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  1. #1
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    Good opportunity for ski resorts to expand?

    What say the maggots? Interconnect the Wastach? CO Rockies Mega Interconnected Vail Resorts; 500 miles of groomers! All on one lift pass!

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/white-hou...122955420.html
    "We don't beat the reaper by living longer, we beat the reaper by living well and living fully." - Randy Pausch

  2. #2
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    States rights

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    The Wasatch is overdeveloped. Except for access up the Cottonwoods.
    Maybe a gondola from Vail to Aspen would be nice.

    Relative to those areas, the Puget Sound Washington Cascades are underdeveloped and in desperate need of more winter access. The skier population here has more than quadrupled in the last 20 years with no new winter accessible acreage. Especially when the new monolithic overloads like Alterra won't spent the money to sand the access road. Scarcity is a boon to their business model.

    But the Nature Conservancy and the Sierra Club, among others, will block any development in order to satisfy their donors because the ski industry and love in the mountains is more easily beaten (e.g. has less money) than timber or mining, each of the latter being far, far more environmentally destructive and in line with punitive Reformationist theology.
    Last edited by Buster Highmen; 01-09-2020 at 09:55 AM.
    Merde De Glace On the Freak When Ski
    >>>200 cm Black Bamboo Sidewalled DPS Lotus 120 : Best Skis Ever <<<

  4. #4
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    Resource extraction industries also create year-round, living wage jobs for a lot of people, ski resorts employee a handful of temporary visa holders seasonally who are paid like shit and receive no benefits while also catering to the elite and wealthy.

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by Buster Highmen View Post
    Relative to those areas, the Washington Cascades are underdeveloped and in desperate need of more winter access. The skier population here has more than quadrupled in the last 20 years with no new winter accessible acreage. But the Nature Conservancy and the Sierra Club among others will block any development top satisfy their donors because the ski industry and love in the mountains is more easily beaten than timber or mining, each of the latter being far, far more environmentally destructive.
    I agree with your broad point, although White Pass expansion was significant (roughly doubled capacity) and occurred less than 20 years ago notwithstanding opposition from some environmentalists and Yakima tribe. Early Winters died >20 years ago, as it should have because it was a stupid idea. I'm not up to speed on the progress/opposition re the Stevens Pass expansion proposal, but I (a longtime active Audubon Society member) would support it because the areas is already developed and/or repeatedly logged. I would also support accessing Olallie Meadows/Silver Peak from Ski Acres, if that were ever proposed.

  6. #6
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    I had no idea the Environmental Groups were so magnanimous.
    Merde De Glace On the Freak When Ski
    >>>200 cm Black Bamboo Sidewalled DPS Lotus 120 : Best Skis Ever <<<

  7. #7
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    Same lift access, more mass transit. High speed electric powered trains and new atomic energy power generators. San Diego to Seattle. Denver to Glenwood. Atlanta to Boston. Fast track those tracks (pardon the pun). Will this fast track (another pun, sorry) to PoliAss?

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by lowsparkco View Post
    Same lift access, more mass transit. High speed electric powered trains and new atomic energy power generators. San Diego to Seattle. Denver to Glenwood. Atlanta to Boston. Fast track those tracks (pardon the pun). Will this fast track (another pun, sorry) to PoliAss?
    Those ideas are far too good to avoid being shoved over to polyass.

    Except the PNW needs more lift access.

    Look at the hundreds of thousands of logged acreage above 4000 feet in the Cascades. Any environmental argument against a ski area is moot in that light.
    Merde De Glace On the Freak When Ski
    >>>200 cm Black Bamboo Sidewalled DPS Lotus 120 : Best Skis Ever <<<

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by Buster Highmen View Post
    Look at the hundreds of thousands of logged acreage above 4000 feet in the Cascades. Any environmental argument against a ski area is moot in that light.
    Most environmentalists I know would support -- or at least not oppose -- lift-ski development in non-wilderness logged areas, e.g., second growth, Olallie Meadows. Sure, there would be a few loud anti-development/expansion voices but I think one could get buy-in from a majority of the environmentalist community. See, e.g., White Pass expansion and reconstruction of Suiattle River Road, which were ardently opposed by a noisy minority of environmentalists, but nonetheless happened thanks in large part to support of the majority of environmentalists who support access. I think the larger obstacle to development of a new lift-served area in the WA Cascades is the lack of anyone who would pony up the $$$$$.

