Resort News

Despite Financial Woes and Enviro Protests, Resort Plans Continue for Montana’s Lolo Peak

By Michael Beall, Guest Writer, 2-22-11

	Clouds gather around the summit of Lolo Peak, the site Tom Maclay hopes to develop into a major ski destination. Photo by Bitterroot.

The story of the Bitterroot Resort has become one of the tall tales of the West.

For decades, rumors have circulated about a possible alpine ski resort, larger than any in North America, with a vertical decent of 5,555 feet, greater than Jackson Hole, Big Sky and Heavenly Valley, Calif.

Towering south of Missoula, Montana, Lolo Peak, with its ravines that hold snow until late August, the epic plan by developer Tom Maclay has promised, on top of great skiing, jobs—up to 1,200 of them—and countless tourism dollars for Missoula.

But for now, the fabled Bitterroot Resort remains a white whale, marked by a series of unused ski runs cut into one of the lower mountains nearby.

“We do not have a published plan at this point,” said Tim Newhart, a public relations consultant for the resort. “The marketplace is a moving target. And we need to adapt to the changes and opportunities that are presented.”

Ironically, one of those opportunities, Newhart argued, is the recession that has temporarily derailed the development.

“Anything that can bring jobs to the area will be a bright spot for Missoula’s economy,” he said. “And the creation of Bitterroot Resort will certainly create many different kinds of economic opportunities.”

In December 2004, Maclay, the owner of the 2,900-acre Maclay & Son Ranch in Florence and CEO of Bitterroot Resort, submitted a proposal to the Lolo and Bitterroot National Forests to build alpine and Nordic skiing facilities, including on Lolo Peak. 

“That initial proposal did not meet the initial screening criteria for a special use permit on national forest lands,” said Boyd Hartwig, Lolo National Forest’s public affairs officer, “because it was not consistent with the Forest Plan direction for the two forests.”

The next year, Bitterroot Resort submitted a second proposal, requesting 15.5 miles of public roads and trails for Nordic skiing. The proposal made it through initial screening, but became bogged down in the second stage of federal approval.

Still, by 2005 Missoula residents saw the first steps in the development of Bitterroot when lines that looked like ski runs were cut on the base of the mountain on land Maclay already owned.

Even with the grand plan stalled, the Bitterroot Resort began holding promotional ski opportunities in the winter of 2006 for private groups that wanted to take a shot riding the newly developed ski slopes on the lower part of Lolo Peak.

James Banister and the rest of the former ski patrol who had worked the recently closed Marshall Mountain started volunteering time hosting tour groups on the hill.

“We discovered that Tom was putting together a ski area, and we were looking for work,” Banister said. “He was doing promotional skiing and took people up with his two groomers.”

For three years, the former Marshall patrol volunteered winters at the still-struggling Bitterroot Resort. By 2009, as the recession finally slowed the housing market in Missoula. Creditors pushed for foreclosure of the property. According to a public notice published in the Missoula Independent, First Interstate Bank initiated a sale of Bitterroot Trails property, claiming Maclay and Bitterroot Trails in default of a loan totaling more than $227,000.

That was where the story of Bitterroot seemed to end, with cut and unused trails in the mountain still looming above Missoula Valley. But those working on the project continue to believe in the grand plan.

“There’s always curiosity, especially in a project as high profile as Bitterroot Resort,” Newhart said. He added that the resort hoped the economic downturn could make it cheaper to develop the massive site.

But still, he had to admit that “market conditions have changed dramatically since we began developing the resort.”

Some public interest and environmental groups met those changed conditions with sighs of relief. The Sierra Club, the country’s largest grassroots environmental organization and vehement critics of the blockbuster resort, conducted a poll along with Ski Magazine in April 2008. The poll found that 80 percent of Missoula Valley residents were against the proposal to develop Lolo Peak.

“I think the public is very attached to Lolo Peak the way it is,” said Bob Clark, a conservation organizer of the Sierra Club’s Missoula branch, who also penned a longer piece for New West laying out his argument in 2008.

According to the Sierra Club, the resort looked to develop 6,000 of a 16,000-acre roadless area of semi-primitive forest that is protected from development. The club and its supporters also worried the plan would open the area to housing construction.

“Essentially, there is a large chunk of this proposal that is considered ‘wild country,’ and we don’t want to see it developed and used,” Clark said. “The whole idea was a real-estate idea, cloaked in a ski area. They’re not as much about skiing as it was financial benefit.”

Still the vision of Bitterroot Resort as an all-season destination resort in Western Montana remains and the group backing it continues, if more quietly, to seek the support to make it happen.

“We live in a capitalistic society, and there is a profit motive,” Newhart said. “A resort has to be profitable in order to offer that amenity, plain and simple, but I don’t think that this is a pure economic play. This is done for the passion of the sport of skiing and outdoor recreation.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story has been corrected from the original post. The writer incorrectly wrote the developer had filed for bankruptcy. In fact, he has not.

Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.