Elk Mountain Resort Up for Sale

OURAY COUNTY – The reverberations of the worldwide economic collapse echo silently along the old freight road between Montrose and Telluride, where just a few years ago development seemed to have reached a fever pitch.

Today, the iron gates of Thomas Forman’s ambitious Elk Mountain Resort are closed, and the developers of Hideout Lake, a much-touted golf course residential development, appear to have pulled up stakes.

Elk Mountain Resort, a backcountry destination that boasted the Valhalla Shooting Club, opened to much fanfare in 2004. The club offered typical high-end resort amenities, with seemingly constant guest shuttles from the Montrose Airport, and the added enticement of shooting sports – including “scenario” rooms for live fire.

Now, the resort, open to members only for the last year and a half, is up for sale.

“We still have maintenance and security staff and night watch, but no guest services staff,” said property manager Randy Willis.

“It was a corporate decision from the parent company,” he said.

However, locals noticed a marked decrease in resort traffic long before Elk Mountain laid off its last employees on March 16.

Elk Mountain Resort, located in Ouray County, had received permission to plow Dave Wood Road between Telluride and Montrose during the winter months, but Montrose County pulled the plow permit after promised road improvements were not completed, and the largely Telluride-based membership found the resort difficult to access.

Brian Wilson, of Montrose County Road and Bridge, said the resort never generated much more than headaches for Montrose County.

“There was a lot of impact in Montrose County,” Wilson said, “but not a lot of benefit for Montrose County. We mostly saw nuisance activity.”

Plans for improvements to the Horsefly section of Dave Wood Road were driven largely by the developers of Hideout Lake, who planned for 374 residential units on 1,200 acres with an 18-hole golf course created by Jack Nicklaus.

Located just off Dave Wood Road in both Ouray and Montrose counties, the high-end community had prepared wildlife mitigation plans and arranged for water to be trucked in through a local supplier. The developers had also agreed to pay a surety of $8.5 million in Montrose County and $1.7 million in Ouray County as a guarantee of infrastructure. Last summer, the Montrose Daily Press reported that Montrose County had approved the high-end community's subdivision improvements agreement and its filing for the first 170 lots to be developed.

Now, development appears to have slowed to a halt, and so have any plans to improve the road.

“They (Hideout) basically quit, and did not obligate themselves to final improvements of the road,” Wilson said. “Our biggest concern over Dave Wood Road right now is keeping it as dust free as possible.”

While the road across Horsefly Park does need to be upgraded to a two-lane capacity, options for public funding have not been explored, Wilson said.

The loss of potential development means that the old road, portions of which follow the original route of famed freight king Dave Wood, will remain quiet for some time to come.

San Miguel County Commissioner Art Goodtimes, who has paid close attention to development between Telluride and Montrose, called the loss of Elk Mountain Resort and possible disappearance of Hideout Lake a “one-two punch.”

“Without development, there is no money,” he said, adding that any improvements to the intersection at Horsefly Road are currently on hold. “There is hardly any pressure to open up that area.”