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by Buster Highmen View Post
    Those ideas are far too good to avoid being shoved over to polyass.

    Except the PNW needs more lift access.

    Look at the hundreds of thousands of logged acreage above 4000 feet in the Cascades. Any environmental argument against a ski area is moot in that light.

    Re-open Pilchuck(with higher base area, or more east).

    edit: well maybe with just a higher base area, seems like you can't build a ski area more east stuff seems to steep to setup a base.

  11. #11
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    ski lifts do not grease the same palms as pipelines
    if you don't own a politician already, you better hurry up
    embrace the gape
    and believe

  12. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by wordbird View Post
    Re-open Pilchuck(with higher base area, or more east).
    Pilchuk is too low. Rad terrain, though.
    Merde De Glace On the Freak When Ski
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  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by wordbird View Post
    Re-open Pilchuck(with higher base area, or more east).
    It's been considered and deemed economically impracticable. That N aspect bowl is only 900' verts. There are reasons it closed years ago.

    New development in the WA Cascades requires N, NE or E aspect >4,000' base, better higher IVO climate change. Not many opportunities. Sherman Pass (not Cascades, of course) area would work, but too far a drive from population centers to make it work economically.

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    https://backcountrymagazine.com/stor...bc-atmosphere/

    This ^^ was done for < a million, without staff or lifts its pretty cheap
    Lee Lau - xxx-er is the laziest Asian canuck I know

  15. #15
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    Yodelin.
    Merde De Glace On the Freak When Ski
    >>>200 cm Black Bamboo Sidewalled DPS Lotus 120 : Best Skis Ever <<<

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    Quote Originally Posted by b0ardski View Post
    ski lifts do not grease the same palms as pipelines
    if you don't own a politician already, you better hurry up
    What do most of the 1% do to recreate in the winter?

  17. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by GeezerSteve View Post
    I would also support accessing Olallie Meadows/Silver Peak from Ski Acres, if that were ever proposed.
    Would the current parking infrastructure support it, though? Seems like to really address the problem we'd need a new area, not the extension of a current one.

  18. #18
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    Trumps plan to weaken NEPA probably won't hold up in court.

    "Richard L. Revesz, a professor of environmental law at New York University, said he did not believe the changes would hold up in court. The Environmental Policy Act requires that all the environmental consequences of a project be taken into account, he said, and that core requirement cannot be changed by fiat."

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/09/c...gtype=Homepage

    As Geezer points out, there are very few previously logged, high elevation locations in the PNW that would make good ski terrain. The good stuff is in wilderness or national parks. Yodelin and down the highway from Stevens (south side of the road, so north aspect ski runs) is one of the better options. Clear cuts below Jim Hill Mountain were for sale awhile back and if someone had money, they probably could build a new ski area from the private land up Jim Hill Mountain. This would require USFS to play ball, but if you owned the land below, and came with money, I bet it could be done. There is absolutely no good place to build a parking lot here though.

    http://www.turns-all-year.com/skiing...?topic=39532.0

    Alpine Lakes High Camp is all on private land so developing a ski area there would require less red tape. But the terrain isn't so special. The adjacent wilderness is though, so sidecountry would be nice.

  19. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by Benny Profane View Post
    What do most of the 1% do to recreate in the winter?
    fly to Rio, Cabo, Hawaii, take the yacht to Nassau, I'd bet maybe 10% of the 1% even know how to ski.
    being in the bottom 10% I wouldn't really know
    embrace the gape
    and believe

  20. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by Buster Highmen View Post
    Those ideas are far too good to avoid being shoved over to polyass.

    Except the PNW needs more lift access.

