Mammoth Projects : In Lean Times, Ski Resort Looks to Summer Sports

They looked like colored confetti.

Cyclists, in full competition regalia, were pedaling up the Sherwin grade on U.S. 395 at a frightfully fast clip recently during the Mammoth cycling race.

Ahead was a ribbon of highway rising from the Owens Valley floor to the Eastern Sierra’s jagged edge, an elevation gain of more than a mile.

Behind. . . . Well, that could have turned into real trouble.

Behind the cyclists was an impatient truck driver who down-shifted his rig and crossed a highway divider to pass the riders. The shrill sound of his horn echoed down the steep canyon walls as he passed.

Fortunately, the cyclists were no more than startled and the truck driver did not have oncoming traffic to contend with.

“He was in a 20-ton vehicle, with 400 horsepower,” said Tommy Duvall, a naturalist for the U.S. Forest Service. “If he would have taken the time to think for a second, he would have realized what an effort these cyclists put out.”

Unlike the driver, some Mammoth townsfolk marvel at professional cyclists attacking their torturous terrain. But most are more interested in the promotional value of such an endeavor.

It is all part of Mammoth’s shift to summer, which has arrived with the back country still blanketed in snow.

Five years of drought-shortened winters, coupled with the current nationwide recession, have sent Mammoth’s ski-oriented business community reeling like the bankrupt gold miners who inhabited the area in the late 1800s.

To combat the vagaries of a winter economy, Mammoth is hoping to become an Aspen West, replete with summer arts festivals and outdoor events such as the bicycle race.

This summer’s calendar already is bulging with activities to attract visitors who will occupy some of the 8,000 hotel rooms or eat at some of the town’s 55 restaurants.

But plans go well beyond promotions. Community leaders have embarked on a course that could double the resort’s year-round population within the next decade. They plan to build international resort hotels, pedestrian malls and golf courses.

What once was a quaint staging ground for backpackers and fishermen may soon be a bustling mountain metropolis.

But not without cost.

As it grows, Mammoth’s leaders must carefully weigh financial gain against ecological loss. How they handle this delicate balance could be their toughest challenge since the town incorporated in 1984.

THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND

In February, the Mammoth Mountain Ski Resort laid off much of its winter seasonal help, a Mono County supervisor included.

It was a strong indicator of the difficult times.

Cheryl Coffey, a reporter for the local Review-Herald, compared the situation to the Midwest.

“We’re really snow farmers,” she said.

But here, the grounds for recovery are fertile.

That is the conclusion of the Mammoth Town Council, which started reviewing methods to stabilize the economy as unemployment in Mono County soared. It reached more than 10% in the last year.

Don Barrett, owner of a general store in the Lakes Basin region above the city, said the community finally realized it no longer could rely on skiing to sustain it through lean times.

The leaders decided that they needed urban renewal projects and an aggressive summer promotional campaign.

In the last two years, the Town Council has approved several projects it hopes will galvanize the economy, said Randy Mellinger, the planning director.

A week ago, a forest in the planned Lodestar community was bulldozed to begin construction of an 18-hole golf course. By the time the project is finished, a 200-room hotel will stand next to the course.

Some other proposed changes:

--North Village on Minaret Road is being groomed as an international resort hotel and pedestrian walkway.

--A 200-acre forest in the middle of town has been approved as a site for two hotels, a 6,400-yard golf course and residential zoning. Irrigation ponds on the golf course will be used for ice skating in the winter.

--The Town Council is considering buying an airport southeast of town from Mono County.

Mammoth leaders believe that they need a full-service airport as well as resort hotels to attract summer convention business. They want to extend the runway near the Hot Creek Fish Hatchery to accommodate more flights and larger planes. Such a move could ignite an environmental battle over potential destruction of the scenic stream.

--The Sherwin Bowl Ski Resort, which has faced an uphill struggle since it was proposed a few years ago, is expected to be completed. It is under U.S. Forest Service administrative appeal. “I think there is a basic choice,” Mellinger said. “Is this going to be a mountain community with a ski area or a world-class resort with some environmental damage?”

The answer is understood. Yet most residents are aware of their precarious position.

“Mammoth is a little clone of urbanization in the mountains,” said Frank Stewart of Sunny Slopes, near Crowley Lake. “I think there are some who want to see that capsule contained.”

Stewart, who has been in the Eastern Sierra since 1982, is a paradox. He is a Sierra Club activist who works in construction.

His voice of dissent, however, often is drowned out by community leaders who contend that because Mammoth is an island encircled by the Inyo National Forest, no matter how big the desires, there is only so much room for growth.

