9 replies to this topic

[Peter]

Peak 6 expansion: 1 lift, 450 acres
Forest Service begins public process with scoping, meetings

By BOB BERWYN
Summit Daily News

December 28, 2007

SUMMIT COUNTY — Plans for a new lift and 450 acres of terrain on Peak 6 at Breckenridge are formally on the table.

The U.S. Forest Service announced this week it will take public comments on the proposal through Jan. 21 as part of an initial scoping phase. The comments will help the agency focus public concerns about the plan, in part determining the direction of the subsequent Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).

The proposal includes the development of new terrain and associated infrastructure at Peak 6. The project encompasses 450 acres of traditional downhill and hike-to skiing accessed by a single lift.

About six trails totaling 67 acres would be clear-cut below timberline. An additional 285 acres including intermediate, advanced-intermediate and expert skiing terrain would be above timberline and lift-served.

Breckenridge Ski Resort also proposes to construct a top terminal ski patrol and warming hut and a bottom terminal food and beverage facility.

“Breckenridge accommodates more visitors per acre than other surrounding ski areas. This project would allow us to better disperse skiers across the ski area,” said Dillon District Ranger Rick Newton.

Questions and concerns
Preliminary plans for the new Peak 6 terrain have been under discussion for at several years. Under contract to Vail Resorts, wildlife biologist Rick Thompson has studied the area during that time to evaluate impacts to wildlife.

Resort and Forest Service officials have twice presented information to the Breckenridge Town Council. The first session was cut short by an awards ceremony, leaving some council members frustrated by their inability to voice their questions and concerns about the proposed expansion.

After those meetings, several council members expressed concerns about potential impacts to wildlife, especially with regard to elk, and from the standpoint of connectivity between the town’s prized Cucumber Gulch wetlands parcel and nearby uplands. They called for an independent study to scrutinize environmental impacts.

“I’m struggling with the Peak 6 plan,” Breckenridge Town Councilmember John Warner said last May. “I don’t think we have enough information on wildlife corridors. I would like us as a body to ask for that (information).”

There is no documented scientific evidence that new lifts and trails would affect migration corridors. But Warner said thorough and independent studies are needed to evaluate potential impacts.

“If we’re going to fight them on Peak 6, we can’t tell them ever again that they don’t have enough terrain,” Town Councilmember Eric Mamula said during the May meeting. “We’ve been telling them for years that Vail has twice the terrain,” Mamula said, referring to repeated discussions about the relative capacity of the country’s two busiest ski areas.

“Let’s face it. They want to do Peak 6 because that’s where their bed base is,” Towncouncil Member Jeffrey Bergeron said in May. “If you’re staying at Peak 7, Peaks 9 and 10 don’t do you any good,” he added.

During a meeting in March, several citizens raised questions about the town’s overall capacity, as well as concerns about impacts to wildlife from a Peak 6 expansion, noting that wildlife habitat in the Tenmile Range has been squeezed into an ever-smaller footprint, not only by ski area development, but by increased recreational activity in drainages just to the north of the resort.

Resort officials answered that the Peak 6 expansion wouldn’t significantly increase the number of skiers at Breckenridge. The idea is to spread out the massive number of skiers and snowboarders on peak days, according to Rick Sramek, vice president of mountain operations. Sramek also said the resort doesn’t want to increase peak-day crowds, but is trying fill in between those times.

But at other times, Forest Service and Vail Resorts officials have said they do expect growing demand and visitation numbers at Summit County ski areas, based on state population trends.

The Forest Service started to set the stage for the Peak 6 expansion a couple of years ago, when they made a behind-the-scenes boundary adjustment at the Breckenridge Nordic Center that cleared the way for a Peak 6 lift.

Some Breckenridge town council members also criticized the agency at that time for making the move without any public notice or involvement.

