Lutsen Mountains Ski Resort is beautiful this fall. Part of that is the natural warm colors of autumn, of course. But something else also is at work: The buildings and grounds, even those still in the throes of an upgrade, exude care, pride, and anticipation.
And that is remarkable: The resort, its owners, and staff have endured a number of severe blows over the past several years: The collapse of the economy during the covid pandemic; the fire that claimed Papa Charlies, which served as restaurant, music venue, and nerve center for the resort; a significant adjustment in resort ownership; a generational transition in management and the no-snow winter of 2023-24. To see it recover with such grace is gratifying. The health of the resort is essential to the health of the Cook County economy. Plus, it’s just nice to see it looking so well.
In an interview at the resort, owner Charles Skinner explained the evolution of Lutsen Mountains as it escapes the shadow of this difficult recent past. Over the last year, Charles has adjusted to becoming sole owner; in line with a long-standing agreement, he purchased the share of the resort owned by brother-in-law Tom Rider.
Charles and his family also own Granite Peak Ski Area in Wausau, Wis., and Snowriver Mountain Resort in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, which together are branded as “Midwest Family Ski Resorts” (midwestfamilyskiresorts.com). With his daughter and designated successor Charlotte, Charles has been developing a company that spans all three resorts. Much of the administration, he says, is centered in Wausau, which is much less remote than the other two and has more housing available for staff.
The strategy, Charles said, is to build a regional destination of resorts that can appeal to skiers from the metro areas around Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis. “Most ski days for Midwesterners are spent at midwestern resorts,” Charles said, “not at western resorts. Where a trip to Vail might cost $5,000, a trip to Lutsen Mountains might cost $1,000.”
The Skinners have been upgrading all the resorts, adding two high speed chairlifts last year, including the new Raptor 6 lift at Lutsen and the new Voyageur 6 lift at Snowriver, the first and only high-speed lift in the Upper Peninsula. At Snowriver, improvements have also involved pretty much a total overhaul of the buildings, which had been allowed to deteriorate.
At Lutsen Mountains, the most urgent improvements have focused on replacing the facilities and capacity lost when Papa Charlie’s burned in June 2023. Large expansions and improvements are underway for the building the Skinners now call the “Scandinavian Chalet,” which will serve as the restaurant, bar, seven-day-a-week music venue, and get-out-of-the-cold center for skiers. The new Papa Charlie’s, for which construction started in early October, will come online next spring, Charles said. It will occupy the same spot as the old building.
The new building, Charles said, will not include an entertainment space beyond room for one or two musicians; the main music venue will remain at Scandinavian Chalet. In addition to offering dining and space for relaxing in the traditional lodge style, the new building will include eight studio lodging units, “the nicest on the North Shore,” Charles said.
A central element to the improvements at Lutsen Mountains is a new and consistent design and color scheme for all the buildings. The old ski school building has been remodeled into a ski ticket sales booth on one side and a lodging reception center on the other. The building’s mixture of materials and color scheme will serve as a model for the entire resort. “I would like to recruit about four painters to come here for the year and just do it all at once to supplement all the carpentry and rock work that we will do inhouse,” he said.
A traditional saying about skiing at Lutsen is that there must be three or four inches of snow on the ground in Minneapolis before metro minds turn to skiing at Lutsen Mountains; otherwise, folks in Minneapolis are getting out their golf clubs. Charles says he thinks that is changing as the climate warms: Twins Cities skiers no longer need “snow on the ground here” to ski; rather, they expect “snow in the mountains up there,” similar to some western communities where people are can play in the snow without having to live in it.
Lutsen Mountains has continued to invest in additional snow-making capacity so it can offer increased skiing terrain, but Charles also is expecting the winter of 2024-25 to be a good one for snow. “Last year’s no-snow year was an El Niño year,” he said, “the worst by far I’ve ever seen. Typically, those years are warmer, so last winter we got rain instead of snow. This year is La Niña, which can bring more cold and snow, brutal cold if it’s a really strong La Niña.”
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) forecasts a La Niña for this winter, but in recent days has adjusted that forecast from “moderate” to “weak.”
Skinner plans to open more of the Lutsen Mountains terrain earlier this winter, he said, aided by the investment in additional snow-making infrastructure. In early October, visible work was being done on new pipelines bringing snow-making water and electricity to new areas of the resort. “We’ll open the Raptor high-speed lift first this year,” he said. “That’ll open more terrain earlier in the season.”
High-speed lifts are a big emphasis for Skinner. “We have the biggest and most modern ski areas in the eight midwestern states,” he said. “We’ve got five of the six high-speed lifts over 500 vertical feet, the Midwest’s only gondola, and six high-speed chairlifts in total offering 492 to 800 vertical feet each, much more than other midwestern resorts.”
Lutsen Mountains is one of the resorts opened post-World War II by veterans of the famed Tenth Mountain Division, which trained in the mountains of Colorado and fought in the mountains of Italy. Visionary George Nelson, whose family owned Lutsen Resort, opened Lutsen Mountains in 1948 with one lift and two runs. His ski area predated Vail Resort by 14 years. The Nelson family continued to grow Lutsen Mountains until 1980, when it was sold to Charlie Skinner, a ski-resort pioneer and early snow-making expert. Charlie sold the resort to son Charles and son-in-law Tom Rider in the 1990s. Charles and Tom oversaw a substantial expansion and modernization of the resort over the years, including installation of the impressive Summit Express Gondola in 2015.
In 2024, even as Charles Skinner is focused on rebuilding and refurbishing Lutsen Mountains, he’s also setting in place a new, young management team. Daughter Charlotte, who lives with her husband near the Wausau resort, serves as chief operating and financial officer for Midwest Family Ski Resorts. Jim Vick, who served as marketing director cum factotum-in-chief for three decades and then general manager, has been replaced by young Zak Trimble, who serves as chief operating officer at Lutsen. “I think we are developing a good, young team to carry the company forward,” said Charles, who at 66 recognizes that time is fleeting.
The outlook for Lutsen Mountains appears strong. Investments are being made and plans developed to inject new vigor into the resort and continue its successful operation long into the future. That is very good news for the people of Cook County, who count on Lutsen Mountains to be a key element in their tourism dominated economy.