DONNELLY, Idaho — Three months after Marcos Salvador was hired to wash dishes at a swanky ski resort in the central Idaho mountains, he stood alongside Roseberry Road in the frigid cold and tried to hitch a ride to his last day of work.

Salvador, a 24-year-old college student from Peru, was among an estimated 250 employees being let go as Tamarack closed down Wednesday after four years of operation.

The first destination ski resort in the country was created in Idaho by a railroad magnate in the 1930s at Sun Valley. Tamarack, which billed itself as the first new destination ski resort in a quarter century when it opened in December 2004, failed because of debt, foreclosure lawsuits and $2.8 million in losses since October.

Several factors doomed Tamarack, including an ambitious building plan by French owner Jean-Pierre Boespflug that drained a $250 million construction loan, tight credit markets, collapsing resort real estate demand, foreclosure litigation and $20 million in unpaid construction bills.

Financiers at Credit Suisse Group are shuttering the resort operation after a $2.8 million operating loss since Oct. 20, according to court documents reviewed by The Associated Press.

Douglas Wilson, head of the California-based receiver running the resort since October, has told a state court judge his company plans to use $1.7 million in new funding to mothball the place.

About seven miles outside this former timber town, skiers and snowboarders dotted the Tamarack mountainside on Wednesday against a backdrop of unfinished condominiums.

“It’s going to leave a big hole,” said Bridget Feider, a 29-year-old snowboarder from McCall who planned to use the last of a Tamarack gift card.

A massive crane hung lifeless near the resort lodge, where a health club employee boxed up spa products. A message thanking employees for their hard work was scrawled across a whiteboard.