Newton said the boundary change was an internal administrative decision that didn’t require analysis or a public process, but an Environmental Protection Agency official familiar with the National Environmental Protection Act process said that, since the move was part of a larger ski area proposal, it should have been subject to public review.

As well, some Breckenridge residents have started raising the alarm about the loss of a favorite close-in backcountry stash. The Peak 6 area is easily accessible from town and the area includes terrain that is not overly prone to avalanches.

Forest Service officials have said they don’t characterize the proposal as an expansion since the Peak 6 area was allocated to lift-served, resort-based skiing under the 2002 White River National Forest plan.

Comments and meetings
A public open house will be held on Jan. 9, 2008, from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the Quandary Conference Room at Mountain Thunder Lodge, 50 MountainThunder Drive in Breckenridge. Officials from both Breckenridge Ski Resort and the White River National Forest will be on hand to answer questions and provide additional information on the proposal.
Comments should be sent by mail to Forest Supervisor Maribeth Gustafson, c/o Roger Poirier, Winter Sports Program Manager, P.O. Box 948, Glenwood Springs, CO 81602-0948. Comments can also be e-mailed to: wrnf_scoping_comments@fs.fed.us.
Please include your name, address, telephone number, organization represented, if any; the fact that you are commenting on the Breckenridge Peak 6 proposal and specific facts and supporting reasons for your concern.
For more information, contact Joe Foreman, Winter Sports Administrator, at (970) 262-3443 or by email at or jgforeman@fs.fed.us.

[skierdude9450]

Hmm.... It seems feasible, but the lower part of the area is very flat. It sounds like they want some good vertical, but the bottom section of the area (unless they want to start the lift higher making it practically inaccessable) is going to be long and flat to the extent of a begenner hill. The upper portion looks like great terrain, but it's going to be hell for any boarders to get to from even Peak 7, and I think that there will be a lot of walking near the bottom. Also, this will take half a day for people at Peak 9 (where most of the lodging is except for a couple new developments) to access, so I can't see it being used by them. I'll try to post a topo map of the area later.

[poloxskier]

Based on the current plans the lower portion of 6 will not be nearly as flat as the lower half of peak 7, Also the way that is currently proposed for the layout makes it easily accessible from the top of peak 7. And yes it is good skiing across the entire peak.

[Lift Kid]

I think it would be interesting to see this development.

Off Topic: Did anyone see the cover image on the Summit Daily from Sunday? (it was a drawing of what Peak 8 will eventually look like. if Vail gets their way....)

[Lift Dinosaur]

Lift Kid, on Dec 28 2007, 07:11 PM, said:

if Vail gets their way....)

Kid-
You're starting to sound NIMBY. If it wasn't for resort development, Lift 6 at Breck WITH rebuilt sheave assemblies would be listed as "New this year".

$0.02 Dino

[Peter]

Let's not forget that there are plenty of resorts with no real estate development that make plenty of capital improvements. Crystal Mountain, Mount Baker, Wolf Creek, etc.

[Lift Kid]

Lift Dinosaur, on Dec 28 2007, 08:54 PM, said:

Kid-
You're starting to sound NIMBY. If it wasn't for resort development, Lift 6 at Breck WITH rebuilt sheave assemblies would be listed as "New this year".

$0.02 Dino

I know, but I disagree with some of the things that go on. I do like many choices that Vail makes.

[Kicking Horse]

I personally feel that Breck is big enough as it is and does not need to expand on to Peak 6 at this time.

[poloxskier]

Lift Kid, on Dec 28 2007, 05:11 PM, said:

I think it would be interesting to see this development.

Off Topic: Did anyone see the cover image on the Summit Daily from Sunday? (it was a drawing of what Peak 8 will eventually look like. if Vail gets their way....)

I know you are too young to remember this but if the owners before Ralson-Purina took over Breck, I don't recall the company name, had gotten their way we would have a monorail to the summit of peak 8 as well as lifts all the way out to peak 5.

