Amador County – Kirkwood Mountain Resort owners and management mourned the loss last week of their founder and visionary, Bud Klein, who lost his battle with cancer and passed away May 5 at age 83.

Kirkwood Resort management and owners said they were “deeply saddened” by the passing of Kirkwood’s “founder, patriarch and visionary.” To the management “Klein represented all things Kirkwood and he will be deeply missed.”

Klein’s “pioneering spirit, entrepreneurial vigor and tireless energy in the early 1970s” converted “a remote wilderness outpost at the pinnacle of the Sierra into one of North America’s most legendary ski mountains,” Kirkwood management said. Klein “saw opportunity where others saw challenges,” and he developed “not only the resort, but all the roads and infrastructure that would become our community.”

The book “Mountain Dreamers: Visionaries of Sierra Nevada Skiing,” chronicles Klein’s efforts and accomplishments, and the “incredible story will be further memorialized in the Kirkwood Inn, the spot where Klein first put together what became Kirkwood. He loved his views of the Kirkwood Meadow from his Sun Meadows unit and in his honor, that meadow will be renamed in a conservation trust bearing his name.”

While Kirkwood was only one of Klein’s many investments, resort owners and management “know it held a special place in his heart.” They said Klein’s “passion for Kirkwood cannot be replaced and his support for this community will be missed.”

They said: “Over the past several years Bud has encouraged us all to ‘finish the painting’ that he started and we intend to do everything we can to support his legacy.”

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