Mt. Spokane may expand

Big changes planned for Mount Spokane State Park are driving an expansion of Spokane’s local ski resort, which may include new lifts, more terrain and additional guest buildings.

On March 8, the state’s Parks and Recreation Commission will decide whether to allow Mt. Spokane Ski and Snowboard Park to explore expanding onto north-facing slopes on the resort’s backside. Those slopes get less sun than the resort’s south-facing slopes, which should allow a longer ski season.

The nonprofit ski area, built on state park land, has watched its for-profit competitors add chairlifts and terrain in recent years and is feeling the need to catch up. Schweitzer Mountain recently added a new lift and hundreds of acres of terrain. Silver Mountain has plans for a new lift and expanded terrain. The Sunrise Basin Quad chairlift just opened at 49 Degrees North in Chewelah, accessing hundreds of acres of new terrain. And Lookout Pass, on the Montana-Idaho border, has cut new runs, added one chairlift and plans to install another in the coming year.

If the parks commission gives the green light, the Mt. Spokane ski area could expand into as much as 400 acres of new terrain, put in one or two new chairlifts and make improvements to existing lodges. Also proposed are a new guest services building and expanded snow-making ability.

“People ask me, ‘Why don’t you upgrade your facilities first, put in new lodges, put in new chairs?’ ” said Brad McQuarrie, the resort’s general manager. “Well that doesn’t make us any money. If I borrowed $5 million and put in a new lodge, that’s not going to make me much more money. But if I borrowed $5 million and developed a whole third of the mountain and increased skier visits by 30,000 a year, that’s going to bring us some more money. Then we can look at lodges and parking areas.”

Preliminary estimates show the ski area expansion would cost between $5 million and $12 million, said Daniel Farber, a parks planner with the state who is project manager for the master planning process for the state park, which at 13,000 acres is the state’s largest.

The ski area’s proposed expansion is part of that master plan process, which includes proposals for a new park entrance; a new ranger residence; new terrain and parking for snowmobilers designed to eliminate conflicts with skiers; new trails for hiking, Nordic skiing and snowshoeing; and separate areas for mountain biking.

With regular conflicts among recreational groups, stakeholders are looking for ways to designate specific areas for each group or separate them entirely. And with use of the state park climbing every year across most user groups, a master planned trail system needed to be developed, said Cris Currie, chairman of the Mount Spokane State Park Advisory Committee and president of Friends of Mount Spokane.

“People in this community are passionate about Mount Spokane,” Currie said. “More people are seeing it as key to our quality of life here, as a recreational mecca that’s so close to town.”

But passion for the mountain must include the responsibility to protect it, he added. Though Currie is an avid skier, hiker and mountain biker, he’s hesitant about expanding into too much of the terrain on the mountain’s backside, which he sees as “unusually diverse” and a “virgin natural forest.”

The question, he said, is “How much is enough?”

A preliminary environmental review of the 816 acres on the mountain’s backside revealed that the area is not part of any endangered species’ federally protected critical habitat, Farber said. However, there have been sightings of three endangered species, including Canadian lynx. The land is also a wildlife corridor and has “rich, varied vegetation,” Farber said.

“That would be impacted,” Farber said. “That doesn’t mean you don’t do it; it also doesn’t mean you do it.”

A public meeting will be held Thursday to gather opinions that will help Farber’s team decide what to recommend to the parks commission.

The environmental concerns will be among the factors the parks commission weighs in March when deciding whether to allow any expansion onto those north-facing slopes that are coveted by skiers and snowboarders for their more consistent snow. If the commission says no, the ski area would pursue an expansion plan by adding terrain within the existing park boundaries.

If the commission says yes, that would launch a more in-depth, yearlong environmental review to be followed by permitting through Spokane County, cutting of new ski runs and the possibility of a new chairlift as soon as 2008, McQuarrie said.

Because the nonprofit ski resort only takes in about $2 million in revenue from ski area operations and donations, the expansion would require a fundraising drive, McQuarrie said. The financial restrictions of being located on state parks land have created a challenge for Mt. Spokane, while its competitors like Schweitzer and Silver have used revenue from real estate sales to finance ski area improvements.