Lift 21 proposal

Lift 21 (now named Vista Express) was the first major project proposed by Mt. Hood Meadows after the ski permit area was governed by the 1977 Master Plan. The proposal called for a high speed quad chairlift running from the base area near the bottom of the Easy Rider chair to the high ridgeline overlooking the Wild and Scenic White River. Meadows claimed that Lift 21 was needed to provide more beginner terrain higher on the mountain.

Appeal of Lift 21 project

Friends of Mount Hood and several other conservation groups raised a number of issues in appealing this project to Region 6 of the Forest Service. The simple fact is that Meadows did not "need" Lift 21. We countered the claim by Meadows and the Forest Service that the project would alleviate congestion in the beginner area by providing new beginner terrain. Also, the weather posed a real problem, since the ridgeline is often buffeted by strong southerly winds.

Of particular concern to us was the impact on the fragile ecosystem of the large high alpine region that would be opened to skiiers and snowboarders by the new lift. The construction plans involved excavating thousands of cubic yards of soil in order to place the lift towers and two large terminals, cutting trees where several towers were to be placed, and constructing a road over fragile alpine soil in order to bring heavy equipment to the construction site.

The practical issues were only compounded by Meadows' past environmental record. In the early 1990's, Meadows proposed building the Cascade lift. At the time Friends of Mount Hood raised serious concerns over the proposed lift, and the Forest Service agreed to drop the proposed construction road to reduce impacts to water and soil quality. However, a "temporary" road was built anyway!

Since Mt. Hood Meadows built the "temporary" road, Friends of Mount Hood and the Forest Service have repeatedly documented severe erosion problems in this high alpine environment. The extreme weather conditions are causing a loss of topsoil, and neither Mt. Hood Meadows nor the Forest Service has been able to successfully revegetate the road. This "temporary" road is still visible and eroding years after the Cascade lift was constructed.

To facilitate the constructon of Lift 21, Meadows planned to "reconstruct" and extend the "temporary" road in order to get heavy machinery into the high alpine environment, and then to "spread" excavated soil 4-6 inches deep on sections of the "temporary" road that have suffered from severe erosion. years.

Friends of Mount Hood and other groups appealed this project to Region Six of the Forest Service, arguing that the Forest Service had failed in its legal obligations to communicate and provide full disclosure to the public. Chris Winter of Cascade Resources Advocacy Group, a public interest environmental law firm, represented the plaintiffs in the appeal. Participating groups included the Hood River Valley Residents Committee, Northwest Environmental Defense Center, and Oregon Natural Resources Council. After reviewing our appeal and meeting with us in person, Kim Titus, who at the time was District Ranger of the Hood River Ranger District, pulled the Lift 21 project and instructed her staff to redo the Environmental Assessment.

The new analysis, however, suffered from the same defects. They hadn't changed the design of the project; they simply attempted to claim that their new erosion control and revegetation techniques will somehow miraculously reverse decades of well-documented failures to prevent erosion and damage resulting from lift construction at over 6000 feet. Friends of Mount Hood submitted comments on the revised Environmental Assessment and requested that the Forest Service prepare a more thorough Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) providing concrete analytical information that their new erosion control and revegetation techniques are, in fact, effective. There are many areas of the mountain that still suffer from erosion and failed revegetation efforts, including the base areas of the Cascade and Shooting Star lifts. In our view the Forest Service should implement these new techniques on old problems, developing concrete evidence that these techniques work, before allowing Meadows to simply repeat the documented failures and devastation of the past.

Lift 21 approved

In the fall of 2002 the district ranger of the the Hood River Ranger District approved, for a second time, the construction of Lift 21.

Summer 2004

Construction of the Vista Express chairlift occurred during the summer of 2004. The Environmental Assessment of the project had disclosed that two lift towers would be built in riparian zones; however, we have documented that six towers were placed in riparian zones. Furthermore, tower 14 is located near a small wetland.

The following links are to documents pertaining to Lift 21. However, they all are large files in Acrobat pdf format and might not be readily viewed on some computers.

The USDA Forest Service Environmental Assessment for the Construction of Lift 21 at the Mt. Hood Meadows Ski Resort and The Supplement to the Environmental Assessment for Lift 21 issued July 2001 and March 2002, respectively, are among documents posted on a page of publications on the website for the Mt. Hood National Forest.

The documents prepared by Chris Winter of Casacade Resources Advocacy Group are:

• Comments on Forest Service Environmental Assessment for Lift 21
• Administative Appeal of Environmental Assessment for Lift 21
• Comments on Supplementary Environmental Assessment for Lift 21