Some more information on the Jackson Hole project:
http://www.jhnewsand...php?art_id=7264
Quote
New lift to top out at gondola
Pulled from Rendezvous Bowl, chairlift will access Bridger Restaurants building.
Jackson Hole Mountain Resort crews have begun work to relocate a chairlift from Rendezvous Bowl to where it will better serve skiers, a spokesman said Tuesday.
The East Ridge chairlift will be moved so it runs from the bottom of Thunder chairlift to the summit of the Bridger Gondola, where a mid-mountain restaurant building is located. It will be renamed the Trapper Lift.
The 3,263-foot-long lift will rise 1,197 feet to an area just south of the top of the gondola. The lift will have 11 towers and will be capable of moving 800 people an hour.
The new chair will help move people from the south side of the mountain to the north side without having to ski all the way down to the base, said Zahan Billimoria, communications manager for Jackson Hole Mountain Resort.
“We’re excited about it,” he said. “I think that the new lift is going to ... be a significant improvement in the skier experience.”
A route from the bottom of Thunder back up to the top of the gondola is “a missing link,” Billimoria said. Skiers will be able to use it to reach services at the gondola restaurant building with greater ease.
The location of the chair was roughly outlined in the resort’s 1996 master development plan, said Ray Spencer, Teton division winter sports administrator for the Bridger-Teton National Forest. Spencer said the current configuration of the chair was analyzed through a “categorical exclusion,” the least stringent level of analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act.
Spencer acknowledged the public wasn’t informed about the project. Environmental documents were sent to various government agencies for review, but newspapers — including the Jackson Hole News&Guide — and other potentially interested parties were accidentally excluded from the mailing list, he said.
“We received one comment,” Spencer said.
The Forest Service will still accept public comments even though Forest Supervisor Jacque Buchanan has already signed the decision, Spencer said.
“Even though the decision is signed, we can incorporate [comments] into best management practices,” he said.
“We’ve spent all this spring going over the locations,” Spencer continued. “We’re comfortable where it is.”
One possible configuration would have started at the bottom of Amphitheater for the chair to run to the top of the Headwall.
Forest Service officials nixed that location due to avalanche danger and the large number of trees that would have to be cut down to make a path for the chair.
Further, “we knew the park would not support having the top terminal adjacent to their boundary,” Spencer said, referring to Grand Teton National Park.
With the current configuration, Forest Service officials estimate that between 75 and 80 live Douglas fir, Engelmann spruce, whitebark pine and subalpine fir trees will be cut down.
Whitebark pine trees, a candidate for protection under the Endangered Species Act, were given special consideration, Spencer said.
The resort has three whitebark pines in the area that appear resistant to blister rust, an invasive fungus that can kill or weaken native plant life. Researchers are harvesting cones from those trees for future replanting projects.
One resistant tree was in the alignment of the chair.
“The alignment was actually moved to protect that tree,” Spencer said. “We’ve invested a lot of time in that tree. It’s part of the research project, and we wanted to make sure that it is protected.”
The resort “worked closely with the Forest Service ... to protect the trees of the highest value,” Billimoria said.
The chairlift was also designed to blend into the landscape, he said.
Owl surveys were conducted in the path of the lift alignment.
“There was no evidence of nesting owls,” Spencer said. “We were given clearance to remove trees at this time.”
Once crews finish removing the trees, the resort will use helicopters and spider excavators — a special kind of earth mover designed to work on steep slopes with little impact to the surrounding terrain — to place the towers. The project is expected to be complete by in the coming ski season.
Billimoria couldn’t say whether the resort would opt to extend its season with the new lift, an option Forest Service officials said is possible under their current permit. One option could be to run upper mountain lifts when snow is lacking near the base and take skiers back to the base via the gondola. Such a scenario could happen at either end of the season, and a chairlift to the gondola’s upper terminal would be a boon for such an operation.
“It’s going to open up more opportunities,” Billimoria said. “Exactly what those are, I couldn’t say.”
The East Ridge Chairlift was installed in the summer of 2006 to provide access to the top of Rendezvous Mountain from the bottom of Rendezvous Bowl during the construction of the new Aerial Tram. Now that the tram is finished, the resort is obligated to relocate the lift, which has five towers and a vertical rise of 850 feet.
People can still send comments on the lift to Ray Spencer, Project Coordinator, Bridger-Teton National Forest, P.O. Box 1689, Jackson, WY 83001 or rspencer01@fs.fed.us. The deadline was April 18.
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Skier, on 28 April 2011 - 04:28 PM, said:
