Hamilton, MT – The U.S. Forest Service has for a second time formally rejected a landowner’s plan to build a new ski and snowboard resort on southwestern Montana’s 9,096-foot Lolo Peak.
Tom Maclay of Hamilton, Mont., learned on Thursday that his Bitterroot Resort proposal once again did not meet the Forest Service’s minimum requirements for a special use application and ran counter to the Service’s long-range vision for the land in the Lolo and Bitterroot National Forests that includes the Carlton Ridge Natural Research Area.
“Based on review of your proposal, we have concluded that your proposal is not consistent with all of the minimum requirements of the initial screening criteria, and therefore the proposal will not receive further evaluation and processing,” Forest Supervisors Deborah L. R. Austin and Julie K. King wrote in a Sept. 6 letter to Maclay. “The current Forest Plan management direction for the area in your proposal was developed through extensive public processes, anc comprehensively across each National Forest in its entirety. We believe the resource values and objectives outlined in our Forest Plans are still appropriate for this area.”
Maclay, whose family owns 3,000 acres of ranch land at the base of the mountain, needs Forest Service approval to develop the ski mountain above his ranch, which was first contemplated in a report prepared by the Forest Service in 1965. Maclay envisions 2,200 residental units in a proposed base area village, a gondola and 15 other ski lifts comprising a sprawling new ski resort that has drawn opposition from the Sierra Club and other environmental groups, and sparked the formation of the Friends of Lolo Peak.
Maclay has been fighting since 2005 to bring his vision to fruition and has already cut ski runs on his own land spanning the mountain’s lower flanks, offering snowcat skiing for three years on the property. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. Asset Holdings foreclosed on its loan for the project in 2009, and bid $22.5 million to buy back its loan last winter.