Michael Brothers, owner, and operator of Woodmoor Nordic Center in Monument knows a thing or two about stamina.
Brothers taught at the Air Force Academy, researched human physiology, and competed professionally as a military competitive skier on a path to the Olympics. He continues to maintain his focus with precision. He created Woodmoor Nordic as a skiing destination because he loves cross country-skiing but didn’t want to drive 200 miles to do it.
“I’m an Air Force Academy grad. I was on the ski team as a college student, placed second in the nation my junior year, first in the nation the senior year, and had aspirations to go on to the Olympics.” The military, he says though, decides where one is assigned. Brothers put in requests for all northern-tier bases, places like Alaska, “Where I could keep on skiing, but I got sent to good old Biloxi, Mississippi, which doesn’t have a lot of snow.”
After a bit, he was reassigned to Fairchild Air Force Base (in Washington State) and was able to start skiing and ski racing again. He got picked for the World Class Athlete Program, which is the military’s program that allows certain officers to train for the Olympics.
Brothers represented the US and the US military at seven World Military Ski Championships. Most NATO-type countries have an Olympic event per se that’s only military because most European Olympians that compete are, in fact, “military,” and that’s how they’re paid.
A Life of Military Ski Racing Created Woodmoor Nordic Center
“I was racing against guys that have won medals at the Olympics.” Brothers narrowly missed making the US Olympic team in 2002, and then tried again in 2010. He said he was a little bit too old at that point. “I missed my window. I think had I been able to try out and train for 2006, that would’ve been my window. But I was neck-deep in my Ph.D. dissertation, so the timing just wasn’t good. But I raced – in skiing – at just below an Olympic level for decades.”
Being a personnel officer in the military allowed him to do some ski racing on the side. Along the way, he picked up a master’s degree in exercise physiology and returned to teach at the Air Force Academy. They sent him back to school to get a Ph.D., so he could run the human performance lab at the Air Force Academy.
As a result, he spent quite a bit of time in the El Paso County area even when he was training for the Olympics. “And I just hated having to drive 200 miles round trip to cross-country ski, because there are plenty of spots here in the Front Range that get enough snow to be able to ski. But you didn’t have anyone out there grooming the ski trails or anything. That’s kind of what motivated me to start the ski trails that we have here in Monument.”
That is how the idea for Woodmoor Nordic Center came about.
“I used to go up to Mueller State Park above Woodland Park. I would basically try to ski there. I would park and get on the trails and many times get yelled at because I wasn’t supposed to be on what was a ‘golf course’ in the middle of winter.”
Brothers says he quickly realized that out of all the places (“and there were more than a dozen and a half around here”) a golf course actually holds the snow the best. The greens at Woodmoor are just high enough in elevation. “And with Monument, it can be raining in Colorado Springs, and we’ll just get dumped on up here on the Palmer Divide.”
Understanding the Geography of Greens for Cross-Country Skiing
A lot of the greens at the Woodmoor Golf Course are north-sloping so it gets very little sunshine during the winter. Snow tends to collect there, and it doesn’t melt as fast. Realizing this fact when it came time to retire, Brothers settled in Monument and became a member of the country club at Woodmoor. “And then from inside, I pitched the idea of, ‘Hey, have you guys ever thought about trying to make some money on the golf course as a ski area in the winter since you can’t play golf six months out of the year up here?’”
The concern of the owners was if it was going to damage the greens and ruin them for the golfers. “I had to prove to them that this wasn’t the case,” It also helped that there were new owners at the time and the last three owners had gone bankrupt. “So, they were open to the suggestion. And I think 2015 was the year that we first started grooming the ski trails.”
Aside from protecting and safeguarding the space and greens from underground freezing, Brothers says there was the challenge of operating a Front Range ski area. Initially, the club wanted it only for country club members, but Brothers thought it was important to have it open to the public, primarily for the reason he got involved – to avoid driving 200 miles to go cross-country skiing.
Eventually, he opened up Woodmoor Nordic Center as an LLC which, he admits, is a terrible business model. “You’re not going to get rich running a Nordic ski center on the Front Range. But again, I didn’t do it as a money-making event. I wanted to do it, number one, so I could ski, and number two, so people that I know could ski.”
Brothers coached the Air Force Academy’s cross-country ski team for about 10 years, so he also wanted them to have a place to practice. “And then finally, just in the last two years, we were able to make it into a non-profit, which is, of course, a much better model for operating a Front Range ski area.”
Protecting and Safeguarding the Resource
Woodmoor Nordic Center is also part of the PPORA (Pikes Peak Outdoor Recreation Alliance). “There are very few places along the Front Range, besides the Colorado Springs/Monument area, where we have such easy access to such a huge, vast forest service. I mean, the mountains are right at our back door, with all of the trails for running, hiking, mountain biking, and gravel riding,”
It is important for the community to protect this resource. “Colorado Springs and Monument continue to grow and be rated as one of the top places in the country to live. But of course, with that comes the requirement that we take care of it for future generations and continue to make it better. That is still the challenge.”
He says specifically looking at the Woodmoor non-profit, they spend the summers planning and applying for grants. He also just launched a new website looking for volunteers who are willing to come out in winter to help move snow.
“With the storms and the wind, we get up here we have drifts that are six feet high. But then there will be spots where it’s bare.” He is looking for an army of volunteers who can shovel snow from one spot, load it onto a big sled, drive it to the spot that’s bare, and then empty it out. That can help immensely. This volunteer group then could log hours and based on that, they could get a discounted pass at the center for the next season.
Looking Toward the Future
Brothers says that he is looking at how to keep this business going. In two or three years, his kids will graduate from high school. “I don’t want to be spending my time getting up at 4 in the morning every morning to groom the trails, and then have to be grooming again at 7 o’clock at night. Like I tell most people, I started this whole thing for somewhat selfish reasons. I wanted a place to ski. And unfortunately, those reasons are still driving a lot of it.”
Brothers say it’s gotten to the point where the center has gotten so busy, especially when they have a good winter, that all his time is spent grooming and prepping the trails and renting skis. He hardly gets time to ski. “Everyone else is, which is great. So, it is about trying to expand the non-profit to the point where we have enough people that everyone can be helping but also be skiing, and taking advantage of [this great resource].”
