Lift in Flagstaff Area

R.Fahey

R.Fahey

Active member
How do you guys feel about it?

From what I've seen it's pretty likely that there will be a chairlift right up the flagstaff area across from Alta in the next few years. Do you think it's good or bad?

If you haven't, check out this site.http://friendsofflagstaff.com/

The video by Andrew McLean is pretty interesting. I wish I could see the pictures he references, but it's something to listen to while browsing the forums.

 
why wouldn't you want a lift to ski all that neat snow? the only other way of getting there is WALKING...UPhill? I thought we're skiers....like...downhill. not crosscountry. why would anyone want to earn turns? i'm all for it. the more lifts, the more pollution, more gapers, many more backcountry deaths. sounds grand. throw a lift to chad's and up lone peak, too, please.
 
don't worry to much about brody... he still is living a sheltered life. I mean ppl obviously want more access, certainly can't blame them for trying to make it easy.
 
If one of the main concerns is avalanche safety and launching explosives over roads/hotels, etc. why not just plop a gun on that side of the road? That sounds much more feasible than building an entire new lift.
 
I've been hearing about this for a while. Apparently Alta has already bought a lift from Sun Valley's tanking in Idaho.
Personally, I can't say my opinion matters as much as some of the people's that have been here for 20+ years because, well frankly, they have the personal experience. However, I do share a sense of gratitude towards what nature has provided us, especially the astoundingly beautiful Little Cottonwood Canyon.
There are plenty of reasons to be weary and plenty of reasons to be in favor. I think the weary outweighs the benefits of this lift. LCC is already a shitshow on the weekends and accidents seem to run rampant every time there's a layer of snow. There's also a certain degree of danger in terms of slides, more accidents, etc when you propel vast amounts of people into a small area like upper LCC. Like I said, I don't have the personal heritage of belonging here, but I don't want it to lose the essence of being a state park and Alta monopolizing on the OTHER side too. There's already the powder birds, first tracks country club who pay thousands of dollars to ski first in unopened areas, and other catering to the almighty dollar of some fortunate few. I'd rather see Alta/Snowbird as much more than a skiers mecca than a vacation place for a Texan family of five. Besides, there's always Vail for that.
 
That lift has been "in the works" for years. I'll believe it when I see it. I really could care less, plenty of good shit to work for all over the place.
 
because it is basically illegal for anyone but the military to shoot a cannon over a road..although it does happen already..
 
your an idiot. sun valley is one of the few resorts flourishing right now. one of the only places to install a gondola in the past few years and entering a contract with the biggest park creaters in the game doesnt sound like tanking
 
I feel that this is a bad way to do control work in the flagstaff area for several reasons. I feel a lift is overkill just to toss hand charges above the slopes of alta. Why cant patrol either skinn up like everyone els to drop there hand charges or use the Alta snowcat sking snowcat to go up grizzely to get the the ridge starting at Sliver Fork to control Davenport Hill. Or they could go up the Pole line to get to the Flagstaff/ superior area. Even with a lift, control work from Tanners to Davenport Hill will take longer and will be less efficent than with the traditional method of having the legengdary bartenderfrom the Goldminers "Trainer" bomb the heck out of the area with the howitizer.
 
Hey man, awesome grammar. I meant Tamarack, don't know why I said Sun Valley.
What the hell are you doing in here anyway? Please stay out of UT. Thanks.
 
lifts have not been sold yet from tamarack either sorry dude. and i go to college here. go back to the east coast
 
Hmm funny I heard differently. You do a lot to contribute to regionals, thanks for being such a great help. College, wow? Good for you. I heard they give scholarships for the mentally handicapped, is that the program you're in?
 
yeah i feel really special to have earned such a great scholarship for being sooo challenged. chill out dude dont get your pantys in a bunch, no hate here
 
Word I didn't mean it to be real offensive, obviously you aren't mentally retarded. I am just trying to post my perspective only to be called an idiot? I messed up the resort name and I promise you there is a deal between Tamarack and Alta for a lift. It's not a rumor mill, it's straight from the horse's mouth.
 
I see where Alta is coming from, but fuck them, that is the last thing we need over there. I really like listening to Andrew talk, he puts everybody's point into perspective without letting his guard down on what the RIGHT thing is to do. I hope we never see this happen.
 
in my opinion, fuq that.
all that stuff should remain BC. just one lift up there opens up all that stuff to soooo many people that shouldn't necessarily be able to get into that terrain. I don't like it.
 
I am not saying that I am for the lift at all, but your argument is fairly week, considering that terrain is not any more gnarly than most inbounds stuff at Alta/Bird..and even if it did take you closer to other popular touring areas, that doesn't mean that those areas would necessarily be inbound, or even have access gates to them.
 
Not ture some of the terrain around Flagstaff is alot steeper and gnarlry than Alta. Terrain like Cardiac Ridge, Superior and Room of Doom, Lighting Bolt Chute ect. are all gnarler than Alta.
 
I'm not talking about difficulty, I'm talking about avalanche stuff. A single lift gives a lot of people access to terrain that can get really sketch really fast. It's not the same as Alta, there's lots more gnar stuff over there. All of it would be instantly fairly accessible via the ridge line, all the way across to superior. scary.
 
If you were to look at Flagstaff after a storm cycle and a few sunny days later, with all the tracks on it, there might as well be a lift up there. The backcountry traffic it already receives make a significant contribution skier compaction. Is that not the reason they are claiming to build it for avalanche control? And didn't Thirds slide all the way to ground during the storm?
 
I still feel like there is a better way to set off charges aside from building a whole lift.

And although that area already gets tracked out super fast anyway... who cares. Those people earned it and i'm sure were stoked to earn their turns.

Getting tracked out by 100 people skinning up/shredding down over the course of a couple days is a lot different than it getting tracked by people who took a chairlift with the uphill capacity of 2,000 people an hour.

I've seen East Greeley Bowl from the top of Grizz as they open it, and it legitimately took about 5 minutes before it was 100% tracked. You watched a couple patrollers shred it, then a mass of people came over and Boom!.. it was over.

not sure what my point it. I just don't like the idea of it.

 
true. a couple hundred tracks is not enough to compact the snowpack enough to make it stable like it gets inbounds, as was suggested above.
There's for sure better ways. Even if it was purely an access lift (like the one at Bridger bowl) for ski patrollers that would be fine by me. I'm all for making it safer, but I think putting lift access to the terrain all the way across that ridgeline is not such a good idea.
 
As a lifty at Alta I can tell all of you that they are not putting in the lift, at least not yet. They have not purchased a lift nor have they any plans of purchasing a lift for flagstaff. Putting in a lift there is only an option out of many other options that they also have. That just came up as an idea for what they could possibly do for when they run out of the ammo for the 105 (the military only has a certain amount of surplus because its no longer made.) and they are also scared about the ski patrol turning terrorist and trying to shoot the capital building. None of this will be happening any time soon. So keep taking Collins or straping on your skins what ever floats your boat. No ones gonna be shredding flagstaff without earning it for a while.
 
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