Keystone Intends CAT-SKI operation!
Todays The Daily Independent
http://www.independentdaily.com/art....ate=2003-11-04
And a previous article:http://www.independentdaily.com/art....8&title=Briefs
Dillon Ranger Office is taking comments until Nov 22. Address your comments to J. Richard Newton, District Ranger, Dillon Ranger District, PO Box 620, Silverthorne, 80498, of fax to 468-7735.
To obtain copies of the environmental assessment on the project, contact Joe Foreman at the Dillon Ranger District at 262-3443 or email at jgforeman@fs.fed.us
Todays:
Quote:
Keystone EA: Snowcat skiing offers ‘appreciable benefits to recreation’
Forest Service evaluates, discloses impacts of proposal
— Bob Berwyn
A draft Environmental Analysis of Keystone’s snowcat skiing proposal concludes that the operation would have appreciable beneficial cumulative effects to the recreation experience by enabling the resort to offer a wider variety of recreation opportunities.
The draft EA shows that, in 2001, Keystone paid $1.29 million in fees to the U.S. Forest Service, of which 25 percent comes back to Summit County. That comes to just a little more than $1 per skier visit, if you’re counting.
The snowcat service — aimed at sightseers as well as skiers and snowboarders — would help distinguish the resort from its competition by enabling the resort to offer services that no other Front Range destination resort does, according to the Forest Service document.
The study was prepared cooperatively by a Forest Service interdisciplinary team and Frisco-based SE Group, Inc., one of the country’s leading ski resort consulting and design groups. One of the lead SE Group planners on the project is Kent Sharp, formerly a snow ranger with the Dillon District.
The study evaluates two alternatives — the proposed action and the obligatory no-action scenario required by NEPA. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was consulted under Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act and on Oct. 17 issued a biological opinion, concurring with the Forest Service that the effects of the proposed action on threatened Canada lynx are “insignificant and discountable ... and will not jeopardize the continued existence (of the species). ”
The three-hour sessions in Little Bowl — and Erickson Bowl, if conditions permit — would take place in about 311 acres, and the area would remain open for hike-to skiing and snowboarding at the same time. Sightseeing tours would start at the Summit House and traverse the ridge atop Little Bowl and continue around Erickson Bowl down the Erickson Mine Road to the Outpost.
According to a table of mitigation measures, the Forest Service and Keystone will develop a boundary management plan aimed at limiting access from the resort to Jones Gulch, an adjacent drainage that has been identified as a wildlife movement corridor. Snowcat routes will be selected to avoid wetlands, and if wetlands or willows are crossed there must be at least one foot of packed snow to cushion the vehicles.
The EA also discloses that, at times, the resort would groom the ski terrain in Little Bowl to “maintain the quality of the snow for safety reasons.”
Past proposals at Keystone have triggered concerns about impacts to the forested Jones Gulch wildlife movement corridor. The draft EA for the snowcat skiing proposal suggests there is an abundance of forested cover in southern Summit County, and that habitat connectivity is “far above average for a lynx analysis unit LAU), and arguably the best in the state for a LAU containing a section of I-70. ”
The EA acknowledges that the Jones Gulch area is the only “highly viable linkage available to conduct north-south movements of forest carnivores across the Snake River Basin.” The snowcat operation would have little impact on Jones Gulch, and measures aimed at limiting access from the ski area to the drainage could even reduce the current level of impacts, the Forest Service speculates.
The LAU covering the Snake River Basin includes more than 24,000 acres of suitable lynx foraging habitat, far above the threshold of 15,000 acres established by the interagency lynx conservation strategy to maintain overall habitat viability in the Southern Rockies. The area also includes about 6,600 acres of well-distributed denning habitat, some of it surrounded by large areas of year-round foraging habitat.
The EA goes on to discuss how a hypothetical resident lynx might avoid denning in the Jones Gulch area because of chronic winter disturbances, although backcountry activities are likely to be decreasing as denning season approaches in the spring. Better denning habitat is identified on the north side of the Bear Mountain-Independence Mountain complex, in Saints John, Peru and Deer creeks as well as Chihuahua Gulch and along the ridgeline between the North Fork and the mainstem of the Snake River.
The snowcat operation would result in a slight increase in winter recreational use that already sees similar use. According to the EA, hike-to skiers have already degraded the security habitat values in the forest patches below Little Bowl and Erickson Bowl. “Any additional snowcat skiers that might ski through the same forest patch would not further degrade potential diurnal security values.”
