Cloud City Curling Club

About Cloud City Curling Club

Cloud City Curling Club: Outdoor Curling at 10,000 Feet in Leadville

Cloud City Curling Club plays what may be the highest-altitude curling in the United States, on outdoor ice in Leadville, Colorado, at more than 10,000 feet. The club grew from learn-to-curl clinics around 2011 and 2012, when about a dozen locals caught the bug; by its inaugural season in 2014 there were eight teams. Co-founders Jason Nepp, Kevin Linebarger and Tom Whitman built it into a genuine town institution, and by 2024 it had around 150 curlers on more than 30 teams in a town of about 2,600 people.

The club first played at the Huck Finn ice rink, then built its own dedicated outdoor sheets, and since 2022 has curled on three sheets at Leiter Field in partnership with Lake County Parks. It is the only outdoor rink in Colorado dedicated solely to curling, and volunteers put in long shifts flooding and maintaining the ice. The season runs from November into spring, and games go ahead even when temperatures drop below zero.

The rec league ends with a single-elimination playoff, and each January the Leadville Non-Spiel draws curlers from out of state to the mountain town.