Hiked Independence Bowl at Keystone today and it reinforced my hopes for lift served expansion into the bowls at Keystone in the near future. Keystone is often labeled as too flat, without any real steep expert runs, but the hike to terrain in the bowls is fantastic. Specifically, Erickson and Independence Bowl have some great steep terrain, in addition to the intermediate-advanced terrain in Bergman, North and South Bowls. I have a picture of the proposed improvements from the 2009 master plan, and the improvements I would make (red is planned and blue is mine)
Master Plan
1. The Outback Surface Lift, from near the top of the Outback Express to the top of North and South Bowls. Capacity of 1,200 pph
2. The Windows Triple, from around the summit of Dercum Mountain to the the top of the Windows terrain. Will also be able to access new Bergman Bowl lift. Capacity of 1,800 pph
3. The Bergman Bowl Express, a high speed quad right up the center of Bergman Bowl, 2,400 pph
4. The Independence Lift, a fixed grip triple up the edge of Independence Bow, 1,200 pph
5. Upgrade Wayback to a high speed quad, 2,400 pph
My Improvements.
1. The North Bowl Express, a high speed quad from the bottom of the Badger trail (which would likely need to be widened and possibly groomed) to the top of North and South Bowls. Direct access to North Bowl terrain, but a person would have to lap back down to the Outback Express to ski South Bowl, keeping one bowl less tracked out and busy. 1,800 pph to keep crowds low, possibly full chair parking to prevent rime or ice on storm nights
2. The Bergman Bowl Express, a high speed six pack but with a low capacity of around 2,400 pph. Will keep crowds down with less downtime due to wind, possible option to upgrade to 3,000 pph in the future. New top terminal location on the edge of Bergman Bowl and Erickson Bowl, still serving Bergman Bowl in the same fashion but better serving Erickson Bowl. Erickson, like South Bowl, would not be direct access, keeping it less crowded and appealing to those who don't want lifts in the bowls.
3. The Windows Triple, keep the triple on the same alignment but decrease capacity to 1,200 pph, to keep crowds at a good rate for the Windows terrain.
4. The Independence Triple, slightly different alignment that runs from the base of the bowl to a higher altitude location on the ridge, creating more direct lift access terrain while still allowing the other half of the bowl to be hike to terrain. Keep low capacity of 1,200 pph to keep capacity down in the bowl.
5. The Wayback Express, a high speed six pack with a capacity of 3,000 pph. With all of the new lift development in the bowls, Wayback will likely see heavy crowding as the day closes out and people leave the backside. A six pack will be able to achieve this, possibly with side loading to make the lift maze better aligned.
Also, given its heavy current workload and increased usage in the future from lift expansion, the Outpost Gondola will likely have to be retrofitted at some point with a similar process to what was done at Northstar and Steamboat, but with just new grips and refurbished cabins (it already has tire banks in the terminals). I didn't mind the roughly 4.5 mile hike to the edge of Independence Bowl and back at all, but it did take a pretty good chunk of time that made it impossible to ski several laps in Independence. Expansion into the bowls would, in my opinion, completely change the skiing experience at Keystone. Given that most of Keystone's guests are intermediate skiers, Bergman Bowl would be especially popular and fits in with the recent theme of above treeline intermediate terrain expansion (Breck Peak 6, Pano at Winter Park). The added lift serviced expert terrain puts Keystone on the map for a type of skier that previously would not have thought to visit the resort. I have heard that the KAT skiing and hike to terrain operations would be expanded to new terrain adjacent to Independence Bowl, so the mountain would add new lift served terrain while still catering to those who liked the KAT skiing and hiking (myself included). However the final results turn out, there is no question that the bowls of Keystone will still be enjoyable and fun to ski.
Any thoughts?
This post has been edited by Backbowlsbilly: 18 March 2017 - 06:31 PM