Lots of good comments on The Beavers Lift location. When we started working on The Beavers project more than a decade ago, we initially thought the lift would go all the way to the valley floor. For a lot of reasons, we changed our mind. Here are some of them.
-Our snow surveys indicated there was less snow at the lower elevations (duh). A more detailed study indicated that the lift would be open 60-90 days per season. When we moved the lift uphill, our estimated season length for the lift is 150+ days per season.
-The terrain below the proposed bottom terminal is pretty good, but steep and the snow would not hold up well to ALL of the skier traffic.
-Going down low would have required cutting a lot more trees and, being closer to or in the riparian zone, would have a much bigger impact on wildlife.
-There is no terrain suitable for blue trails down to the valley floor.
-Going to the valley floor (a couple of thousand more linear feet) would have forced the lift to be a longer detachable nearly tripling the cost.
So, we could have gone to the valley floor, but the season would be 1/2 the length, the terrain is not as good or diverse, the snow down low would not be as good, the impacts to the forest and wildlife would have been much greater, and it would have tripled the cost.
Really, once we dug into the facts, it was a no-brainer.
