Grand Targhee Resort’s owner and manager doesn’t deny that growth has impacts.
But facing deep divides as the U.S. Forest Service heads into the final stages of a potential 700-acre expansion for the west Teton Range ski area, Geordie Gillett cited his resort’s customer service track record and asked for the Teton area’s “benefit of the doubt.
“We’re in this balance of protect everything or try to concentrate growth around these already developed areas,” he told KHOL after watching a late September meeting in Victor, Idaho, where three dozen registered project objectors asked federal officials to reconsider allowing the ski resort to grow, particularly into more than 200 lift-accessed acres of bighorn sheep habitat.
The wide-ranging group of state biologists, land managers, local elected officials and tribal leaders had already registered their concerns, along with thousands of others, following a controversial environmental review released in May.
Chad Colter, fish and wildlife director for the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, said the possible Teton bighorn sheep herd displacement was “unacceptable.
“It’s a bit shocking to me to see the current mitigation measures do not match the potential impacts,” he told Kristin Bail, deputy regional forester for the USFS’s southwest region, during the objectors’ meeting.
He was among many who reiterated fear that expansion would add stress to housing, traffic, water and viewsheds in Idaho’s Teton Canyon. The most consistent anxiety was about area bighorn sheep.
Wyoming Game and Fish said in a July letter that it was “thoroughly disappointed” in Caribou-Targhee National Forest’s decision to choose the “most impactful alternative.”
Backcountry skiers already disturb the Teton herd, said Aly Courtemanch, Wyoming Game and Fish biologist, in the September meeting. It’s one of the few native, isolated groups in the West that have remained almost entirely intact since the Ice Age. The state grants the so-called “coordinated herd” extra protections.
“These impacts can’t be undone,” said Katie Cheesbrough of the Wyoming Wild Sheep Foundation. “Once coordinated herd status is lost, it cannot be restored.”
If the resort adds chairlifts, grooming, snowmaking and avalanche control, the sheep will “probably just abandon the area completely,” Courtemanch said.
But while Gillett said he’s also usually skeptical of growth, he doesn’t see the sheep as his problem to solve.
“If South Bowl is so uniquely special and important, nobody should be allowed back there,” he said.
As for what responsible development looks like, Gillett said that depends on one’s point of view. But while he wouldn’t go so far as to say the community should trust his vision outright, he said his management of these “special, important” places would continue to be “thoughtful.”
As skiing grows in popularity, concentrating growth where skiers already duck ropes into a high-rescue out-of-bounds area is that thoughtfulness, he said.
“As a ski resort operator, I feel like I shouldn’t be shy about [expansion],” he said. “It’s sick skiing.”
It’s not clear when the Forest Service will make a final decision. Bail thanked community members for the feedback and pledged to continue to work in partnership. The law states a reviewing officer must respond to each objector before issuing a final decision.
