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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Mount Spokane x-c trails expanded

Rich Landers Outdoors editor

Cross-country skiers will have nearly 10 kilometers of new trails to explore in Mount Spokane this season.

The trails are on Inland Empire Paper Co. land that’s adjacent to Mount Spokane State Park, which holds most of the remaining 25 kilometers of trails.

Thanks to an agreement three years in the making with IEP, members of the Spokane Nordic Ski Education Foundation have been clearing brush along nearly 10 kilometers of logging roads that will be groomed for skiing. Grooming is scheduled to start as soon as a suitable snow pack accumulates on the mountain, said Steve Christensen, park manager.

“The company has donated a lot of time to surveys and working on the agreement, but the club is picking up the tab for everything else,” said George Momany, SNSEF president.

“We’re not sure the trails will be wide enough for the snowcat groomer,” Christensen said. But the club received a $20,000 grant for a new snowmobile and 84-inch Ginzu groomer, “so it will be groomed one way or another,” he said.

For the first time, the State Parks and Recreation Department has authorized volunteers to use the snowmobile any time grooming is necessary, Christensen said. Parks staff will continue to use the snowcat groomer to groom the system five days a week, he said.

Some of the new ski trails formerly were groomed for snowmobiling.

“But in the agreement, IEP is giving snowmobilers new trails so there’s no net loss for them,” Momany said.

Most of the new trails offer flat or gentle grades that are rare in the rest of the cross-country trail system. “It’s a critical expansion for the nordic community to meet the demand from beginners, families, seniors and skate skiers for more gentle terrain,” Momany said.

“Unfortunately, it won’t be easily available to them this year. This is just phase one.

Unless skiers want to travel with snowmobiles on the multipurpose Linder Ridge Road to reach the new trails, they’ll have to ski the hilly terrain through the old trail system.

“Next year, we hope to have everything ready to open a new snowmobile route through state land near the condominiums so the Linder Ridge Road can be designated a gentle ski trail that will access the new trails at Junction 6,” Momany said.

Also new this year, the Sno-Park vehicle permits for Mount Spokane have increased from $40 to $60.

“This is the first Sno-Park increase since 1991 and it’s absolutely necessary,” said Lew Persons, another club member who’s also on the state’s Winter Recreation Advisory Board. “The program is cash poor, and we haven’t had the money to replace equipment and expand our facilities around the state.”

“Some people might suffer a little sticker shock, but at some point you have to at least keep up with inflation,” Momany said. “Nordic skiing at Mount Spokane is still the best bargain around. You can take a carload of people and go skiing every day all season long for the cost of two downhill skiing lift tickets.”