the actual ski lifts kept being delayed for planning and fundraising. There were also hints of a culture clash: the heavy German/Austrian influence (from the lodge décor to the slogan “Ski Heil!”) that had been a selling point now grew awkward as geopolitical tensions rose in the late 1930s. (Notably, by 1938-39, with Europe on the brink of war, having a Bavarian lodge with German skiing chants and even hosting the German ski team became politically sensitive, though this was a minor issue compared to the financial woes.)
One minor legal victory actually underscored the project’s struggles: in 1939, Colorado passed a law allowing the creation of a special park and recreation district to issue bonds for the tram, essentially permitting public investment in Ski-Hayden. While this was a boon, it was also controversial in that it was unusual for the government to back a private resort. Skeptics questioned using public funds for what some saw as a rich man’s folly. Nonetheless, Flynn’s lobbying convinced lawmakers that Aspen could become a major tourist draw, and the $650,000 bond authorization was approved in early 1941. The Aspen Times hailed the tramway funding as the key to finally starting construction that summer. Despite the behind-the-scenes financial stress–including ongoing creditor lawsuits and urgent appeals for cash–the project was still alive and poised to break ground given this infusion of support.
World War II and the Project’s Collapse
Just as Ski-Hayden neared its moment of truth, global events dealt a crushing blow. In September 1939, World War II erupted in Europe, and over the next two years the war clouds darkened any prospect of large-scale leisure development. The looming conflict became a “headwind for the project” after Hitler’s invasion of Poland. Even as Flynn was securing the tramway financing in early 1941, it was clear that the international situation was deteriorating. A personal tragedy then struck the leadership team: Billy Fiske, the charismatic driving force of the venture, had volunteered to fly for Britain’s Royal Air Force and was gravely wounded in combat. He died on August 17, 1940, from battle injuries, making him one of the first Americans killed in World War II. Fiske’s death robbed Ski-Hayden of its most passionate booster and public face. Ted Ryan was heartbroken at the loss of his close friend and partner. While Flynn and Ryan pressed on after Fiske’s passing, the project had lost a bit of its soul.
Then came the decisive turning point: the United States’ entry into World War II. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 forced the suspension of virtually all non-essential construction projects nationwide. Wartime restrictions and priorities took over. Federal authorities canceled all pending orders for steel and lift machinery for civilian use–including the critical equipment for Aspen’s aerial tram. The $650,000 in bonds that had been authorized suddenly had nowhere to go; building a ski resort was untenable when the nation was diverting resources to the war effort. By early 1942, plans for Ski-Hayden were effectively frozen indefinitely. As the U.S. geared up for war, Aspen’s grand tramway became an afterthought. Ted Ryan, recognizing the reality, went to Washington and offered up the entire Castle Creek/Ashcroft property to the U.S. Army for just $1 per year for the duration of the war. (He hoped the Army’s new ski troops might train there, which indeed they briefly did. In 1942 the 87th Mountain Infantry Battalion–forerunner of the famed 10th Mountain Division–conducted ski training exercises around Ashcroft before relocating to Camp Hale near Leadville.) This patriotic gesture ensured the area saw use during the war, but it also underscored that the ski resort project was being set aside for the greater cause.
Ultimately, World War II brought the Ski-Hayden dream to an abrupt end. By the time the war concluded in 1945, the world had changed and so had Aspen. Key members of the original team were gone or had moved on: Fiske was a fallen hero, Tom Flynn left Aspen during the war (he relocated back to California, and passed away in 1950), and Ted Ryan, was unable to serve in combat due to a prior injury and instead worked in intelligence service overseas. In the post-war years, Ryan would no longer pursue the giant ski resort at Ashcroft. Instead, attention in Aspen shifted to a different mountain: during the war years, 10th Mountain Division veterans and local visionaries (notably Friedl Pfeifer and industrialist Walter Paepcke) fixed their sights on developing Aspen Mountain right above town. By 1946–47, Aspen Mountain opened with chairlifts and the beginnings of a ski tourism industry, leveraging infrastructure in town. The massive Ski-Hayden concept up Castle Creek was essentially shelved and forgotten as Aspen’s energy pivoted to the more readily accessible mountain by the town. As one historian later noted, after the war “the focus would shift to the town of Aspen where an infrastructure already existed and the spirit of the dream of Fiske, Flynn and Ryan would be realized.” In short, Aspen did become a world-class ski resort–but on a different mountain and under different leadership than originally planned.
Aftermath: Abandonment and Legal Footnotes
Though Ski-Hayden was never built, there were a few final chapters to tie up. During the war, the Highland Bavarian Corporation essentially went dormant. Its assets–chiefly the lodge and Ashcroft land–remained in Ted Ryan’s possession. With the grand ski plans moribund, Ryan eventually decided to liquidate. In 1948 he formally dissolved the Highland Bavarian Corp, and a few years later in 1953, he sold the Highland Bavarian Lodge and its 83-acre property to a private buyer, who converted it into a personal residence. Thus, the lodge that once buzzed with ski tourists in the 1930s quietly became a family mountain retreat. Ashcroft itself reverted to a quiet ghost town; no ski lifts ever touched the slopes of Hayden Peak.
