Ski Apache first opened under the name "Sierra Blanca Ski Resort" during Christmas of 1961. Amazingly, twenty-six hundred people an hour were fast carried up the ski run crest via three T-bars. Only one year later, in '62, the very first mono-cable four-passenger gondola in all of North America was built to accommodate an even greater number of skiers. And, just in time, since twenty-five thousand skiers showed up for the second season.

As it stands today, the gondola is still the only one in existence within the state of New Mexico. From the base to the crest, this gondola extends approximately seventeen hundred vertical feet ... over a mile and a half ride up to the greater reaches of the wondrous Sacramento Mountain range. Currently, the gondola operates most of the year ... carrying both skiers and summer/winter visitors up to the Apache Bowl ... at 11,500 feet elevation. See Summer at Ski Apache.

From 1963 to today, the ski resort has been owned and operated by the Mescalero Apaches. Only two years after its official opening in '61, Robert O. Anderson, the wealthy oil man who first subsidized and opened the slopes, sold the ski slope to the able hands of the Mescalero Apaches. It wasn't until the 1984-85 season that the slopes were appropriately named "Ski Apache".

The wood-spired lodge, that still stands today, was designed by Victor Lundy...who was proclaimed as America's Outstanding Architect in 1958. Since the opening season of 1961, this lodge has stood statuesque below the crest ... with wood spires reflective of the surrounding pines, the lodge mirrors the naturalness and elegance of the Sacramento Mountains; Lundy succeeded in introducing Modernism architecture with a practical eye towards the skier's needs.

Below: An Older Postcard circa 1961
Illustrating the Lodge after it was recently built.

Below: A recent photo of the lodge.

Stay tuned here for more history spots to come!!!