New Idaho ski resort scrambles for opening

DONNELLY, Idaho – Earthmoving vehicles rumbled through Tamarack Resort’s parking lot just hours before the planned opening of the new Idaho ski resort and real-estate development today.

On Monday, workers were scrambling to complete a fine-dining restaurant, cafeteria and sports store – all in temporary domes.

Flooring was being laid and signs erected. Cable on the Discovery lift was still being spliced.

Tamarack officials were also biting their nails over a scant 6 inches of snow covering the base of West Mountain, where the resort is located about 90 miles north of Boise.

This down-to-the-wire flurry of activity at Tamarack underscores the colossal undertaking of transforming an Idaho mountainside within just a few years into a place that people from New York, New Jersey and California would pay thousands to fly to for a week of winter fun.

“In a resort, you’re never quite done with everything,” says Jim Spenst, Tamarack’s head of operations and the surprisingly calm eye of its pre-opening hurricane, which included the sounds of hammering on half-completed chalets and hanging more than 50 80-pound lantern-style lights.

There have been few ski areas built in the U.S. in the last quarter century.

Utah’s Deer Valley was finished in 1981 and the Yellowstone Club, an expensive skiing country club in Montana, opened four years ago.

French real-estate investor Jean-Pierre Boespflug said in an interview that his group has pumped $200 million into Tamarack – a seventh of what he plans to spend here over the next 15 years.