Summit at Snoqualmie has OK to expand

Seattle's venerable backyard ski area, where thousands have carved their first snowplow, has the go-ahead for a face-lift.

The Summit at Snoqualmie on Friday reported U.S. Forest Service approval to gussy up the area's aging lifts and lodges, speed more people up and down the slopes and lure skiers accustomed to the plusher surroundings of fancy ski resorts.

"It's just going to be a much nicer experience, what skiers and snowboarders have come to expect," said Guy Lawrence, marketing director for the resort, bought last year by Michigan-based Boyne Resorts. "It's a big change for us."

If ski resorts were clothing, then Snoqualmie has been the sensible, well-worn bluejeans with a few holes starting in the knees.

An hour's drive from Seattle, with plenty of bunny slopes for beginners and several lodges that can charitably be described as utilitarian, Snoqualmie is a regular draw for people looking to teach their kids to ski or put in some turns for the day.

But visitors also can face small, old chairlifts, logistical headaches moving from one ski lift to another, packed parking and crowded eating quarters.

And while the resort offers plenty of options for beginners and steep and deep for advanced skiers, it's short on much for intermediate skiers.

"The Summit is outdated by comparison to what you would expect from a modern ski area," said Martin Volken, owner of a ski shop and guide service in North Bend and a regular at the Summit. "This will improve it, both for intermediate and for advanced skiers. There were bottlenecks that were turning anticipation into frustration."

The resort owners hope to remedy much of that with plans to eventually install six new lifts, upgrade many existing lifts, expand parking, overhaul and expand several lodges, build a new mountaintop restaurant, and add lighting for night skiing on 25 new runs.

If the resort completes all the projects approved by the Forest Service, capacity would be expanded from 10,000 skiers a day to a little less than 13,000, said Trevor Kostanich, the resort's director of planning and development.

It's not certain when each of the renovations will happen, or even if they will all happen. The nation's faltering economy also could present a challenge, depending on what happens in coming years.

"We're definitely not immune to the credit crisis," Kostanich said.

But a top priority is adding ski lifts and upgrading a lodge targeting intermediate and advanced skiers.

"We think we have a real good opportunity to retain skiers who maybe learn to ski here, but maybe go somewhere else like Stevens because they aren't aware of the terrain that we have," said Kostanich, referring to the Stevens Pass resort to the north.

That means a focus on the Summit East area, with the addition of a new lift — Rampart — along that area's northern edge, as well as a new lift — Mill Creek — that would reintroduce skiers to terrain left inaccessible since an aging chairlift closed more than 15 years ago.

The new plan was 10 years in the making, and morphed as resort owners tried to placate environmentalists and win Forest Service approval.

Charlie Raines, of the Sierra Club, said the agreement included important concessions to protect habitat. The developer gave up on building a restaurant at the top of Denny Mountain, reached by gondola. And both sides agreed to wait on construction of a chairlift and ski run through the forests near Hyak Lake pending studies of the impact on animals that rely on connections between swaths of forest for survival.

In the end, the Forest Service canceled both the Hyak Lake lift and run as well as the study, leaving those as options for later, a disappointment to environmentalists opposed to piecemeal analysis.

The resort agreed to buy about 390 acres from Plum Creek Timber for preservation, and to donate 130 acres west of Guye Peak to the national forest. "It's a good example of what can happen when two sides sit down and negotiate in good faith. My hat is off to the Snoqualmie Pass people; they did a great job," said Don Parks of the Alpine Lakes Protection Society.

Warren Cornwall: 206-464-2311 or wcornwall@seattletimes.com; Lynda V. Mapes: 206-464-2736 or lmapes@seattletimes.com