Lookout Pass Resort Seeks Investors

Lookout Pass Ski Area is trying to find investors to back its expansion plans.

The small mountain on the Idaho-Montana border wants to add ski runs, chairlifts and space to the lodge, but doesn’t have enough money to do it alone.

“We want to try to find some people to help grow the area,” said Dean Cooper, president of Lookout Recreation, Inc., which bought the mountain in 1992. “It’s just a matter of finding the right people.”

Lookout needs the approval of its landlord, the U.S. Forest Service, for any improvements.

The Forest Service recently approved Lookout’s master development plan, which calls for changes to the mountain over the next 20 years.

This year, the first step of the expansion plan will bring skiers a new 1,100-foot “half pipe” and terrain park.

A half-pipe run is shaped exactly as it sounds and caters mostly to snowboarders who like to zoom up one side and down the other. A terrain park is an open area with jumps and other obstacles.

“It’s a place for kids to go and bop around and have fun,” Cooper said. “From everything we can find so far, it’s the nation’s longest half-pipe.”

Future expansion plans would need an influx of money. Without an investor’s money, Cooper said, the changes would happen, but more slowly.

“It’s only going to keep growing,” he said, “it’s just a strain on existing facilities.”

Cooper’s company has been talking to ski industry representatives and advertising its plans over the Internet. The structure of any deal would depend on the investor, Cooper said. He emphasized that the goal is to find someone who shares his company’s goal of seeing the area grow.

“We’d structure it so that they would have an appropriate stock in the company and get the kind of return they want,” he said.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo