Snowmobiles at Artist Point! WTF

I like Tim's thinking, including the White Salmon tram!

Actually, the White Salmon Tram proposal was one I threw in so I would be able to agree with the adversaries that is wouldn't work. You take the tram to the top of the White Salmon Glacier, and ski down one of the best runs in the continental USA.  And then what?  You hike uphill for hours through brush to get back to the ski area.  The tram would need to be accompanied by a return lift from White Salmon Creek to the bottom of chair 8. And who is going to advocate for a chair that supplies no skiing acreage?!  Besides, any plan that includes taking acreage out of wilderness is just not going to fly.

But my three other proposals to the ski area are perfectly feasible in that they do not violate wilderness boundaries.

1.  Huntoon Point chair -- the flat where folks usually skin up after skiing the Swift Creek trees is not wilderness.  The flat just below Huntoon Point is not wilderness.  In both cases, the wilderness is within a ping pong ball throw, but boundaries are boundaries.

2. Table Tram.  The Bagley basin is out of wilderness, and half of the top of Table mountain is out of wilderness.  The tram would make the Coleman Pinnacle area part of the ski area in the sense that many folks would by a ticket to save two hours of hike/skinning. Plus, Little Alaska would be a highlight reel run. Bonus: If they could stop plowing the road to Artist's Point for a couple of weeks of access yearly, they could sell ticket for summer rides to the top of Table for first class gawking.

3. Herman Gondola.  There is a flat  just at the top of the Rock Garden which could unload a gondola short of the wilderness line.  Now The Cornice Gully is in area and Stoneman is a minor hike.

One of the main arguments I heard against these proposals (which cost me a spot on the MBRC board of directors, by the way), is that there is no way to get fuel to these lifts.  Baker would do well to requisition a worn out nuclear submarine!
 

Great to see you on TAY again Tim. How is the healing by the way? Post an updated photo to your body surfing thread please. Thanks for sharing your local knowledge of 542.

... or not! 

It may not be an issue to you, but to others it is a problem...

Sounds like a personal problem 

Seriously, don't you people have better things to do with your time than moan and groan about this stuff?  : We could have shut down Monsanto by now if everyone wasn't clamoring over each other for this kind of petty crap.

I don't post and whine on the internet about people postholing my skin track in popular areas... I expect it. I go OTHER places when I want peace and quiet.  : : : : : : : :

I swear some of you go to these zoos just so you have a reason to complain!

Cool insight Mr Place, thanks.

Sounds like a personal problem 

Seriously, don't you people have better things to do with your time than moan and groan about this stuff?  : We could have shut down Monsanto by now if everyone wasn't clamoring over each other for this kind of petty crap.

I don't post and whine on the internet about people postholing my skin track in popular areas... I expect it. I go OTHER places when I want peace and quiet.  : : : : : : : :

I swear some of you go to these zoos just so you have a reason to complain!

I'm guessing you've never taken someone backcountry skiing for the first time and wanted to find an easy, quiet, pretty place that would make them fall in love with the sport.

Sorry to hear it.

Sounds like a personal problem 

Seriously, don't you people have better things to do with your time than moan and groan about this stuff?  : We could have shut down Monsanto by now if everyone wasn't clamoring over each other for this kind of petty crap.

I don't post and whine on the internet about people postholing my skin track in popular areas... I expect it. I go OTHER places when I want peace and quiet.  : : : : : : : :

I swear some of you go to these zoos just so you have a reason to complain!

Thank you for coming back and posting on this thread about how we are wasting our time...

... posting on this thread!

Do you work with Dilbert?