Building a chairlift into town on the Lift 1A side of Aspen Mountain is a notion ridden with constraints, but is not completely out of the cards, Aspen Skiing Co. brass told the Lift One COWOP task force.
The problem is one of space constraints and opportunity cost, SkiCo Vice President for Planning and Development Dave Corbin told the city-sponsored group charged with plotting out the future of the Lift 1A neighborhood. The group is in the midst of six months of weekly meetings that began after two separate hotel development projects in the area ran aground.
A key objective identified by those who called for a Lift One master plan is a new lift that would provide easier access to the 1A side, which can now only be accessed by a four-block walk up a steep hill. Other goals are sufficient affordable housing and a welcoming built environment. Some are also calling for a ski history museum in the 1A neighborhood.
Corbin told the group on Thursday that the state tramway board requires at least a 70-foot-wide lane free of buildings for a chairlift to be deemed safe. The buffer zone’s primary purpose is to protect chairlift riders if one of the buildings catches fire. While the tramway board can grant variances to the rule, they will do so only if the applicant can show that the rules create an undue hardship, Corbin said. The applicant would also have to take additional steps towards fire safety.
“I can’t speculate if a variance would be granted here,” said Corbin, who has been with SkiCo since 2005, and in the mountain-planning business for 20 years.
With all that citizens and developers want out of the limited 1A area, Corbin questioned whether giving up so much space for the lift would be feasible. He reminded the hotel developers, who will likely have to pay for a new chairlift if their projects go forward, that money spent on lift facilities is money that will not be spent elsewhere.
The decision about the lift becomes even more complicated if the community wants two separate lifts — one to carry skiers from town to the base of the slope and another to carry them up the mountain. And with any lift access point, additional space would also have to be given over to amenities such as ski racks, ticket windows and skier services.
With multiple lift terminals, “You’re really chewing up footprint,” Corbin said.
Another constraint Corbin identified is the cost in labor and electricity of running a lift with the sole purpose of giving passengers a ride up the hill — not to facilitate “return skiing,” or the ease of skiers to make laps on a particular chairlift.
“We’re not eager to bring the tail of skiing deep into the neighborhood,” Corbin said. “I don’t think we can maintain quality return skiing deep into the neighborhood.”
Then there is the issue of packing all of that skier traffic into a narrow corridor. Noting the tight confines on Aspen Mountain where Spar Gulch and Copper Bowl come together — an area about 50 feet wide — Corbin said the ideal amount of space for the bottom of the ski run would be closer to 100 feet, “although we could live with 75.”
He pointed out that “With the combination of traffic and varying ability levels, we want to allow more room, not less ... . We want to design more gracious and comfortable dimensions.”
In addition to the space constraints, Corbin pointed to the problems that loud snowguns would pose for making snow down the extended ski run. From 50 feet away, operational snowguns register a noise level of about 85 decibels, he said.
“It’s going to be an annoyance,” Corbin said, noting that a key to the success of any new base area development is the ability to sell ownership interests in condos. “No one is going to be happy with (the noise).”
Despite the logistical considerations and obstacles Corbin identified, SkiCo supports the task force’s efforts to examine the possibility of a town lift. “Absolutely,” Corbin said. “There is no line in the sand.”
Time ran out on Thursday’s meeting before the task force had much of a chance to weigh in on what they had heard from SkiCo. That process will begin with this week’s meeting, to be held Thursday from 4-6 p.m. at the Hines Room on the Aspen Meadows campus.
With the goals and obstacles to their fulfillment established, “now we can start mushing them around,” said Tim Ditzler, the group’s moderator and facilitator.
Ideas other than a traditional chairlift that have been floated for the area include a “magic carpet” conveyer belt that would carry skiers up the hill, or a “pulse gondola,” similar to the “Skittles” lift at Snowmass that runs between the Snowmass Mall and Base Village. Some have suggested that simply getting skiers up the hill, not providing an extended ski run, should be the goal of a new lift.
Allyn Harvey, a citizen-at-large task force member and an avid Aspen Mountain skier, said he sees many of the constraints presented by SkiCo — such as the desire to have 100 feet or more of trail width — as an expression of ideal circumstances. Somewhere short of the ideal, the group could find an acceptable compromise, Harvey said.
“The challenge for us is to find a way to get people up the hill,” he said, adding that bringing skiing further down into town would honor Aspen’s history.
Mary Janss, also a citizen-at-large and the daughter of the original Snowmass developer, said it “certainly was impressive” to hear about the limitations on building a new lift, “but I feel strongly that it would be wonderful.”
The Lift One side of Aspen Mountain was once the epicenter of skiing in Aspen. When Aspen Mountain opened in the 1940s, all skiers began their day there. What was once the world’s longest chairlift originated in what is now Lift One Park, about 300 yards down the hill from where Lift 1A now begins.
The area became more obscure when the Silver Queen gondola was built on the other side of the mountain in the mid-1980s. Today, SkiCo estimates that only two or three percent of Aspen Mountain skiers start their days at Lift 1A, but with two new lodges at the 1A base, a new high-speed chairlift and a revamped mountain portal, as many as a quarter of Aspen Mountain skiers could start their days there.
The neighborhood has been considered ripe for redevelopment for some time. Around the beginning of the decade, plans from two separate developers began to form for two separate lodges that would fully redevelop both sides of Aspen Street. The Lodge at Aspen Mountain, proposed for the west side of the street, came forward first. The plans for the lodge were shot down by Aspen City Council last October after three years of land-use review. Prior to the council’s denial of the project, many began calling for a master plan for the neighborhood that would bring together both of the area’s developers, the city and SkiCo.
Developers for the Lift One Lodge, proposed for the east side of the street, saw the writing on the wall and agreed to participate in the master plan, pulling their application only weeks before the council was set to begin land-use hearings on the project.
The task force includes voting members representing SkiCo, both lodge developers, the city, neighborhood representatives and “citizen-at-large” members. The task force must make a recommendation for a neighborhood plan by fall.
curtis@aspendailynews.com
