‘No Formal Proposal Has Been Drafted,’ Telski CEO Dave Riley Emphasizes

TELLURIDE – On the Telluride Ski Area, the sound of progress is the whir of a helicopter blade. This month, the resort welcomed its newest mountain upgrade via aerial delivery: Lift towers for Telluride’s new chairlift will start sprouting up in Revelation Bowl next week, serving as indicators that the Ski Area is in the midst of a growth spurt.

The Revelation Lift’s launch this winter will mark the first time that a new chairlift has been drawn onto the Telluride trail map since the Prospect Bowl expansion added Lifts 11, 12, 13 and 14 in 2001. This winter’s expansion into Revelation Bowl follows closely on the heels of a slew of other recent Ski Area expansions, with last winter’s opening of Black Iron Bowl, Palmyra Peak and Gold Hill Chutes 6-10 significantly increasing the resort’s selection of hike-to terrain.

While the Revelation Lift’s opening will ultimately introduce Telluride’s powder-happy skiers and riders to more lift-serviced terrain, its looming completion additionally stands as a significant milestone for the Telluride Ski Resort. When the Revelation Lift fires up for the first time this winter, the resort will have completed one of the final steps in bringing to fruition Telluride’s full potential for skiable terrain within its permit area.

Which begs the question: What’s next for the Telluride Ski Area?

The answer may not lie in what ski area operators envision for Telluride, but what the Telluride community envisions for its ski resort.

Telluride Ski and Golf Company CEO Dave Riley reported that he’s recently been involved in “informal” discussions with several members of the community about the ultimate future of the Telluride Ski Area, and more specifically, its boundary. The focus of those discussions has been on the new chairlift, the terrain it will access – and how expansion into Revelation Bowl, on the eastern side of the Gold Hill ridge, will affect traffic on the off-piste slopes of Bear Creek.

While no formal proposal has been drafted, Riley confided that the ski company would be open to exploring the idea of expanding the Ski Area’s boundary to include parts of Upper Bear Creek – if there is enough support within the community to do so.

“If the community gives us a resonable indication that they want us to manage the Creek, the Ski Area is willing to step up to do that,” he said.

As it stands, portions of the upper Bear Creek basin are open to backcountry travelers in the winter. Although skiers and snowboarders can access the area via Telluride Ski Resort lifts, when they go through the Forest Service’s “Backcountry Access Point” (located on the ridge above the Little Rose and Andy’s Gold trails and designated with signs) they leave the ski area’s boundary – and any safeguards it provides – behind. Yet the location of the new chairlift, smack in the middle of the oft-skied slopes of the out-of-bounds Bear Creek, has raised considerable concern over who and how many will now chose to venture into Bear Creek’s backcountry.

“There are a number of things that have happened… that will ultimately change things in Bear Creek as we know them from this point forward,” Riley said. He went on to explain: Throughout the industry, demand for lift-serviced, “slack-country” skiing has increased dramatically. Last winter’s opening of the Gold Hill 6-10 Chutes created greater visibility for the terrain in Bear Creek. And this winter, the Revelation Lift will deposit skiers at the base of Bear Creek’s gateway (the Hillary Step) erasing what had previously been a substantial hike to the Access Point and the terrain beyond.

All of which leads Riley to believe that Bear Creek will see an exponential spike in traffic this winter.

“For many years, a small group of very savvy people were able to enjoy Bear Creek to themselves. I’m not convinced that preserving that experience is actually possible at this point,” he said.

An increase in traffic could, and likely will, lead to problems in Bear Creek. It’s an area that is spectacular to ski, but equally dangerous. Following a string of avalanche fatalities in the area during the winter of 1986-87, the USFS and Telluride Ski Co. closed Bear Creek to winter travel. Winter access was re-established during the winter of 1988-89, when the Gold Hill Backcountry Access Gate was established, and two locals died in an avalanche in the off-limits area (not accessed by the gate, and thus illegal) Temptation Chute on Valentine’s Day in 1989. The Access Gate was closed to backcountry skiers again in 1990.

A grassroots drive among local backcountry enthusiasts, initiated in 1997 by the Telluride Mountain Club and deemed the “Free Bear Creek” campaign, helped reinstate access to Bear Creek through the current backcountry access point, which was established in 2000. Access to Bear Creek has remained open since.

While the status of travel into Bear Creek has been variable, one thing that hasn’t changed since skiers first started exploring its slopes decades ago: its potential for disaster. Upper Bear Creek claimed its last life on March 15, 2002, when San Diego resident Erica Ghini and Telluride local Martin Simpson were caught in a slide after ducking a rope into the illegal-to-ski Temptation Bowl. Simpson survived, Ghini didn’t.

There have been no deaths in Bear Creek since the 2002 Temptation slide, but the area has played host to its fair share of “close calls.”

Local backcountry skier and avid Bear Creek traveler Brian O’Neill was injured in an avalanche in Bear Creek in 2005. He believes that the increase in visibility and accessibility for Bear Creek this winter may prove to be a volatile combination.

