A Gondola to the top of Alpental?

Samminator, <br><br>you raise an interesting point about expanding the lift access out to piss pass (I think a lift to Pineapple is physically impossible). The terrain is awesome out there, it gets skied out rather quickly on the east side of PP (either one) anyway, and it could reduce the crowds. On the other hand, towards the bottom of all that terrain is a warren of creek beds, cliff bands, and other places that are environmentally fragile and difficult to ski. By my estimation, it'd take a ton of environmental restructuring before it'd be skiable by more than a handfull of people each day. Consider the exit to Snakedance, where it empties out above the old Poma lift. It becomes an icy, narrow, steep chute after the second or third person sideslips through it. And it is that type of creekbed that abounds towards the bottom of all that terrain back there.

Nothing the 3-Ds couldn't solve (drills, dynamite, and a D10). While they're at it, how about a lift up Snow Peak, where they can flatten the top for a large mountaintop restaurant and hotel, kinda like the facility with the swimming pool at Squaw Valley? They could put all that rock into the pesky creek draws down in the valley.

Going from St B to P Pass would have the Samminator doing a fair bit if traversing. That sort of line would inherently expose it more to avalanche. Towers could be placed strategically but it would be tricky. <br><br>Perhaps the idea behind Internationale is to allow easier access to Sharon Bowl (between Knoll 1 and P Pass), where ultimately they could put in a short chair or surface lift to allow people to ski there without having to descend through the difficult terrain below.<br><br> www.alpental.com/2-h.htm

I'm envisioning a lift from the trees just right of Brownie Bowl either to the small patch of trees below Corey's Couloir (above the word "Bowl" in Sharon Bowl) or back to the top of the Internationale lift (or slightly higher). Thinking over it more, the latter might work best.

Samminator <br><br>I have not taken the task on providing a reply as this subject has already been discussed to various degrees by some of the participants on this board in a rather "passionate" way. <br><br>During that discussion I was asked to limit my political and land management "input" to maintain board civility. ;)I actually do not have much of a issue with doing that, I enjoy and have skied with a number of folks that have posted here and use the board to   glean a occasional  bit of info to help determine where I might go play on days off. <br><br>   However you may not be getting much of a take on this subject because of previous posts that have been deleted but nevertheless still reside in the hearts and minds of some . But then I do not know much and I say too much,<br><br>cheers<br>CW<br><br> I heard said some place<br><br>"wilderness needs no defense, only more defenders" EA

I'm not trying to additionally stir things up here, and I'm not really familiar with this issue, but there seem to be some proposed changes in the public parking situation in the upper Alpental lots which appear to come along with the development proposal being discussed here. The information comes from this site:<br> FreeAlpental.org <br><br>Specifically this page on the site:<br> Lot 3 <br><br>That page makes reference to the Special Use Permit under which the owners of the ski area operate on public land, and specifically to this article of the permit:<br> Article F, Area Access <br><br>What I can gather from reading these pages is that the ski area owners may have already started charging for overnight parking in the lot which has traditionally had no charge for doing this. Another skier who contacted me indicated that the new development proposal contains a provision for instituting a charge for day use parking as well.<br><br>I haven't actually read the development proposal myself, so I cannot say for sure that this day use charge is in the proposal, but if any of these issues concern you I'd suggest that you look into the development proposal and submit your official comments before the deadline, which appears to be February 6, 2006.

I stumbled late onto this thread, but have a few comments regarding things said here.<br><br>RE: "A chair to piss pass would be easier for SAR personnel to get to people in the Source Lake area". I think not. Based on the 'if you build it they will come' principle, more people would be in the Pineapple pass area, and more people would go deeper into the so-called BC. There would probably be far more incidents of people stumbling into the Pratt River drainage (where Witkowski ended up), down avy-prone Denny Creek, and in general on the north side of the Middle-fork/South-Fork divide, which has very little winter access. I suspect it would be worse for SAR incidents, not better.<br><br>RE: Brushing out areas to reduce fire hazard. To generalize a bit, fires in forests west of the Cascade crest are not limited by fuels, they are limited by climate (dry weather) and ignitions (lightning or human ignitions). All the rhetoric about thinning and prescribed burning to reduce fire hazard has good logic in some forest types (especially ponderosa pine and other types in the SW, SE, and California), but makes little sense in the westside PNW or in the subalpine Cascades. <br><br>Personally, I agree with the poster who said that the cool thing about Alpental is the unusual terrain and access - and all that based on 2 lifts! (The other little chairs at the base of Alpy are kind of irrelevant to the main goods). The feeling of exploration and wilderness one gets from the lift-accessed BC there is very rare, IMO. At most, I would think that upgrading chair 2 would be a fine idea, but beyond that, the experience would be ruined. Do you folks really want another Whistler right in your backyard?? <br>