The snow crunches under Alan Henceroth’s feet as he clicks out of his bindings and starts to hike across a wind-swept slope at Arapahoe Basin Ski Area. It’s 2 p.m. on a Friday in early November, and Henceroth, the chief operating officer of A-Basin, wants to check on the progress of the new Lenawee Express, a high-speed, detachable, six-person chairlift that is set to replace a fixed-grip triple. The $7 million upgrade will dramatically increase uphill capacity and cement A-Basin’s lift fleet as one of the most modern in North America—no small distinction for the 76-year-old anti-resort, whose A-frame lodge walls are dotted with black-and-white photos. “I think we’re really setting ourselves up for the long run with this thing,” Henceroth says, gazing through the lift terminal at the towering East Wall.
Henceroth, who turns 62 this month, has short white hair, a tan, clean-shaven face, and deep blue eyes. He is a die-hard skier who started working as a ski patroller at A-Basin 34 years ago. His stoic demeanor comes from his father, a B-17 pilot in World War II who was shot down near Berlin and spent eight months in a German prisoner-of-war camp. Henceroth grew up in Tucson, Arizona, and didn’t learn to ski until he was in middle school—and then only by taking Greyhound buses to Flagstaff on weekends.
In 1983, he moved to Colorado and started patrolling at Keystone, a gig that led to his career at nearby A-Basin. For four years, he lived with his wife and two young children in an apartment above the ticket windows. Since 2005 he’s
