The Forest Service won’t allow developers on Oregon’s
Mount Hood to expand onto more public land. But the agency will
allow 5,000 more skiers, six new chairlifts and a restaurant on the
slopes. The Mount Hood Meadows ski area is a private business that
operates on Forest Service land under a special-use
permit.
The developers, led by Portland
businessman Franklin Drake, had wanted to increase the number of
skiers allowed on the mountain at one time from 8,600 to 15,000;
the Forest Service capped the number at 13,900. “The resources
can’t just take more and more people on into infinity,” Forest
Service supervisor Roberta Moltzen told The Oregonian. “There are
some limits.”
The mixed decision met a mixed
response from local citizens, who have until mid-March to appeal.
Kate Mills of the Hood River Valley Residents Committee praised the
agency for blocking expansion onto the adjacent White River Canyon
area but said damaged streambeds, poorly drained parking lots and
invasive ski lifts still need to be addressed. “I think (the resort
owners) should have cleaned up their act on everything that they’ve
already done,” says Mills. “They have garbage running into the
creeks and off of the parking lots.”
* Sarah
Dry
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Ski resort beefs up.
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