    Look at the hundreds of thousands of logged acreage above 4000 feet in the Cascades. Any environmental argument against a ski area is moot in that light.
    I definitely agree with this statement. Wasn't Xtal going to add or extend the Gold Chair farther up the hillside at some point?
    "We don't beat the reaper by living longer, we beat the reaper by living well and living fully." - Randy Pausch

  21. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by glademaster View Post
    Resource extraction industries also create year-round, living wage jobs for a lot of people, ski resorts employee a handful of temporary visa holders seasonally who are paid like shit and receive no benefits while also catering to the elite and wealthy.
    But you get that awesome season pass!
    "We don't beat the reaper by living longer, we beat the reaper by living well and living fully." - Randy Pausch

  22. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by GeezerSteve View Post
    I think the larger obstacle to development of a new lift-served area in the WA Cascades is the lack of anyone who would pony up the $$$$$.
    And increasingly unlikely given the industry is now run by a duopoly solely interested in cash extraction from the existing ski lift infrastructure.

    Quote Originally Posted by Toadman View Post
    I definitely agree with this statement. Wasn't Xtal going to add or extend the Gold Chair farther up the hillside at some point?
    Not exactly and apparently not now anyway.
    Quote Originally Posted by Downbound Train View Post
    And there will come a day when our ancestors look back...........

  23. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by b0ardski View Post
    fly to Rio, Cabo, Hawaii, take the yacht to Nassau, I'd bet maybe 10% of the 1% even know how to ski.
    being in the bottom 10% I wouldn't really know
    Dude, the ski industry as it exists today wouldn't exist without the patronage of rich, therefore, powerful people.

    Not many people ski, in general, but a whole lot more of the top 10% do than the bottom 60%.

  24. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by Toadman View Post
    I definitely agree with this statement. Wasn't Xtal going to add or extend the Gold Chair farther up the hillside at some point?
    Gold Chair?
    There was a triple going up to Bullion Basin back in the 80s, but it was pulled out after 2 seasons.

    In the last Crystal MDP, the alternative chosen (6) included the installation of a chair going up East Peak.

    This created a furor among backcountry skiers who considered that area and Bullion Basin as theirs, despite it having been designated as part of the Crystal use area in the 1960s. This opposition manifested in the Crystal Conservation Coalition (CCC), a small but shrieky group, forcing the FS to rescind the construction of that lift to the top of East Peak and instead approving a truncated lift going to the base of Bullion. This option effectively both ruins the bc experience and makes access to East Peak difficult for both skiing and required control work. The compromise that fails all goals.

    Some of us that were involved in reviewing the MMDP and prevented Uberagua and the NP from blocking access to 410, Crystal Lakes and Morse Creek also filed a letter requesting that the East Peak/Bullion Basin chair go to the top.

    With Alterra now at the helm, it's unclear what will happen. But if they won't even maintain or sand the access road, I don't have a lot of hope for that lift ever being constructed.
    Merde De Glace On the Freak When Ski
    >>>200 cm Black Bamboo Sidewalled DPS Lotus 120 : Best Skis Ever <<<

  25. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by altasnob View Post
    Trumps plan to weaken NEPA probably won't hold up in court.

    "Richard L. Revesz, a professor of environmental law at New York University, said he did not believe the changes would hold up in court. The Environmental Policy Act requires that all the environmental consequences of a project be taken into account, he said, and that core requirement cannot be changed by fiat."

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/09/c...gtype=Homepage

    As Geezer points out, there are very few previously logged, high elevation locations in the PNW that would make good ski terrain. The good stuff is in wilderness or national parks. Yodelin and down the highway from Stevens (south side of the road, so north aspect ski runs) is one of the better options. Clear cuts below Jim Hill Mountain were for sale awhile back and if someone had money, they probably could build a new ski area from the private land up Jim Hill Mountain. This would require USFS to play ball, but if you owned the land below, and came with money, I bet it could be done. There is absolutely no good place to build a parking lot here though.

    http://www.turns-all-year.com/skiing...?topic=39532.0

    Alpine Lakes High Camp is all on private land so developing a ski area there would require less red tape. But the terrain isn't so special. The adjacent wilderness is though, so sidecountry would be nice.
    Trump has convinced a whole lot of people in his base that he can change laws and create new laws with executive order. If you remember his first few months in office, he did this almost daily from the Oval office, and most in the know laughed it off. I just had a short argument in Facebook with an old angry white guy Trump supporter, and he claimed these executive orders as part of his accomplishments. A lot of people want Mussolini in the WH.

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