By Megan Michelson
It was past midnight when I spotted two lights outside the hut. I had been sleeping—or trying to sleep, anyway—in my upper bunk when I heard whispering and saw the twin spotlights. My heart rate accelerated and I could feel my stomach tighten with nerves. Who—or what—was out there, encircling our backcountry hut in the middle of the night? The lights moved in unison at first, surrounding the wooded area outside the hut, then they split off from each other and paused for an unbearably long time.
Had two strangers hiked up in the middle of the night? Were they about to burst in on the four of us girls, miles from the nearest help? Were the lights not even attached to people? I stared at the illumination for a few seconds and the orbs began to move again, coming toward the hut. I held my breath and felt myself choking on fear. Then I heard sounds—talking, shuffling of feet on the wooden deck, giggling. Giggling?
My friends Dana and Deb had gone outside to pee. They’d been too scared to go alone. And now they’d nearly frightened me to asphyxiation. All of our nerves were fried, and for good reason. We’d come to this hut—a former ski patrol shack at the top of what used to be Geneva Basin Ski Area, in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains— to search for the spirit of Edward Guanella. The one-time lift mechanic had been decapitated while installing one of the resort’s first chairlifts in the 1960s, and rumor has it he’s been making ghostly appearances ever since.
I’m not usually the ghost-hunting type, I swear. I usually scoff at science fiction films, and the closest I get to the supernatural is an occasional minute-long pose in a yoga class. But something about this abandoned ski area intrigued me, so we’d come fully prepared for a ghost hunt: I purchased a ghost meter—an eight-ounce, LED-lit plastic device I got on Amazon.com for 20 dollars—and the book Conducting a Paranormal Investigation: A Training Guide. I’d also called a paranormal expert for tips. And we stuffed our backpacks with standard ghostconjuring supplies: a book of scary stories, candles, a video camera, a box of wine, and a flask of tequila.
We needed the liquid courage. Though we were trying to summon the ghost of Headless Ed, I wasn’t sure if we’d actually have the guts to face him if he showed up.
During the construction of the Geneva Basin Ski Area in the early 1960s, a company called Heron Engineering was hired to install the Duck Creek double chair. Edward Guanella, the son of Paul Guanella, for whom the pass was named, was helping to hang the chairlift cable when he was decapitated. The community was stunned by the tragedy, but construction continued, and in 1963 the Geneva Basin Ski Area opened about 60 miles west of Denver. The area’s popular base sat at 10,500 feet in elevation, and the Duck Creek lift chair, along with a T-bar called Sundance, was crowded with weekend skiers accessing the rolling, family-friendly terrain.
During the winter of 1977–78, over a decade later, a man named Bill Halamicek was working late in the ski rental shop, setting up rental equipment for a large group that was coming in the next day. “A cold puff of wind or something made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up,” Bill says, recounting the memory. “I was annoyed, thinking it was the heating system, but then the power went out.”
The ski area was run by generators, and after the first generator went out, the backup generator should have started right away. It didn’t. Bill walked to the generator building 50 yards away and the backup suddenly kicked on. “Then I distinctly heard someone walking in the office above me. But no one was there,” Bill recalls. “The electrician I quizzed the next day said that what happened was impossible—if the backup did not kick on immediately, it never would have started up five minutes later. I never believed in ghosts, but this made me a believer.” Bill continued to have freaky encounters. One night, he was in the lodge with five other people when the wooden cafeteria doors flung wide open, as if someone was holding them. “A draft definitely did not cause it,” Bill says. “Trust me. I looked for a fishing line or something.” Another night, he heard footsteps walking toward him in the cafeteria that he knew was otherwise empty.
The ski area closed briefly in the mid-1980s and budget shortfalls ultimately shut the place down for good in 1987. When a mysterious fire burned down the main lodge shortly after, some old-timers speculated that the fire was an act of Headless Ed. The cabin that remains today is maintained by an organization called GEMS, which was formed by a one-time Geneva Basin ski patroller named Hank Grote. When the U.S. Forest Service tried to tear down the hut in 1995, Grote convinced them to let it stand. “I was amazed how much effort there was to keep the cabin open,” says Grote, now 65. “People came from all over to do maintenance and repair work. They brought up shovels and saws and painted the hut and built benches.”
Today, it’s free, open to the public, and doesn’t have a cumbersome reservation system like some of Colorado’s other backcountry huts. The green-painted cabin is equipped to sleep seven; stocked with an assortment of bunks, propane cook stoves, dishes, board games, and memorabilia—maps, snowshoes, and caution signs— from the ski area.
But as for the ghost of Edward Guanella? It’s been a while since anyone’s seen him. “I don’t know much about that ghost story,” Grote says. “The hut used to have a bad mouse problem—people were getting woken up by scurrying mice. But that’s probably the scariest thing up there now.”
We’d find out. The first time I visited the old Geneva Basin ski patrol shack, there was a fresh coat of snow on the ground. My boyfriend and I skinned in on telemark gear, spent a night by the wood-burning stove, and skied powder down to our car in the morning. The only signs of a headless ghost were creepy stories and bump-in-the-night tales that previous overnighters taped to the wall. We did have a rodent encounter, which was enough to pique my curiosity about Ed.