One coda to the saga came in the late 1960s. In 1967, Aspen Skiing Co. president D.R.C. “Darcy” Brown (Paepcke’s successor) invited André Roch back to Aspen for a helicopter tour of Mount Hayden–essentially a last look to see if the old ski area idea might still be viable. Roch brought along his original Ski-Hayden survey maps. After surveying the imposing terrain from the air, however, the conclusion was that the window had closed. Any modern attempt to develop Hayden would face enormous regulatory and environmental hurdles. As the Aspen Journalism account noted, by the late 1960s “to be feasible today Pitkin County and Forest Service approval would be hard to come by. In 1964, much of the Castle Creek headwaters (including Hayden’s east slopes) had been designated as part of the new Maroon Bells–Snowmass Wilderness Area, putting it off-limits to development. The brief 1967 heli-survey confirmed what many knew: Ski-Hayden was a dream that belonged to a bygone era of unregulated expansion, now overtaken by wilderness protection and a very different public attitude. No serious plans to revive the project ever surfaced again.
Interestingly, Ted Ryan did return to Ashcroft’s snowy meadows; not to build a downhill resort, but to pioneer a different kind of skiing. In 1971, he established Ashcroft Ober Aspen, the nation’s first private cross-country ski touring area, on the old Ashcroft townsite and surrounding lands. Ryan laid out groomed Nordic ski trails through the quiet valley and welcomed guests to experience the winter landscape under their own power. While far humbler than the 1930s vision, it kept the skiing spirit alive in Castle Creek. This cross-country operation (later simply called Ashcroft Ski Touring) continued in various forms and still operates today, offering Nordic skiing and sleigh rides–a legacy of Ryan’s persistence, albeit in a different discipline of the sport.
What Remains Today
Though the grand Ski-Hayden resort never materialized, its story left an indelible mark on Aspen’s skiing history. The most tangible remnant is the Highland Bavarian Lodge which still stands in the Castle Creek Valley as a relic of Aspen’s first ski dreams. Remarkably well preserved, the log lodge has changed little since it was built in 1936. It remained in private hands for decades (the Coffey family owned it from 1963 onward and maintained its rustic charm). By 2017 the historic lodge and its surrounding acreage were put on the market for $25 million, underscoring its value as both real estate and a piece of ski heritage. Local historians call it the “birthplace of skiing in the Aspen area,” and efforts to preserve it have been largely successful. In 2022, Pitkin County officially designated the Highland Bavarian Lodge and its bunkhouse as historic landmarks, allowing carefully managed restoration and even annual public tours to celebrate its history. Thanks to such measures, this seminal structure–where 1930s adventurers once warmed themselves after skiing down “Ski-Hayden”–will live on as a monument to Aspen’s unrealized ski resort.
Meanwhile, the ghost town of Ashcroft has been preserved as well, now managed by the Aspen Historical Society. Visitors can wander among the remaining old log buildings of Ashcroft, imagining it as the alpine village that never was. In winter, Ashcroft’s quiet trails host cross-country skiers rather than throngs of downhill skiers. On a snowy day, one can ski through the silent pine and aspen forests, much as guests did in the late 1930s, and gaze up at the high bowls of Mount Hayden. There are no lifts, no tramway cables stretching to the sky – only the natural silence of the wilderness. The slopes of Hayden Peak are today the domain of adventurous backcountry skiers willing to earn their turns. In fact, “Ski-Hayden” has become a classic backcountry ski tour for experts in Aspen, prized for its long powder run into Castle Creek. The terrain that was once nearly transformed into a busy ski area is now valued as pristine backcountry. In 1975, the federal government ensured it would stay that way by including the upper Castle Creek and Hayden Peak area in the protected Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness (solidifying protections that began in the 1960s).
The Ski-Hayden project’s rise and fall offers a fascinating ‘what if?’ in ski history. Had it succeeded, Aspen’s center of gravity might have shifted up Castle Creek, potentially making Ashcroft–not Aspen–the region’s ski metropolis. Instead, the failure of Ski-Hayden paved the way for Aspen Mountain’s development and Aspen’s subsequent emergence as a world-famous resort town. In that sense, the dream didn’t entirely die: it was reborn and reimagined by others, on a smaller scale at first, and grew into the Aspen/Snowmass ski complex known today. Yet, locals still recount the tale of Ski-Hayden with a mix of nostalgia and relief. Nostalgia for the romantic heroism of figures like Fiske and Ryan envisioning a ski utopia in the wilderness; relief that Castle Creek Valley was spared the bulldozers and remains a tranquil haven. As one modern Aspen historian noted, “but for … a war and the death of one of the project’s main boosters—there may have been a Hayden-centered, Euro-style alpine resort adjoining the ski mountains that exist here today.” The collapse of Ski-Hayden was a loss to skiing ambitions, but it also preserved a stunning piece of alpine environment.
Today, the legacy of the abandoned Ski-Hayden resort project is twofold. Culturally, it endures in Aspen’s collective memory and lore–a dramatic tale of vision, adventure, and the forces of fate. Physically, it survives in the form of that sturdy Bavarian lodge by Castle Creek and the untouched slopes of Mount Hayden above. Those slopes, once imagined as crowded ski pistes, now offer solitude to backcountry skiers and hikers, silently reminding us of the grand plans that nearly came to fruition. In the words of one early ski enthusiast involved in the project, Aspen had the “terrain in the Colorado high country that could [have] supersede[d] St. Moritz,” and while Ski-Hayden never rose, that very terrain remains, majestic and unsullied. The story of Ski-Hayden stands as a testament to Aspen’s pioneering ski spirit, the capricious turns of history, and the enduring value of its mountain landscapes.