“You can still walk two miles and be in the middle of nowhere,” said Michael T. Jarvis, at 28 the youngest member of the Mono County Board of Supervisors and an advocate of controlled growth.

Jarvis said residents understand that Mammoth’s magnetism is its beauty. Destroying the scenery would be tantamount to crushing the economy.

“It just won’t happen while I’m supervisor,” he said.

SUMMER IN THE CITY

Buoyed by a $1-million budget from the Town Council, the Mammoth Lakes Visitors Bureau has spearheaded a campaign to promote Mammoth as a summer recreational site. The concept is not new. The Mammoth Mountain Ski Resort has been sponsoring summer events for about eight years.

On the summer schedule are a sand volleyball tournament, a tennis tournament, music festivals, trout derbies, hiking tours and arts-and-crafts shows.

The ski resort sponsors the five-day cycling tour, one of the few major multiple day races in California, a mountain bike championship and a motocross. But a new event, a rock concert featuring Crosby, Stills and Nash and Oingo Boingo, was canceled because of poor ticket sales.

Still, summer activities have become essential to Mammoth’s survival, village leaders said, because they draw people who might bypass the area en route to other destinations on U.S. 395. The picturesque village is located about three miles from the highway, which parallels the long spine of the Sierra. But Mammoth is hidden from motorists behind meadows and pine forests.

“It has been our little secret,” said Barrett, owner of Lake Mary’s Store since the 1950s. “The town can no longer wait. They have got to let people know about it.”

Barrett is trying to promote the area’s fisheries. Even though the Mammoth lakes offer bountiful catches, they are not overly crowded. Neither are the scenic campgrounds on the shores of the lakes. Barrett said they rarely are more than half full.

Barrett can rhapsodize all he wants about the rainbow trout in Lake George, but really, Mammoth’s increased summer use is being spawned by mountain biking. Those newfangled, sturdy bicycles with balloon tires have helped introduce the wilderness to many a city dweller.

Despite their impact on trails--environmentalists say bikes cause soil erosion at a greater rate than horses and backpackers--they crowd the streets, forests and meadows here.

The bald, ashen surface of Mammoth Mountain, already shaved for skiing, has become a biking refuge. To capitalize on this, the resort has groomed bike trails and transformed the ski mountain into a summer bicycle park, charging admission.

The Town Council, in conjunction with the U.S. Forest Service, is planning to carve a network of trails throughout Mammoth Lakes, which could make the community one of the best mountain biking sanctuaries in America.

The popularity of mountain biking is a recent phenomenon that has swept Western resort towns. Mountain biking, rock climbing and windsurfing have become the off-season activities for skiers.

Longtime residents recall Mammoth as a haven for fishermen and hikers long before the volcano was groomed for skiing. U.S. Forest Service records show that twice as many people already visit Mammoth in the summer as in the winter.

So what is all the talk about summer promotions?

The problem for local businesses is that summer visitors use the natural resources, not the village. Stewart, of the Sierra Club, said that local economic woes should not supersede public needs when determining Forest Service land use. He opposes expansion beyond what is now proposed on the private property in town.

“If the citizens of Mammoth are having a hard time economically, I’m not sure you can justify laying more forest land on the altar,” he said.

DON’T GO NEAR THE WATER

Stewart and other anti-growth advocates believe Mammoth’s future depends on water.

One of the biggest controversies this year, aside from the closing of the ski lifts on May 27 despite all the snow left from the spring storms, has been the restriction on outdoor watering. Residents are allotted two days a week, but the greens at the Snowcreek Golf Course are irrigated daily. The golf course, which is awaiting construction of its back nine holes, is considered important to summer business. Lawns are not.

The Town Council is examining several water sources that would support proposed population increases from its current 5,000 people to 10,000.

Jarvis, the Mono County supervisor, expects the council to find a reasonable solution. Stewart questions the council’s piecemeal approach to the problem.

The town is considering piping water from the back country or buying it from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which owns much of the land along the Owens River.

“This town has incredible potential to meet all the needs; it is just a matter of getting the water nailed down,” Jarvis said.

Stewart said plans to connect Mammoth and June Lake ski areas, both owned by Bill McCoy, are on the horizon.

Such a connection would mean the grooming and developing of forest service land along the San Juan Ridge, just outside the John Muir Wilderness Area.

Debbie Austin, district ranger of the Mammoth Ranger District, said the federal mandate is to help rural communities within national forests diversify their economies. So, the government would not necessarily oppose such development.

“If you can’t double the capacity of skiing, then don’t talk about expanding the town,” said Bob Tanner, who has operated the pack-trip stations out of Reds Meadows near Devil’s Postpile National Monument for 32 years.

But talk they will. Whether they reach a resolution is another question.