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Stevens Pass ski area would get the goodwill of new ski trails and lifts and an entire new season of recreation for mount bikers under any expansion plan now for that that is less than consideration.

Mountain bikers are stoked about a plan to add about five miles of downhill trails, reached by the Hogsback chairlift, for summer use. The trails would include jumps, drops, and other adrenaline pumpers — all with elective bypasses — to rival the trails at Whistler, B.C.

No such weight rush by chairlift is currently beneficial to mountain bikers in Washington.

“There is a definitely a pregnant market for that kind of thing, and it’s growing faster than there are places to ride,” before-mentioned Adam Schaeffer, service manager at the Downhill Zone mountain-bike workshop in Seattle.

A mountain biker himself, Schaeffer sees great potential for the trails planned for Stevens, especially with the benefit of chairlift access. The location, just an hour and a half from Seattle, is a different greater drawing, Schaeffer said.

“You are up and back in a epoch. What is not to like?”

The mountain-bike trails are in phase one of a manager plan for the ski area envisioned to be built over the next 10 to 15 years by the resort owner, Harbor Properties of Seattle.

The bike trails are planned for use by summer 2010.

Phase two of the overcome plan includes a new chairlift and additional ski trails east of the vertex. It is envisioned for conversion to an act by the winter of 2011. A new mountain lodge at the top of the Skyline lift is proposed, with hot nutriment and year-round increase to arrange vast eminence bikers considered in the state of adequately as skiers.

All of the phase one and two improvements for skiers and bikers are in the compass of the current permit superficial contents for the company, which is entirely on public country managed by the U.S. Forest Service.

The ski area, as part of its master plan, would also like to add about 136 acres to the resort, to tidy up boundaries and for better avalanche control. No new unfolding is planned there.

Under the long-term master digest, the number of chairlifts would increase to 15 from 12; the number of trails would grow to 237 trails in continuance 938 acres from 130 on 588 acres. Restaurant seating would be increased, and parking added.

“We definitely could appliance some more lifts and lodge capacity,” said Bob Burton, of Seattle, president of the board of directors of the Stevens Pass Alpine Club. With both best fruits originator runs as well as steep and open runs, Burton sees great new potential in spite of Stevens — his favorite venue in the Northwest towards 40 years.

“It’s very crowded on the weekend, and we would look forward to some new lifts and trails, to accord. us other thing additional ski areas.”

Permit method questioned

But the permitting method elected by the Forest Service to review the developer’s proposal is creating controversy.

Stevens Pass is the last of the major ski areas in the Seattle domain to propose expansion — and the first the feds and developer propose to handle with a phased environmental analysis.

With the couple Crystal Mountain and the Summit at Snoqualmie, the Forest Service approved expansions and enhancements only after a full-blown environmental impact statement (EIS) of the complete master plan for the projects.

The analyses included a look at cumulative effects, alternatives to the proposed plans and mitigation to offset disadvantage to the environment.

But under an approach new in the Northwest, the Forest Service this duration of one’s life wants to examine the master plan for Stevens under an abbreviated environmental tax of only the first phase of the project. Other steps in the expansion would be examined of the same kind with phases of the project advancement.

The so-called phased approach has been used elsewhere in the rural but not here — and so far, it’s not going over for one’s advantage with conservation groups.

Just looking at phase one — which includes upgrades to the water system — doesn’t provide a complete picture of what the ski area could become to boot time, declared Charlie Raines, of the Cascade Chapter of the Sierra Club, which is fighting a phased review.

“I am flabbergasted the Forest Service thinks they can slice this up into little pieces so they can escape distress any overall look. The Forest Service of necessity to be making decisions end for end the entire landscape, not taking these things one at a time,” Raines aforesaid.

A comprehensive effects analysis promised as part of the phased approach also falls short, Raines argued, because mitigation, if somewhat, would have existence ordered at this stage for only aspect one of the project — not the whole master plan.

The Sierra Club was instrumental in the recently approved enlargement of the Summit at Snoqualmie in that significant mitigation, including purchase of forest lands to make up for new development at the ski area, was part of the deal.

But John Meriwether, director of planning for Stevens Pass resort, said because of uncertainties about future development, from financing to climate change, it doesn’t make vocation sensation to sell a mitigation plan up front for portions of the master plan that puissance never be built.

“Why waste money on analysis of all this stuff we may never bring about?” Meriwether said.

“This phasing process is new to the Pacific Northwest. The way it’s been done in Washington is you submit a master project and do an EIS on the whole circumstance. But it is much more economical and adapted to practice to cozen it in phases, for it focuses on the actual impact of what is going to happen in the foreseeable future.”

Sean Wetterberg, winter-sports specialist for the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, furthermore favors the phased approach.

“This does represent a change in the transaction from the way we have done overseer plans at other ski areas in the forest,” Wetterberg declared. “We’ve learned a parcel.”

“We want to do meaningful environmental analytics on a realistic proffer, in a reasonable substance of time.”

Lynda V. Mapes: 206-464-2736 or lmapes@seattletimes.com