Badger Pass Ski Area: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Yosemite National Park, National Park Service

National Park Service

The Badger Pass Ski Area is a 282‑acre winter sports facility, located along the south rim of the Yosemite Valley along Glacier Point Road. The ski area is part of a large geographic and cultural area—the Glacier Point Road Historic District. This district includes three developed areas— Glacier Point, Bridalveil Creek Campground, and Badger Pass Ski Area. The Badger Pass Ski Area is most appropriately documented as a historic site, as the location of a pattern of significance events. The Badger Pass Ski Area, located at an elevation range of approximately 7,200 feet to 7,800 feet, is characterized by rolling, north‑facing mountain peaks lined with stands of conifers leading to a protected meadow below. The location of Badger Pass is an important component of its significance, as a recreational site that developed due to its unique geography, topography, and natural systems and features. The site includes fourteen buildings and structures, two of which were constructed during the period of significance, which extends from 1934 to 1953. The site appears to be eligible as a historic site for listing in the National Register of Historic Places at the local level of significance under Criterion A (Event) for its association with the development of winter sports recreation in Yosemite in the early twentieth century. The Badger Pass Ski Area served as a center of professional and amateur downhill ski competitions in California and the United States from the 1930s through the 1950s. Over time, a number of regional, statewide, and national ski competitions were held at Badger Pass. In 1942, Badger Pass hosted the first National Ski Championships to be held in California, and the only national ski competition to be held during World War II. Today, Badger Pass continues to be actively used as a ski area and remains an important recreational amenity within Yosemite National Park. The Yosemite Park & Curry Company, Yosemite’s first concessionaire, constructed the Badger Pass Ski Area. Delaware North Companies (DNC) now operates the ski area during the winter months, and coordinates facility maintenance and development with the National Park Service.The Badger Pass Ski Area is comprised of the following landscape characteristics, which contribute to the historic significance of the site: natural systems and features, spatial organization, land use, circulation, topography, vegetation, buildings and structures, and views and vistas. The site retains sufficient integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling and association to convey its historical significance as one of California’s first developed downhill ski areas.

Badger Pass Ski Area: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Yosemite National Park, National Park Service

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