Whitefish Mountain Resort plans to add a chairlift to Flower Point on the backside of Big Mountain in an effort to open more terrain known for good snow.
The proposed project recently submitted to the U.S. Forest Service for approval would involve cutting four intermediate runs and adding a lift through a 200-acre section of popular sidecountry within the resort’s existing permit boundary. Areas known as Stumptown and Window Pane would be gladed, or thinned, below Flower Point and Lodi Peak to remove dangerous hazards. The new lift would be about 3,100 feet in length with a vertical rise of roughly 800 feet. If approved by the Forest Service, the project could be completed in the next two years, according to resort officials.
The resort’s previous owners and managers had proposed a similar project that received approval in 1995. But the ski area redirected priority development to Hellroaring Basin and shelved the Flower Point project indefinitely.
Spokesperson Riley Polumbus said last year’s slow start to ski season motivated the resort to explore quality terrain that could be made more widely available within its boundary. The backside of Big Mountain, with north-facing slopes, consistently receives an abundance of long-lasting snow, particularly the section around Flower Point, which can be assessed by skinning or boot-packing east from the Bigfoot T-bar.
“Anytime during the season the snow back there makes it a different world,” Polumbus said of the Flower Point area.
Forest Service officials will study the updated plans and any other changed circumstances and decide whether they stay within the scope of the original approved project.
Whitefish Mountain Resort General Manager Chester Powell said the Flower Point addition would open up terrain that consistently receives good early and late season snow.
“I think it makes sense,” Powell said. “It’s a nice area and it opens up some real nice acreage.”
One of the proposed runs would trace the resort’s permit boundary along the furthest eastern ridge adjacent to Canyon Creek drainage.
Polumbus said the plan would improve the health of a section of forest that has dead or dying trees. It would also establish official runs with ski patrol coverage in an area that’s already frequently used.
“It’s an awesome area for tree skiing and we would want to maintain that,” she said. “But we also want it to be like that for generations to come.”
Polumbus said another proposed project involving a chairlift up East Rim and extending Chair 4 has been temporarily postponed for this latest development.
“It’s still planned and still active,” she said of the East Rim project. “We’ll pursue it once we find out what we need to do with this (Flower Point project).”
The resort updated its master plan in 2009 and submitted a three-phase proposal to the Forest Service aimed at improving the mountain’s network of chairlifts and reducing congestion at Big Mountain Express Chair 1.
The projects were approved in early 2011 and the resort completed phase one last year with the addition of the Bad Rock chairlift. The second phase would move the rarely used Chair 5 to the intersection of Moe-Mentum and Russ’s Street. The lift would allow full access to the backside as well as East Rim. Phase three would extend Chair 4 to Inspiration Ridge and allow skiers to access both sides of the mountain.
For more information on the resort’s proposed Flower Point project and others, visit skiwhitefish.com/future_projects.php