Re: Skiing on La Veta?

Bill:
I never saw a mention of LaVeta, but it does not surprise me. Skiiing was becoming very popular. There were not many organized ski areas yet and the trains offered an easy way to get to some good skiing areas. My impression is that some of the skiing was really cross country more than downhill. There was a fair amount of sledding at Los Pinos and Cumbres. The sleds would be carried in the baggage cars.
Some folks along the Chili Train route planned a ski train that would go to Antonito and then to Cumbres, but as far as I can tell, it never happened.
The Marshall Pass ski train were an even bigger deal and the D&RGW ran specials from Denver, Colorado Springs, and Pueblo to Salida to the narrow gauge ski trains. There are B&W movies of the largest of the ski trains and it was a doubleheader with two K37s. It met a ski train from Gunnison at Marshall Pass and was powered by number 472. Some people who could not get on the ski train, rode the Shavano to the summit and caught the evening train back.
One interesting tidbit was that the skiers from Gunnison used theater show paint on their faces as a kind of primitive sun blocker. The paper said you could recognize the ones from Gunnison by the paint. The D&RGW had to bring out all their remaining passenger cars for these trains. They even used a couple of coaches that had been put into MOW service. The D&RGW even ran ads for these trains in the Denver Post and other papers. They ran in 36, 37, 38, but not in 39. I think they stopped because the Wolf Creek and Monarch ski areas had opened.
There is a prototype for running a ski (or snow train as they were sometimes called) train on Cumbres in the winter.
Anyway, makes for a fascinating story and I am working on an article and will publish it in the Prospector Magazine as soon as I complete some research on D&RGW ski trains in Utah.