Great Divide Ski Area will be expanding, adding acres of new terrain and two new lifts in the future.
This winter 50 acres of new terrain called Tall Timbers will be available for “pioneer” skiing at the Marysville Ski hill.
The new area is located south of the the Hi-Voltage run and will connect into the Rawhide chairlift.
Owner Kevin Taylor said the area had been heavily impacted by pine beetle mortality but thanks to a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) project the area is now much safer for people.
“The BLM did a big multi year plan of clearing a lot of the pine beetle areas in and around the Marysville district,” explained Taylor. “They got the deadfall and dead standing in that area out without us having to do the work and burden the expense.”
Great Divide is also working on building a chairlift further past the Tall Timber area to open up even more of the mountain.
“It will transition from the steep stuff on top to the really fun roller coaster type terrain on the bottom that’s really fun for everyone to ski,” added Taylor.
Before the Tall Timber lift is built though, Great Divide will construct the Summit Shuttle lift which will parallel the Mount Belmont Lift and reduce wait time for riders.
“It’s for redundancy and capacity,” explained Taylor. “That way if we have problems with Wild West or Mount Belmont and we need to do maintenance, we can afford to shut one of those down for a day or two to do some work and still get people to the top in an expeditious manner.”
The components for the new lifts are already at the mountain.
It all depends on costs, but the hope is to have the Summit Shuttle chairlift up at going by the end of 2020.
Taylor says it’s been a joy to work on these projects and he’s proud to offer new skiing and boarding opportunities for people.
