Francovich: Lookout Ski Resort’s new terrain is fun. It’s also a herald of the region’s future.

While some had waited in line for more than two hours for the new chairlift to open, no one was unhappy Saturday at Lookout Pass.

It was a sunny, pleasant day to stand in the snow. But the enjoyment came more from anticipation than from Vitamin D.

“I’ve been staring at Eagle Peak for four years,” Jerry Compton said. “I can wait.”

Compton was one of the first four people to load a new chairlift at Idaho’s Lookout Pass on the border of Montana and Idaho. Chair 5 rises 1,380 vertical feet over a 1-mile span, depositing skiers and boarders at the top of the 6,160-foot Eagle Peak, which is 500 feet taller than the current summit. The chairlift was originally owned by Robert Redford and serviced Sundance Resort where it was called Ray’s Lift.

The project has been two decades in the making, said Matt Sawyer, the director of marketing, and will add 500 acres of skiing, effectively doubling the size of the resort. Resort owners had to come to a lease agreement with the U.S. Forest Service, which owns the land. The expansion was officially approved by the Forest Service in 2017, and the new runs were cut last year.

The new terrain is steeper and longer than anything else at the resort, and on Saturday, the powder was deep, leading to plenty of whoops.

But before the shredding there an opening ceremony featuring speeches from Sawyer, general manager Brian Bressel and George Bailey, the owner of Regent Reality out of St. Regis, Montana. All spoke about the complexity of expanding the ski area, particularly on Forest Service land. Bressel credited the Forest Service for working cooperatively with the resort.

Bailey’s comments, however, addressed the crux of the matter: the economics.

“Talk about economic development,” he told the line of about 100 skiers and boarders waiting for the first chair. “These guys (Lookout Pass), with the Hiawatha Trail and up here, they put 200,000 user days. Do the math on that.”

Bailey, board chairman of the St. Regis Resort District, has done the math. Five years ago, the Resort District received $200,000 in tourism-related taxes (Montana law allows communities with less than 5,500 people and that meet certain qualifications to implement a sales tax on tourism-related spending).

This year, they’re set to get $400,000. That’s big money for a town of less than 300 people (although the district area is larger).

“We’re able to do all these great things for the people in St. Regis, bringing in broadband internet and stuff,” he said. “But we couldn’t do it without Lookout.”

The Eagle Peak expansion will only increase user days and by extension money spent. Lookout Pass has been known for decades as a mom-and-pop stop with relatively few services, at least in the hyperinflated world of ski resort amenities, and not all that much terrain.

What then was the draw for Lookout lovers? Cheap tickets and world-class snow.

Bressel assured those present Saturday that the ticket prices, and more important the character, of the resort won’t change.

“Really, truly this is something that is not changing Lookout,” he said. “We are still about who we are. Our values.”

History and economics tell a different story. The annals of skiing are full of mom-and-pop resorts that at some point scaled up, arguably losing their character. Vail and Tahoe are examples.

Something of the sort is happening in the Spokane region as the area’s population continues to grow, putting more pressure on area resorts to expand, modernize and offer swank amenities.

All which comes at a price.

Of course, we have our geography-given limitations. It’s hard to imagine Lookout Pass becoming a destination ski area in the way Tahoe is (although, Lookout’s consistently good snow will become a hotter amenity if climate change models prove accurate).

Still, to say it can grow while maintaining its character that was largely predicated on it being small, seems impossible.

That’s a tension that isn’t unique to Lookout, of course.

Outdoor recreationists have to wrestle with the fact that the sports and activities we love for their remoteness, solitude and beauty don’t scale well. That’s just a fact and to ignore it is foolish.

Some not-in-my-backyard Idahoans and Washingtonians (who, having grown up in Coeur d’Alene, I feel much kinship with) would like to magically reverse this trend. That is both unfair and unlikely.

And so we’re left with a conundrum and no magic bullets.

I thought about all this skiing Saturday. The expanded area is FUN, particularly the tree skiing.

And on a clear day, the views into Montana are breathtaking. But within an hour of the lift opening, most of the powder was tracked out and the line to Eagle Peak had dispersed.

I hoped then that Bressel is proven right and that there is some way to accommodate the growth while preserving the character.