A Colorado ski area will remain closed for the 2024-25 season — with the future beyond that uncertain.

Near Durango, Hesperus Ski Area did not open this season after announcing what it called “an unforseen mechanical failure” regarding its one and only lift, built in 1962. Operators determined the gearbox, acting as the transmission between Bighorn Chairlift’s motor and bullwheel, needed to be replaced or rebuilt.

Managing Hesperus and also the area’s larger ski resort, Purgatory, Dave Rathbun said the team “struck out” on securing a replacement.

“We found, we think, a great contractor to rebuild the thing,” he said, “but it’s just going to be so expensive for what Hesperus can provide in terms of a return on that investment.”

He described the episode underscoring harsh business realities of the ski area, which Purgatory-owning Mountain Capital Partners acquired in 2016. Little Hesperus was seen as “a no-brainer,” Rathbun said, for catching skiing and tubing families around Christmas and remaining open into March.

Since 2016, “Really only once we’ve gotten it open by Christmas and run it through the holidays without interruptions and made it, in that case, to mid-March. We made money,” Rathbun said. “In every other year, something less than that has happened.”

He continued: “We know how it works, and that’s what’s led us to this point. There’s only one thing standing in our way of trying to make that happen every year, and that’s being able to get some water to make snow.”

By some, he said, the idea is rights to 3 million gallons.

That would allow coverage around mid-mountain for tubing and beginner skiers and snowboarders, Rathbun said. “Even if it doesn’t snow and we can’t get to the top of the mountain, that buys us time to get revenue coming in until it does snow.”

Rathbun said snowmaking talks have been ongoing “pretty much since day one” for Mountain Capital Partners, which last year added slopes in Nevada, New Mexico and Chile to its portfolio. Santiago’s Valle Nevado is the company’s first resort outside the western U.S.

That expansion amid Hesperus’s closure has led to some local outcry over the ski area being ignored. Hesperus has long been an affordable option for families and low-income communities around Durango, as well as a go-to for uphill skiers under the lights after work. Uphill access will be off-limits during the closure.

Company ownership “has a passion for these local, small hills,” Rathbun said. “When they close across the country, they leave gaping holes in the community, and we don’t want that.”

He called himself “an optimist” when it came to the ski area eventually opening: “I’ve got to believe there is a solution here somewhere. We’re just going to need some help to get there.”

Rathbun said 30 employees, mostly full-time, were displaced by the Hesperus closure. He said they were offered work at Purgatory, “and we do have a few that took advantage of that.”