Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Open Baldy?s back side


Wally, Curt, are you paying attention? Are you listening? God has sent you a message. With a giant bolt of lightning, he has told you, "Now is the time to open the back side of Baldy to off-piste, ungroomed, lift-served skiing." God has done part of the job by burning out the underbrush. The Sun Valley Co. along with the prompt active support of the Forest Service should move quickly to install a couple of hanging lifts on Baldy's backside To avoid controversy, the new lifts should avoid the Board Ranch area. There is plenty of other area available back there.

With new wide skis today's young skier wants to try ungroomed, off-piste skiing. These young skiers are our future. Watch any new ski movies, and you will see they feature only off-piste skiing. Vail's ungroomed back bowls and Aspen-Snowmass' Big Burn are critical factors in their increasing skier counts. In contrast, on a powder day, Baldy's bowls are completely shredded by noon, and tourists can't find a place to ski powder. No wonder Baldy's skier count keeps declining.

When you get lemons, make lemonade. The Castle Rock Fire could have been an awful tragedy. However, with some luck and great, great work by the Forest Service, it was not a tragedy. With the right viewpoint the fire can be seen as a fabulous opportunity. Hopefully, the Forest Service and the Sun Valley Co. will grab this opportunity and aggressively work together to make lift-served, off-piste skiing on the backside of Baldy a near-term reality. Making this happen is very important to the future vitality of this community.

Paul Connolly

Sun Valley




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