On a clear winter day at the Meadowlark Ski Resort just above Ten Sleep Canyon, you’ll see a breathtaking panoramic view of a frozen Meadowlark Lake and the surrounding peaks of the Bighorn Mountains, including Cloud Peak.
One thing you won’t see are lines.
In fact, even when there are several hundred skiers on the mountain, regulars who go to Meadowlark Ski Resort still feel like they have the place all to themselves.
That’s according to Buffalo resident Chopper Grassell, who is also an associate broker with Compass Land and Ranch in Jackson, which handled the Meadowlark listing.
“I’ve had the opportunity to ski all the ski areas in Wyoming,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “I grew up ski racing, and the one ski area I’d never skied until the last decade was Meadowlark.”
Grassell couldn’t believe it the first time he skied there.
“This is the best little ski area in Wyoming, I can assure you of that,” he said. “I was raised in Pinedale, and my kids all trained on Snow King and skied, as we all did, at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort.
"And Meadowlark, by a mile, is the greatest small ski area in Wyoming.”
That ski area has just changed hands.
At a time when billionaires and big corporations are snapping up mom-and-pop ski hills and turning them into posh playgrounds, Meadowlark’s new owners say they plan to keep it small and local.
The youthful owners, which include Jose Mas, want to build a community base camp for the long haul rather than a quick flip or a luxury resort.
That doesn’t mean, however, that they don’t have some pretty big plans.
Jose Mas is the new owner of Meadowlark Ski Resort. At right is the view from the lift. (Courtesy Photo) 
The sun sets over Meadowlark Ski Resort. (Courtesy Photo) 
The lodge at Meadowlark Ski Resort. (Courtesy Photo)
From Florida To The Bighorns
On paper, Mas might seem an unlikely savior for a small Wyoming ski area.
He grew up in Florida, but skiing tugged on his heartstrings very early in life and pulled him West. He went to the University of Colorado-Boulder, determined to spend his college years chasing white powder as often as he could.
“I just fell in love with skiing, snowboarding, that whole culture,” he said. “I would always go up to Arapaho Basin and Vail and Beaver Creek, and it just made me fall more and more in love every time.
"The peace, the people — it’s like there’s a certain vibe of people who come out here in groups to go ski. So I fell in love with that.”
After graduation, Mas moved back to Miami, but it didn’t take.
“I was missing the mountains a lot,” he said. “So I moved back to Colorado, and I met a lot of awesome people.”
He became part of a group that traveled around to national parks, which Mas came to realize are some of the most beautiful places in the world. They were incredible, but fragmented.
“When you want to go ATV, you have to get in a car and drive somewhere else,” he said. “When you want to go horseback riding, you got to get in a car and drive somewhere else. I never went to a national park where there was this full-on experience in one spot.”
That gave him the idea to start a business that would recreate a base camp experience like a national forest, but without fragmentation. It would be a one-stop shop for the outdoor adventurer.
“So me and my partners, we came out here to visit Meadowlark, and we instantly fell in love,” he said. “I mean, the land is just beautiful. And every time we would come and visit the locals would be up here and they’d always be like, ‘Hey, we want to take you here. We want to take you there.’”
Mas, in talking with Grassell and other locals who use Meadowlark regularly, learned that the community culture was amazing, but also that people were interested in adding to what was already a pretty great experience.
“We also skied the actual mountain, and there’s a lot of great runs up there,” Mas said.
Resisting Industry Consolidation
Nationwide, the ski industry has been consolidating fast.
Corporations and billionaires have been buying up mom-and-pop ski resorts and turning them into luxury brands with high-end amenities that seek to offer elevation both on off the ski slopes.
Grassel and Mas both understand the economics behind that trend, but it’s a path they both hope to avoid at Meadowlark.
Grassell, as an associate broker with Compass, said it was important to him to vet potential buyers. He wants to make sure buyers understand what they are getting into and will be a good cultural fit for Wyoming.
“What impressed me the most about these guys is they’ve been around in other businesses,” he said. “They’re long-term investors and they look at what they view as a space where they want to be long-term.
"They’re not known for buying and flipping companies. They’re known for being extremely loyal to their employee group and handling that part of their business extremely well.”
Mas, meanwhile, talks less like a developer and more like a 30-something ski bum who is just excited about having an entire mountain to offer a world full of other ski bums and adventurers.
“This winter was a little weak (for snow),” he said with a grin. “But I really liked Bull Run. It’s a blue that comes off of, it’s like the third or fourth run. It’s a really fun blue with a lot of nice playful jumps on the side.”
Mas added he’s heard about some hidden ski runs, and he can’t wait to try them out next season.
Horseback riding also will be available at Meadowlark Ski Resort. (Courtesy Photo) 
Cutting a snowmobile rail at Meadowlark Ski Lodge. (Courtesy Photo) 
Meadowlark Ski Resort nestled in the Bighorns in Washakie County. (Courtesy Photo)
When A Group From Florida Buys A Mountain
Mas has not come in with a glossy master plan or a high-key business pitch. He has instead been hanging out with locals and taking notes about what they’re interested in seeing at Meadowlark.
He’s also hosted local legends like longtime skier Charlie Hicks, who has been coming to Meadowlark since the 1960s, and other prominent area skiers to hear what they think would work at Meadowlark.
He’s dropped in on trivia night at the Ten Sleep Brewery, and he’s spent several evenings in surrounding communities like Buffalo, Sheridan, and Worland, talking to people about Meadowlark and what they’d like to see.
“There are going to be some skeptics,” Mas said. “You have a group from Florida who came in and bought a mountain, and they don’t know us. And just seeing what’s happened in the ski industry over the last 20 years, it’s obvious there are going to be people who are worried.”
But he said he’s just going to keep showing up and listening to what people have to say.
“We’re here to create, to build upon the legacy of what’s been here over the last 60 years,” he said. “We don’t want to change it. We want to add more things. We don’t want to kick people out of their home, and this is their home.
"We’re on a national forest at the end of the day, right? Everybody’s meant to come up here and enjoy.”
A Vision Of Meadowlark’s Future
Mas doesn’t talk about 20- to 25-year horizons when he speaks of the future at the resort.
“We’re not going to put a bunch of investment into this and sell it,” he said. “We want to be part of Wyoming, part of Meadowlark, part of Wyoming for the next 60 years and pass it down.”
Mas ultimately envisions a four-season resort with all the old experiences Meadowlark has always offered, plus a few that are new, working in conjunction with the Forest Service.
“We want to have the opportunity for someone to come up here and go horseback riding, and maybe take a horse over to an alpine lake and go fishing,” he said. “We want to basically have razors and ATVS that people can rent and go experience the National Forest.”
That’s been available all along, he added, it’s just never been formally offered.
“It’s the same as mountain biking, and beginner mountain climbing trails and things like that,” he said. “It’s been open but they’ve never been offered. So being able to expand that will be awesome.”
He also wants to have a coffee shop with grab-and-go sandwiches for climbers and campers as well as free Wi-Fi. He’d even like to start a free Meadowlark library, with books and artifacts that tell the story not just of the resort, but the history of the Bighorns.
It will take time to get there, Mas knows, and the resort will be closed this summer while they work on fixing cabins, answering Facebook comments, and turning the ski resort into a full-on basecamp for Wyoming adventure.
Then the resort will reopen for the next winter season.
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
