Crystal Mountain, WA - The wait is almost over. Crystal plans to open the new Northway chairlift on Saturday, December 22nd, 2007. Crystal is currently open with seven lifts in operation. Twenty inches of snow has already fallen over the past 48 hours and the forecast is calling for more snow over next several days. There will be an official ribbon cuttuing ceremony before the lift begins loading public. Details will be announced later this week.

ABOUT THE LIFT:
The new Doppelmayr chairlift was purchased last fall for the North Country area of Crystal Mountain. The North Country is a large area of terrain along the north side of Crystal’s designated permit boundary. The lift will provide access to approximately 1,000 acres and increase Crystal’s 1,300 acres of lift serviced ski terrain by 77% to 2,300 acres.

The Northway lift will deposit skiers at the top of Northway Peak after a ride of just under 10 minutes. From there, skiers face an amazing choice of skiing Snorting Elk Bowl, Northway Bowl, Paradise Bowl and Bruce’s Bowl, following Right Angle Ridge to a variety of expert glades and chutes or heading farther north to drop into places like Morning Glory Bowl and Brand X. Several new trails are to be constructed that will feed into the bottom of the new lift.

The lift equipment itself is unusual in these days of high capacity, high speed detachable lifts. Northway is a double chairlift that will move along at a faster-than-standard rate of 550 feet per minute but will limit skier capacity in the new terrain to 1,200 people per hour. This will increase the existing 19,110 people per hour lift capacity to 20,310. “It’s about the skiing.” said Crystal Mountain General Manager John Kircher. “I’m sure people appreciate the big high capacity lifts that we have on the front side of Crystal. We have a job to do handling the crowds here but we all see how fast the snow gets tracked out. The new lift in the North Country is designed to provide access but keep the snow quality higher.” The new lift service will also serve to spread skier traffic out and keep skiers from funneling back through the base area.

The addition of the Northway Chairlift was approved with the Master Development Plan (MDP). Crystal Mountain received the Record of Decision (ROD) in August of 2004 from the U.S. Forest Service. The ROD came following an in-depth review of the Draft Environmental Impact Study issued in August 2001. The MDP, along with 6 alternatives, was originally submitted to the Forest Service in 1999.

Crystal Mountain is a proud partner of the USFS offering equal opportunity recreation. Crystal Mountain is operated by Boyne Resorts, overseen by the Kircher family since 1947. Seattle-based family member John Kircher, President of Boyne Resorts Western operations, is President and General Manager of Crystal Mountain. Along with operating The Summit at Snoqualmie, WA; Brighton, UT; Cypress Mountain, B.C.; Loon Mountain Resort, N.H., Gatlinburg Sky Lift, TN; Sunday River Resort and Sugarloaf USA, ME, Boyne USA Resorts owns and operates Big Sky Resort, MT; Crystal Mountain, WA; Boyne Mountain and Boyne Highlands Resorts, MI, totaling ten resort properties in all. Boyne Resorts is the largest privately owned resort network in North America www.boyneresorts.com.