I don't like many of the things that have happened in Breck in the past decade but us true locals don't have much say in matters anymore. The way I look at it I can stay in the town I love and has been home for 23 years or I can move on because the changes are going to happen if I like them or not. I have not found anything that has annoyed me enough to make me move (possibly the new roundabout excepted ) and its hard to argue with skyrocketing property values for those who are invested in real estate.

This post has been edited by poloxskier: 01 January 2008 - 06:51 PM

[skierdude9450]

http://www.summitdai.../NEWS/527613678

Quote

Peak 6 is open for comment


Forest Service schedules public comment period, open house


By RYAN SLABAUGH
summit daily news
Summit County, CO Colorado
January 15, 2008


SILVERTHORNE — Those concerned with Peak 6 development at Breckenridge Ski Resort now have their turn to go on the record, as the White River National Forest is seeking comment about the first phase of environmental analysis for several improvement projects at Breckenridge Ski Resort.

Allowing suitable time for public comment, as well as time to draft an Environmental Impact Statement on the expansion, means the earliest this would be open for inbounds skiing is the winter of 2009, said Shelly Grail Braudis, a snow ranger with the Forest Service.

“The key issues are wildlife, social impacts, recreation impacts. Those are the biggies,” Braudis said.

According to a Forest Service release on Tuesday, the proposal includes the development of new terrain and associated infrastructure at Peak 6, including 450 acres of traditional downhill and hike-to skiing accessed by a single lift.

Approximately six trails totaling 67 acres would be constructed below timberline, the Forest Service says.

An additional 285 acres includes intermediate, advanced-intermediate and expert skiing terrain that would be above timberline and lift-served. Breckenridge Ski Resort also proposes to construct a top terminal ski patrol/warming hut and a bottom terminal food and beverage facility.

The Forest Service approved the expansion in the latest White River National Forest management plan, noting that the project would allow better dispersement of skiers across the resort.

“Breckenridge accommodates more visitors per acre than another other surrounding ski areas,” Dillon District Ranger Rick Newton said.

Breckenridge Ski Resort’s Rick Sramek, vice president of mountain operations, said the ski area has done a lot of research on the terrain, including regular ski patrol surveys and snow measurements. Sramek said they do expect to hear some conflicting views during the public process, similar to the anti-expansion comments that surfaced during expansion onto Peak 7 and more recently, the Imperial Lift.

Those projects, he said, turned out very successful for the resort, and proved the resort’s preliminary research could be relied upon.

“We want to know what the issues are ourselves,” Sramek said. “I would expect all of the issues are appropriate: wildlife, wetlands, timber. We spent the time up there. Our goal is to avoid the obvious, and to design a project as sensitively as possible.”

Comments received will help the Forest Service focus the analysis on concerns the public may have about the proposal.

For more information, contact Shelly Grail Braudis, snow ranger, at (970) 262-3484 or sgrail@fs.fed.us.

Ryan Slabaugh can be contacted at (970) 668-4618, or at rslabaugh@summitdaily.com.

How to comment
Comments will be accepted through Feb. 17. Comments should be sent by mail to Forest Supervisor Maribeth Gustafson, c/o Roger Poirier, Winter Sports Program Manager, P.O. Box 948, Glenwood Springs, CO 81602-0948. Comments can also be e-mailed to: wrnf_scoping_comments@fs.fed.us. Include your name, address, telephone number, organization represented, if any; the fact that you are commenting on the Breckenridge Peak 6 proposal and specific facts and supporting reasons for your concern.

Public open house
A public open house will be held on Jan. 30, from 4-7 p.m. in the Quandary Conference Room at Mountain Thunder Lodge, 50 Mountain Thunder Drive in Breckenridge.

Officials from both Breckenridge Ski Resort and the White River National Forest will be on hand to answer questions and provide additional information on this proposal.

This post has been edited by skierdude9450: 15 January 2008 - 04:46 PM