Fernie (BC), Canada – There are some interesting goings on this summer atop 7,000-foot Polar Peak at Fernie Alpine Resort.

Stakes labeled “Tower 10,” “Tower 9,” etc. now stretch from the upper reaches of Currie Bowl to the very top of Polar Peak. Perhaps not coincidentally, a chairlift currently sits dismantled and staged in Fernie’s parking lot. Some Fernie fans are convinced that this chairlift is a fixed-grip triple first built in 1986 and removed from Nakiska Ski Area in Alberta, also owned by RCR, in 2009 when it was replaced by a high-speed detachable quad.

Officials at Fernie’s Calgary-based owner, Resorts of the Canadian Rockies (RCR), were nonetheless rather tight-lipped on Tuesday regarding the developments.

“We’ll release our capital plans in about two weeks,” said Matt Mosteller, VP of Sales & Marketing at RCR, adding that a chairlift he observed in Fernie’s parking lot when he was last there 10 days ago belonged to Fernie-based SuMMit Lift Company, not RCR. He did not answer where that lift was due to be installed, but instead only stated that SuMMit, which provides ski lift installation services across the western U.S. and Canada, needed temporary space upon which to store the lift.

SuMMit Lift Company, however, has previously installed or maintained other ski lifts at RCR resorts, including the Grizzly Express Gondola at Lake Louise.

If it’s destined for Polar Peak, the chairlift would be the first to reach the ridgeline atop the southeastern British Columbia resort. It would boost the ski area’s vertical drop from 2,816 to 3,500 feet, making one of the province’s largest ski resorts even larger.

Some Fernie locals contend that the rumored new lift will be used to access the steep, south-facing terrain off the summit of Polar Peak, while others believe that it will simply provide ski patrol with easier and quicker access to bombing routes along the ridgeline, the completion of which often delays opening of Fernie’s upper mountain terrain following a snowstorm. In any event, if Fernie is in fact reinstalling Nakiska’s old chairlift on Polar Peak it will put few people on the mountain’s summit, as when installed at Nakiska the lift had an uphill capacity of only 210 people per hour.

Craig Morris, publisher of Craig’s Unofficial Fernie Alpine Resort Page, said on Tuesday that he has heard from reliable unnamed sources that it will indeed be a public chairlift expected to be finished in time for the 2011-12 ski and snowboard season. Morris blogged late last month regarding the status of the construction on Polar Peak.

“They have already done some preliminary clearing work at the bottom station, which will be just by the flats at the top of Currie Powder, after the corner from the cross bowl cat track,” Morris wrote on his website. “The chair, which I hear will be the old Gold triple chair from Nakiska, will run right up the rocky ridge to the very top of Polar Peak.

“They have also started a cat track up to the saddle, which must require hiring an excavator operator who is incapable of looking down,” Morris quipped. “From the slope of this track near the end of what has done so far, this will be the Kitzbühel of cat tracks. It will be interesting to see how they construct the switchback on such a steep slope.”

If a new lift is installed on Polar Peak it will do little to ameliorate Fernie’s reputation for expert-oriented terrain. Morris, who lives at the base of the mountain, indicated that while the south-facing terrain to be served by a new lift clocks in at an estimated 40 degrees, the north-facing lines into Lizard Bowl all end in cliff bands and will therefore likely not be able to be opened to the public.