A few months later, I decided to go back to the hut to try to connect with him. I called the leader of a ghosthunting team called Pure Paranormal, a woman named Masandra Gray. Masandra grew up in a haunted house in the South—the kind of place, she says, where spirits would pick you up and throw you across the room. Rather than living in fear, at the age of 11 she decided to become a ghost hunter. She snapped photos of the spirits in her own house and eventually bought high-tech equipment for paranormal research. “We don’t cajole spirits,” Masandra told me. “We don’t do ouija boards or séances. We use a scientific process and equipment that can prove the presence of a spirit, equipment that can measure visual, audio, thermal, electronic recordings.”
I was relieved. The idea of a tarot card–toting gypsy summoning ghosts with chants and candles seemed over the top for my taste. I’m curious, but skeptical when it comes to mysticism. Masandra’s technique—and who doesn’t believe a ghost hunter with a name like Masandra?—seemed scientific, almost plausible. I told her about my mission to return to the potentially haunted Geneva Basin hut with a few girlfriends and I asked her for advice on tracking down Headless Ed. “Women are actually more suited for ghost-hunting than men,” she told me. “We have that sensitive quality and strong instincts and intuition that we’re born with,” she assured me, “That’s why most psychics are women.”
Her suggestions to find Ed included a few rules: Keep the group no bigger than four people and no dogs—you don’t want to overcrowd the space and scare off the spirits. If intending to record electronic voice phenomenon (or EVPs, as they’re known in the ghost world), plan out some common questions to ask the spirit: What is your name? Are you male or female? What is your age? Avoid yes or no questions, Massandra warned.
The paranormal investigation guide book I bought online offered a few more helpful tips: Don’t whisper (it can be hard to differentiate your whispering from paranormal interference), don’t smoke (smoke can result in false mists in photographs), don’t wear perfume (floral scents are thought to be a signal of the presence of spirits), and watch out for using camera flashes (the blinding light could cause you to miss a visual paranormal event).
Deb, JT, Dana, and I got to the hut just before dusk on a Friday night, after zig-zagging a mile from the car along old ski trails. We cooked an easy dinner and drank wine by candlelight, talking about friends who have died, and recounting creepy stories from our past—like the time Deb got lost late at night in Rome, or the time JT caught a ride with some creepy men on an oil rig in the Bahamas. We quickly realized that together we had less experience with ghosts than Massandra has in her little finger.
It didn’t deter us. As the night wore on, I pulled out the ghost meter—sensitive enough, says the box, to detect minute electromagnetic energy fluctuations at haunted sites. We waited anxiously, looking down at the device’s needle, which should bounce in the presence of ghostly forces. Nothing happened. We asked a few of our prepared questions into the dark, thin air and waited for some kind of sign or response. Nothing. It didn’t take long before we grew skeptical of the ghost-hunting mission, lit a fire—breaking one of our ghost hunting rules—drank some more wine, told a few more spooky stories, and eventually fell asleep without any sign from Headless Ed.
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Five Haunted Ski-Town Destinations
Hotel Jerome; Aspen, Colorado: Originally built in 1889 and the home of Aspen’s first bar, the legendary Hotel Jerome is now a trendy hotspot for Gucci-clad tourists. Over the years, ghostly stories from the historic hotel have surfaced, like the one about the 10-year-old boy who was rumored to have drowned in the hotel’s original swimming pool and then spotted many years later by a guest staying in room 310, directly above the pool. hoteljerome.rockresorts.com
Wing Hollow Ski Area; Allegany, New York: This now-defunct ski area northwest of Allegany, New York, opened in the 1950s. Throughout the next few decades, it was the site of a series of unrelated tragedies: people were killed during a chairlift accident, a young boy drowned in a nearby pond, and a janitor was shot and killed by two thieves who were never caught. Since then, people have spotted white-faced figures around the area. Not surprisingly, the ski area is no longer operating.
Timberline Lodge; Mt. Hood, Oregon: The 1980 horror film The Shining was shot on location at Mt. Hood, Oregon’s slopeside Timberline Lodge. Need we say more? Since the film’s release, many guests have claimed to have seen evil spirits like the ones who violently haunted Jack Nicholson’s character in the film. The hotel, meanwhile, is a National Historic Landmark with cozy, wood-paneled guest rooms and fine dining service featuring organic cuisine. timberlinelodge.com
Banff Springs Hotel; Alberta, Canada: You’ll go to Banff to ski Lake Louise and Sunshine Village. But while you’re there, you might as well stay at the 122-year-old Banff Springs Hotel, located in Banff National Park and built to look like a Scottish castle. When the original hotel was built in 1888, builders accidentally created an interior room with no windows or doors, which wasn’t discovered until the hotel burned down in 1926. Apparitions that have reportedly been spotted at the hotel include a phantom bellhop named Sam, a dead bride, and a headless bagpiper. fairmont.com/banffsprings
Hotel Monte Vista; Flagstaff, Arizona: Fewer than 10 miles south of the Arizona Snow Bowl, you’ll find Flagstaff’s Hotel Monte Vista, built in 1927 and the site of numerous ghost stories. There’s the bank robber who died from a gunshot wound in the hotel bar in 1970 and subsequent reports of missing or moving barstools and drinks. Even John Wayne, who was a guest at the hotel, is said to have spotted the ghost of a dead bellboy, who occasionally knocks on doors announcing “room service” and then disappears. Other reports mention an invisible crying baby in the basement, a transparent couple dancing in the cocktail lounge, and a rocking chair that moves by itself. hotelmontevista.com
