Crystal Mountain, WA - A new Doppelmayr chairlift was purchased last fall for the North Backcountry area of Crystal Mountain. The North Backcountry is a large area of terrain along the north side of Crystal Mountain's designated permit boundary. The lift will provide access to approximately 1,000 new acres and increase Crystal Mountain's 1,300 acres of lift serviced ski terrain by 77% to 2,300.
The name for the chairlift is "Northway" and it will deposit skiers at the top of Northway Peak after a ride of just under 10 minutes. From there, skiers face an amazing choice of skiing Snorting Elk Bowl, Northway Bowl, Paradise Bowl and Bruce's Bowl, following Right Angle Ridge to a variety of expert glades and chutes or heading farther north to drop into places like Morning Glory Bowl and Brand X. Several new trails are to be constructed that will feed into the bottom of the new lift.
The lift equipment itself is unusual in these days of high capacity, high speed detachable lifts. Northway is a double chairlift that will move along at a faster-than-standard rate of 550 feet per minute but will limit skier capacity in the new terrain to 1,200 people per hour. This will increase the existing 19,110 people per hour lift capacity to 20,310. "It's about the skiing." said Crystal Mountain General Manager John Kircher. "I'm sure people appreciate the big high capacity lifts that we have on the front side of Crystal. We have a job to do handling the crowds here but we all see how fast the snow gets tracked out. The new lift in the Northback is designed to provide access but keep the snow quality higher." The new lift service will also serve to spread skier traffic out.
Tree clearing will begin on Monday, June 18th in the North Backcountry area. The use of a helicopter will be implemented to remove the downed trees. The trees are being removed to clear paths for the new trails and chairlift towers. Approxalatley 105 acres of trails will be added to the North Backcountry, most of which is already a naturally clear path. The chairlift towers will be flown in by helicopter sometime in late-August to early-September.
The addition of the Northway Chairlift was approved with the Master Development Plan (MDP). Crystal Mountain received the Record of Decision (ROD) in August of 2004 from the U.S. Forest Service. The ROD came following an in-depth review of the Draft Environmental Impact Study issued in August 2001. The MDP, along with 6 alternatives, was originally submitted to the Forest Service in 1999.
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