“The new lift is going to make the access to Bear Creek so easy that the runs on the East Face of upper Gold Hill might as well be part of the ski area,” he said. “Not being part of the ski area and uncontrolled means that this dangerous area, which is going to see a great deal of pressure this year, will be quite prone to accidents.”

Concerns over skier safety initiated the ski company’s investigation of expanding the current boundary to include the popular backcountry terrain in Bear Creek; Riley stands firm, however, in his resolution that the Ski Company will not explore the concept further without community support.

“The ski company wants to be responsive to what the community wants for Bear Creek,” he said. “The position we’re in is that we can just continue to operate as we are and hope for the best; Or, the ski area can take a different role by providing avalanche control and emergency services there. The community needs to decide what it wants.” Riley expressed concern that the ski area may be pressured to close the gate in the future if Bear Creek accidents increase. “The outcome would be horrible. We would prefer to be proactive and don’t want to be painted into a corner,” Riley said.

Expanding the ski area boundary into Bear Creek isn’t something that ski area operators could simply add to their existing work list. The resort would first need to submit a proposal to the US Forest Service; the Forest Service would then need to approve it. Additionally, “significant financial resources” would need to be allocated for the project. Any other details about a potential expansion into Bear Creek – where the new boundary would be, if and where there would be more chairlifts, what it would mean for backcountry access in the area, or how, exactly, it would be managed by the resort – have not yet been delineated.

The USFS’s Kathy Peckham said that until the Forest Service receives a proposal from the Telluride Ski Resort, she could not comment on the plan’s viability.

Riley said he has been assured by Ski Patrol that management of Bear Creek would be feasible, if, of course, they were given the necessary resources to do it properly. Those resources would most definitely include more manpower as well as avalanche-mitigating artillery.

The notion of using explosives in Bear Creek for avalanche control makes some locals bristle, as does the idea of seeing even more people in an area designated as a Nature Preserve. Gary Hickcox, of the San Miguel Conservation Foundation (the managing entity of the Bear Creek Preserve), agreed that expanding the ski area boundary into upper Bear Creek is doable, but only if the Ski Area is able to do so while following the guidelines established for the area, which was designated as a conservation easement in 1995.

Specifically, that means no motorized traffic of any kind – snowcats and snowmobiles included.

“There would be conflicts we would have to deal with, as far as the uphill and downhill traffic is concerned,” Hickcox allowed, “but I don’t see any reason why we couldn’t figure something out.

“But if it would entail taking snowcats and snowmobiles in there, it would be an instant, automatic ‘Sorry, no can do,” Hickcox said, explaining that the regulations for the conservation easement do not allow any motorized traffic within the Preserve, with the exception of emergency vehicles.

“What’s important to me is that people recognize that with a conservation easement, things don’t change – not 13 years later, not ever,” he said.

Riley says he understands the concerns over the Preserve. “One suggestion I’ve heard is to install a short chairlift with the lower terminal near the bottom of Nellie and the top terminal near the bottom of the new Revelation lift. That idea would eliminate increased skier traffic in the Preserve, allow skiers to make laps on the east side of Gold Hill, and would focus the necessary avalanche control work into the upper creek. It wouldn’t be very expensive and is worth considering”, he said.

Longtime Paragon Ski and Sport owner J. Michael Brown found fault with a different aspect of the yet-to-be fully realized plan; specifically, that its financing could take vital dollars away from improving existing aspects of the resort.

“Bear Creek is an allure, no doubt,” Brown said. “But from a business standpoint, I don’t believe we need any more fancy off-piste-type skiing. What the rank-and-file visitors want are amenities, like a terrain park that’s open by Christmas and good quality chairlifts. If we can have both, great. But if it’s an either-or thing, I think creating a quality experience with the terrain we have should be the focus, and not an afterthought.”

But longtime local skier John Roth, a man who has skied roughly 125 days a season since the Telluride Ski Area opened in 1972, believes that more terrain would be a good thing for Telluride.

“I believe that the mountains are here for us to enjoy, and as long as we are ecologically minded about it and it’s done in the right way, we can all enjoy the benefits of development on the mountain,” Roth said.

Riley said the Telluride Ski Resort recognizes that an abundance of ideas and opinions exist in relation to expanding the ski area boundary into Bear Creek, and maintains that the resort currently has not settled on any single option.

“At this point, we’re just listening, asking a lot of questions, and gauging what the issues are,” he said. “I understand that the community probably won’t support anything unanimously… but we need to get a better feel for what the majority of people want.”

Riley did let on that while the project would be a major undertaking for the ski resort, it would be worth the effort, explaining that “first and foremost, we can make it safe. Thousands of people are going to be going in there this winter, and I’m concerned about it.”

Riley and the Telluride Ski Resort want your feedback on this issue; to comment, visit Dave’s Blog, at www.tellurideskiresort.com.