Forest Service Reverses OK for New Ski Resort

The U.S. Forest Service in San Francisco, reversing a decision by Eastern Sierra forest officials, has rejected a developer’s request to begin final planning and construction of a $50-million ski area in Sherwin Bowl just south of the town of Mammoth Lakes.

The 355-acre Snowcreek Ski Area proposed by Dempsey Development Co. would be the first major new ski resort in California in years. It would be several miles from the Mammoth Mountain ski area and about 300 miles north of Los Angeles.

With 12 to 15 lifts, Snowcreek would handle up to 10,000 skiers a day. That is far less than Mammoth Mountain on a busy day on its 30-plus lifts, but Snowcreek would complement Mammoth by appealing, in particular, to expert skiers, local officials said.

Dempsey officials said they were disappointed and would appeal the decision. Dempsey has invested $1.5 million in environmental studies and planning over the past 10 years and “we don’t intend to stop now,” a company official said.

The regional forester’s office in San Francisco overturned a decision of the Inyo National Forest headquarters in Bishop to allow Dempsey to proceed with a specific development plan for the area. Inyo officials were ordered to prepare a supplemental environmental impact statement that would further assess the effect of the ski area on migrating deer herds, the available water supply and the endangered tui chub fish at Mammoth Hot Springs east of Mammoth Lakes.

An environmental organization known as Friends of Inyo and the State Department of Fish and Game had asked the regional forester to overturn the Inyo forest’s approval.

In issuing the decision, Deputy Regional Forester Joyce T. Muraoka said the new environmental study should review demand for more ski areas in California. Economists in some areas of the West have contended that many ski resorts have overbuilt in recent years in view of declining demand.

The ski area would be part of the Snowcreek residential and resort complex, designed in part to make Mammoth Lakes a year-around mountain playground and to help fulfill the desires of many Mammoth officials to make the town a full-scale destination resort similar to Aspen, Colo., and Jackson Hole, Wyo. Most Mammoth business now comes from Southern California.

The first nine holes of a proposed 18-hole championship golf course opened late this summer adjacent to a new Snowcreek housing development. Dempsey has filed for a Forest Service permit to build the other nine holes.

The Snowcreek Ski Area lodge and related facilities would be built on private land at the foot of the Sherwin range. But the ski area itself would be on Inyo National Forest property.

The Sherwin Bowl was first identified as a potential ski area in the 1950s and the Forest Service formally designated it for study as a winter sports site in 1967.

James Ognisty, a Dempsey vice president, said the firm believes that the regional forester’s office improperly raised issues that were not contained in the appeal or were misinterpreted.

A Forest Service official guessed it would take another year to compile a supplemental environmental report, which would be subject to public hearings and another appeal process.