LEADVILLE — The future of Colorado Mountain College’s nearly 55-year-old ski area operations program is stacked neatly in a piney copse. And that pile of lift towers and platter chairs — Steamboat’s old Rough Rider surface chair — could be one solution to the ski resort industry’s growing workforce struggles.

With a new used chairlift, a revitalized ski hill and an overhauled ski area operations program developed with ski resort partners, CMC’s Leadville campus hopes its student-run Dutch Henry ski area will expedite training for an industry laboring to retain lift mechanics, equipment operators and other technical workers. The school’s little ski hill could also grow into a community amenity and help groom a new generation of skiers in a town that has long supported the resorts in nearb

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