Crews hard at work at new resort lift

Flower Point chairlift will serve 200 acres

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With a few delicate shifts and nudges, a crane gently set in place the top terminal for the new Flower Point chairlift at Whitefish Mountain Resort on Aug. 20. A helicopter poured concrete footings for the 17 lift towers on Aug. 25, marking the halfway point of the construction project as ski season approaches.

The top of Flower Point has been cleared of trees and brush while crews continue to work on a patrol shack that will sit on six-foot pillars — a reminder of how much snow falls on this corner of Big Mountain.

The $1.29 million Flower Point project will open up an additional 200 acres of lift-served ski terrain on north-facing slopes. The silver 1979 Yan fixed-grip triple chair will have a vertical rise of about 800 feet and run 3,400 feet down to a location near the bottom of Chair 7. The lift can move 1,800 skiers an hour and will run every day of the ski season.

Reaction to the new lift has been mixed, Whitefish Mountain Resort spokeswoman Riley Polumbus said. But after trying out the newly cut runs and glades last winter, most local skiers quickly warmed up to the idea of more north-facing terrain and intermediate slopes.

“At first, some loved it and some hated it,” Polumbus said. “It was special to people to be able to hike here. But now our Big Mountain is even bigger.”

Mark Haselby is heading up the project — the seventh lift he’s installed on Big Mountain. He estimated work will be about 50-60 percent complete once the concrete has hardened. A helicopter will be used to place the lift towers on the concrete pads before the 7,000-foot haul line is installed to pull up the steel lift cable.

Haselby says fixed-grip lifts are much less complicated than detachable lifts, so work progresses quickly once infrastructure is in place. Access, however, has proven to be somewhat challenging for crews, with roads only crossing the lift line at the top, middle and bottom.

Six new ski runs were cut on Flower Point last year — North Fork, Whiskey Spring, Big Creek, Inside Road, Outside Road and Hidden Meadow. An additional run, Ridge Run, will follow the northeast boundary of the resort that separates Flower Point from the out-of-bounds Canyon Creek area.

A run off the backside toward the Bigfoot T-bar will be named in honor of Norm Kurtz — a well known promoter of Whitefish and past president of the resort. Kurtz died in January at age 86.

Flower Point long served as a take-off point for backcountry skiers searching for fresh powder in the Canyon Creek area. The out-of-bounds skiing was a 20-minute boot pack from the resort’s patrolled boundary.

The new chairlift changes the game. Next winter, thousands of skiers each day will be effortlessly lifted to the summit of Flower Point, with only a thin boundary rope separating them from the joys — and dangers — of backcountry skiing in the canyon.

Polumbus says resort officials have decided to keep an open boundary policy for the area.

“We’re not changing that,” she said. “But if you do go out, you’re on your own.”

She notes that Canyon Creek is a terrain trap with a number of steep chutes across the canyon on Mount Skookoleel ridge that regularly shed avalanches.

In 2008, two local backcountry skiers died when a large avalanche swept over them in Canyon Creek. David Gogolak, 36, of Whitefish, was hit by the avalanche as he was hiking out. Anthony Kollmann, 19, of Kalispell, was caught in the slide. Both died at the scene.

A small memorial at the top of Flower Point honoring Gogolak was removed for the construction of the new chair lift. The Gogolak family was made aware of the construction project, Polumbus said, and the memorial items were returned to the family.

While personal memorials are not allowed on Forest Service land, the resort and the Gogolak family are planning to install signs on Flower Point warning of avalanche danger in the canyon.

“They want to do something to educate people,” Polumbus said. “They would like to do something factual that explains what happened. It might be something that would deter someone from ducking the rope.”

Polumbus said the Forest Service is in favor of some type of signage.