(via email) Dear Unofficial,
I live in the valley here and am working this season as a ski instructor and in the ski school office. At the employee party last week, I had a rather lengthy talk with Andy Wirth as to what kind of physical changes are in store for the mountain over this coming summer and the next. In case you are interested, he mentioned the following…
- – Newport and Mainline chairs are gone, as there are already buyers lined up for them.
- – The top station of Squaw One may be moved (lower) or a mid station may be put in to allow it to run on storm days in addition to the infamous “KT – East”
- – KT may be upgraded to a six person chair
- – The top station of the Funitel is going to be remodeled to look nicer rather than getting dumped into an industrial looking cave
- – Red Dog may be upgraded to a high speed quad and is going to be redesigned to run closer to the contour of the terrain rather than clearing those huge gaps that occasionally tempt you to put the bar down. This would require a much larger motor (800hp) to handle the increased steepness of the final climb.
- – The KT sun deck is going to be upgraded (not sure specifically, possibly bigger?) to fit more appropriately at the base of “the world famous KT-22” (as Andy gestured up the mountain)
- – He mentioned another mid station possibility on another lift which I am having trouble remembering, but for some reason KT is coming to mind. I suppose this would open more intermediate terrain on days when Exhibition is not spinning.
- – Oh yeah, he also mentioned they are ripping out the current ticket booths in the red building and relocating them against the funitel base.
He mentioned some of these changes would take place over this summer and some would have to wait until next year, but he didn’t mention how many of these projects would get done this coming summer. When asked about the possibilty of expanding or buying White Wolf, the reply was, “It’s not out of the question, but were not thinking about that now. We want to make sure we get things right within our existing boundaries before we consider expanding.”
Anyway, just thought I would share. Keep it up guys, I would check UnofficialSquaw over Facebook any day.
– Will