Feds release geology report on Snodgrass

CBMR hopes to enter NEPA by this spring

After nine months of waiting, the final report on the geological safety of Snodgrass Mountain has been released. With the advice of the report in hand, Crested Butte Mountain Resort (CBMR) officials expect to give the U.S. Forest Service an official proposal to expand the ski area by the end of February.

The report from the chief geologist of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) gives some warnings against the ski area expanding on a couple of sections of Snodgrass Mountain, unless further slope stability studies are conducted and additional mitigation techniques proposed. But for CBMR the report gives a clear view of which areas of the mountain to avoid, and marks the end of a drawn-out pre-application process, clearing the way for the ski area to submit an official expansion proposal.
CBMR chief operating officer Ken Stone says, “It’s good news for us to be able to get this behind us and move forward.” He says the Snodgrass expansion proposal will now avoid some of the more complex geological features on Snodgrass. “Basically, we said let’s take those out of the mix and we’ll adjust our design. [The Forest Service] said okay, submit that plan, and if it indeed works around those areas we’ll accept it and move forward into NEPA,” the National Environmental Policy Act planning process.
CBMR vice president of planning and development Michael Kraatz says the resort expects to have an official expansion proposal submitted to the Forest Service by mid- to late February.
Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison (GMUG) National Forest supervisor Charlie Richmond says the geological report is far from a final decision about expanding lift-served skiing onto Snodgrass. “This report doesn’t make any decisions about potential operations on Snodgrass Mountain,” Richmond said in a January 12 press release. ”What it does do is contribute substantially toward the ongoing efforts to obtain the best information and to become more knowledgeable about the geological conditions on Snodgrass Mountain.”
The 36-page geological report from the USGS geologist Rex Baum is a thorough review of two other recent geological studies of Snodgrass.
Since 1982, CBMR has proposed to develop the 11,145-foot-high Snodgrass Mountain into more intermediate skier terrain. From time to time, the idea was put on the back burner due to either financial trouble or community opposition.
Plans for Snodgrass resurfaced in 2005 when CBMR submitted a preliminary proposal to the Forest Service for consideration before it officially entered the NEPA process, which would determine impacts of the development. The Forest Service and CBMR agreed to explore potential “deal breakers” in a “pre-NEPA” process before the federal agency accepts the resort’s official application, including the mountain’s geology and community support.
GMUG public affairs specialist Lee Ann Loupe says, “We didn’t want to spend time and energy if there was no way the ski expansion would be geologically sound, or if the public was adamantly against it, no way, no how.”
Last year the town of Mt. Crested Butte, the city of Gunnison and the Crested Butte South Property Owners Association sent letters to the Forest Service in support of the terrain expansion. The town of Crested Butte sent a letter that said its community members did not support the expansion. A survey conducted by the Crested Butte /Mt. Crested Butte Chamber of Commerce in April indicated that 60 percent of the 135 responding businesses supported the expansion. A local group called Friends of Snodgrass Mountain has also sent letters to the Forest Service in opposition to the terrain expansion, and touting a petition that currently has more than 1,400 signatures on it.
Loupe says, “We’ve heard enough from community members and local governments to realize there are polar opinions, but there’s also quite a bit of support to at least enter NEPA and evaluate some of the issues.”
There have been several studies of the mountain’s geology since the expansion plans resurfaced. The Forest Service released a geological report on Snodgrass in 2006, and a geologist hired by CBMR released a similar study in April 2008.
Also in 2008, local conservation group High Country Citizens’ Alliance (HCCA) hired a geological consulting firm to review the two in-depth studies.
Several other geological studies of Snodgrass Mountain have been conducted over the past three decades, during previous proposals to expand the ski area.
“I think this is the most studied ski resort expansion in the country,” Stone says.
 With a wealth of sometimes conflicting information about the mountain’s geology, the Forest Service decided to have another federal agency, the United States Geological Survey, make a final review of the existing data.
That report was finished this year on January 8, and was put on the Forest Service’s website on January 12.
With the USGS report finished, Loupe says, “We feel we have a pretty clear grasp of what the geological issues are and the areas that need to be completely avoided.” Loupe says the Forest Service will be providing CBMR with a formal letter of guidance to help them craft an official expansion proposal. “The bottom line is we feel some of the roadblocks are sufficiently clear.”
 Kraatz says he didn’t find anything too surprising in the latest geological report. “All of the geology reports, even going back to 1976, have always identified two primary areas of concern on Snodgrass. One is called the southeast landslide complex, and then there is also the west complex,” he says.
“We had identified mitigation measures that we felt were appropriate that would allow ski trails or lifts to go in both of those area without any issues,” Kraatz continues. “It was clear [in the report] the USGS did not feel as comfortable as we did.”
HCCA conservation analyst Lawton Grinter says if ski terrain is proposed in the two troublesome areas, the Forest Service may not accept the resort’s expansion proposal. “Considering the possible geologic risks caused by landslide reactivation and debris flows identified in the USGS report, acceptable mitigation could be difficult and costly. It all boils down to the level of risk the [Forest Service] is willing to accept with regard to resource damage and safety,” Grinter says.
Kraatz says the USGS report suggested that further landslide mitigation measures and drainage infrastructure might make skiing in those areas acceptable. The report also suggested conducting more geological studies—including drilling boreholes and measuring slope movement over time—before skiing infrastructure in the troublesome areas would be acceptable.
Kraatz says the additional studies and mitigation measures would be too time-consuming and costly for the resort. “When we were going through our planning for Snodgrass, we came up with a number of alternative designs, one of which avoids those areas entirely,” he says.
“There will be nine trails that have to be eliminated… It very well may cut skiable acreage,” Kraatz adds. However, he says the resort will try to look at increasing the amount of skiable terrain on other areas of the mountain before submitting their proposal to the Forest Service.
“Instead of going back and doing several years’ worth of additional studies, we’ll take the alternative we had previously done and we will refine that over the next several weeks… In the alternative plan we could gain some, or all, of that acreage back,” he says.
The resulting expansion plan for Snodgrass will be coupled with a master development plan for the resort and submitted to the Forest Service for approval.
Once the Forest Service approves an expansion plan, the plan will then head to the Gunnison County offices for a separate review. However, it is uncertain at this point whether the expansion plan will be reviewed under the county’s standard Land Use Resolution, or by a different planning tool called the Special Project Development Regulations, or as a Special Geographic Area. CBMR is in the process of asking the county to have Snodgrass reviewed as a Special Geographic Area, while at the same time the county is making a comprehensive update to the Special Project Development Regulations.
To view a copy of the latest geological report please click visit www.crestedbuttenews.com/images/documents/snodgrass%20mountain%20usgs%20report.pdf. The Forest Service site regarding the policy is www.fs.fed.us/r2/gmug/policy/#ski .