By the 1980s, North American resorts were beginning to feature pedestrian villages with multiple attractions for families, including large day-care centers. Many resorts had low-rise buildings snuggled discreetly into their surroundings and plenty of open space, largely free of automobiles. Baby boomers and social trends favored the environment and plenty of interaction. Alain Lazard saw what was occurring and hoped to fulfill his dreams in Coldsteam Canyon.

Where is the Canyon?
The entrance is near the eastern tip of Donner Lake. Coldstream runs, roughly, east to southwest to the Sierra crest at Mt. Lincoln (8,383') that sits atop Sugar Bowl. The canyon has rugged, spectacular ridges mantled with Ponderosa pine and fir. It has one of the deepest snowfalls in the country, and its imposing geography makes visitors feel as though they're looking through the wrong end of a telescope.


Coldstream has an arc of ski-anywhere terrain as well as gentle slopes near the base. Along the upper ridges there are eye-popping fall lines that punctuate wide-open bowls and hang like saddlebags over rock-studded chutes.

"I discovered the site and thought it was very good," Lazard explained in those days. "It's near the freeway, has a flat area for the base, and it's quite sizeable, with over 4500 acres of skiable terrain. I imagined installing up to 20 lifts, including a gondola to the ridge below Tinker Knob (8,949'). Coldstream has a little bit of everything, from steep chutes to trees to lots of intermediate and beginner runs."


Lazard had made it a habit of knowing the ski industry. He was a graduate of France's University of Grenoble. He had a degree in ski area design and management, and he had strong European connections.

Lazard did a lot of surveying in Coldstream, and he entered into negotiations with five different owners of the property, including Southern Pacific whose railway traveled through the property. SP even maintained a small station, Eder, in the canyon.

"By 1984 the project was going nowhere," recalled Lazard when he was the North American representative for the French ski industry. "Southern Pacific and the Bohemia Company out of Eugene, Oregon owned most of the land. I was associated with a French company called Grand Travel de Marseilles (GTM). It had built Las Lenas in South America and was interested in expanding into North America."

Lazard established a joint venture between GTM and Southern Pacific and helped negotiate a land exchange with Bohemia.

"I flew to Eugene on Southern Pacific's corporate jet for a series of serious meetings," Lazard remembered. "Bohemia didn't want to get directly involved, but the company was willing to sell its substantial, land holdings."

Soon, thereafter, Southern Pacific went into a merger with Sante Fe Railroad. The Coldstream project was put on hold. In 1987, Bohemia sold 40,000 acres in Coldstream to a private party and the land was eventually put into a trust.

"Priorities changed," said Lazard. "It could have been a high quality resort that would have competed with Palisades Tahoe and Alpine Meadows. It would have been a fully integrated, self-contained resort that would have relieved traffic into the Tahoe Basin. I think it could have eventually been joined to Sugar Bowl and even have had a skier train from the Bay Area deliver people right into Coldstream's village. Who knows?

"The perfect, physical fitness of the canyon will never change. Maybe in 50 years things will be different and the resort will eventually be built."


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