Aspen Skiing Company has updated its plans for the future of Aspen Highlands.
The company submitted a draft master plan for the ski area to the U.S. Forest Service in December. It includes several potential construction projects and additional summer operations.
Kaya Williams is a freelance journalist and contributor to the investigative publication Aspen Journalism.
She dug into the massive document and spoke to Aspen Public Radio’s Sage Smiley about the Aspen Highlands Master Development Plan.
This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Sage Smiley: What is this Master Development Plan you've looked into?
Kaya Williams: It is what it sounds like — a master plan for a ski area. And all 11 ski areas that operate on White River National Forest lands, they all submit these to the Forest Service. It's basically not quite a 10-year plan, but a ballpark 10-year plan: “Here's all the projects that we're thinking about doing in the next decade.” Some of those will happen. Some of those might not. Some of them might happen way down the road, and some could get punted off the plan. But it's really focused on ski area infrastructure like lifts, terrain, trees, anything that the skier themselves interface with on a ski area.
Smiley: So, to you, what stands out about this plan?
Williams: The big thing that's probably stood out to everybody who's read this plan so far is a gondola to the top of Cloud Nine. This is different than the way Highlands currently operates. It's a very old-school mountain. It's got a lot of open-air chairlifts — actually, not too many open-air chairlifts compared to what they used to have. And what's interesting is that we've seen some strong feelings, maybe on both sides, about a gondola so far. When I've asked my friends or read comments online, some people are like, “Great idea,” and some people say, “Oh, I like Highlands the way it is.” There are a lot of different opinions on how this should go.
One of the most interesting things that I found in my research is that a gondola at Aspen Highlands has been in different versions of plans for the mountain since the very beginning, since like 1957, before the resort even opened. And so that's how I opened this story was like: “A gondola at Aspen Highlands is not a new idea, but it will feel different than what's currently there, which is the Exhibition chairlift, which is for four people. You connect to other upper mountain chair lifts.”
Other stuff on here is also in that lift infrastructure standpoint. The Thunderbolt lift could be replaced with something a little higher-speed, higher-capacity. An Apple Strudel lift around mid-mountain could help people lap those blue runs that are really fun to ski, but sometimes you don't ski them because you don't want to go all the way down to the bottom. And that's the big stuff.
The restaurants – Cloud Nine and Merry-Go-Round – could be expanded, and beyond that, it's a lot of stuff that's going to be a little bit more subtle to somebody who just walks up to the base, but that really avid Highlands skiers might notice.
Smiley: Thinking about this plan, all the research you've done into the history of these proposals and also what's actually in this plan that's been submitted to the Forest Service, what does it, and what doesn't it establish?
Williams: It really does establish the direction that the Aspen Skiing Company wants to go with Aspen Highlands, and that direction is one that could be more year-round and is more resilient to climate change.
Anyone who has skied Highlands this season knows that the coverage has been a little spotty, and that's true at mountains all over the Mountain West right now, but Highlands, in particular, only has snowmaking, at this point, not very far up the mountain. So you get to these mid-mountain runs, and all of a sudden you're seeing rocks and dirt, which is not really what you want to ski over.
This vision mentions climate change way more than it mentions the phrases “world class” or “iconic,” which we typically associate with SkiCo saying. And so a lot of it shows that they are planning for a future where winters are warmer and shorter, and there isn't as much snow. An expansion of snowmaking is another big part of this plan.
What it doesn't establish is when these projects are going to happen, and whether these projects are going to happen. There are some things in these master plans that have been in here for decades. Over in Snowmass, they've been talking or thinking about a Burnt Mountain chairlift since the 90s. There is still not a Burnt Mountain chairlift. But there are other things that can even get removed from master plans. Highlands looked at doing a little surface tow over by Golden Horn, which is up in the race venue area, and that's not even currently planned. So as to whether and when we'll see a gondola, whether and when we'll see summer operations, for instance, that stuff comes down the line, and there's still a lot of review to happen before it does.
Smiley: Then what is the next step? Where does this plan go from here?
Williams: First thing is acceptance by the Forest Service. This basically says, “We've looked at your plan. It does generally align with our policies, our directives, the things that we want to see on Forest Service lands.” It's still under review. Their public affairs officer, David Boyd, told me they'll probably finish up that review around early summer. Then it's going to go to Pitkin County, which will do more of a land use review of things that can take a long time too. Anyone who's ever been through a land use review knows how long it takes to do those things. And then the ski company might start to pick out individual projects and say, “Okay, we want to do this now.” Each of those individual projects will go through review, not only with Pitkin County, for instance, but also through an environmental review — the National Environmental Policy Act.
Sometimes they can take out a project and try and run it in tandem with a Master Plan review process. They did that in Snowmass with their Coney Express lift. But at this point, they haven't flagged anything to say, “It's such a high priority that we need to do it before we finish this master plan process.”
Smiley: Is there anything we haven't talked about that stuck out to you about the reporting or that you want people to know?
Williams: There's a couple of things that are really interesting, one of which is just summer operations as a whole. We already have those at Aspen Mountain and at Snowmass Ski Area, but we don't see a lot of activity on the mountain at Aspen Highlands or at Buttermilk Mountain. They did a little summer ops at Buttermilk a couple of years ago, but at Highlands right now, if you go up that work road, you might see another person walking their dog, but you also might not.
A summer operations plan is going to bring a whole lot more people onto the mountain. There are many that already pass through the base because they're getting on shuttles for the Maroon Bells, but they're not really interfacing with the mountain itself.
And part of that is a climate resiliency plan, right? Summer operations do not depend on snow at all, and they also don't depend on whether someone is a skier or not. Highlands has blue to double-black and extreme terrain, but somebody who doesn't ski at all or is just learning how to ski could still experience Highlands and experience these views through a summer operations plan and through a gondola, for instance, that gets them up the mountain.
The other really interesting thing that's noted in this plan is the idea of an interconnect tramway, or an interconnect gondola. People have been talking about that in this valley for a very long time. It hasn't proved feasible, at least not an Aspen Highlands-Buttermilk-Snowmass interconnect. But the fact that it is in this plan as something they want to study further, or could study further, is noteworthy. It gives it some heft and legitimacy that we're also seeing in other spheres, like this Transportation Coalition for the 21st Century, talking about ideas like this as well, in a way that the idea feels a little bit more real than maybe it did a decade ago.
SS: Thank you so much for sharing your reporting with us.
KW: Thanks, Sage.
Read Williams’ reporting on the Master Development Plan here.
