SAVE THE PARK !

Vote NO to Proposition 1 on April 4!

Anchorage's Far North Bicentennial Park is threatened by the proposed expansion of the Hilltop Downhill Ski Area. Proposition 1, if approved by the voters, will allow Hilltop to clear-cut an additional 60 acres of the park.

A big part of Hilltop's argument for a larger area is that the lines waiting for a seat on the chair lift are intolerably long. They would like more area to install another chair lift. Mr. Kurtak's careful study showed that in the 1993-94 season, lift lines averaged 1.5 minutes. In the 1994-95 season, the wait had shortened to an average of only 41 seconds!

The following is testimony Joe Kurtak gave to the Anchorage Parks and Recreation Board in a public hearing regarding Hilltop's expansion.

My name is Joe Kurtak and I represent myself.

It is stated in the Hilltop expansion plan that lift lines up to 20 minutes long have become commonplace on weekends and Spyder nights.

Last year I reported to the board the results of a survey done during the 1993-94 season. It indicated an average waiting time of 1.5 minutes and that lift lines longer than 20 minutes occurred during 3% of the 54 days data was collected.

Hilltop’s continued expansion efforts, listing overcrowding as one of the reasons, led a group of us to conduct another survey during the 1994-95 season.

We collected data on 78 days from early December to early April. This consisted of checks of lift lines, snow conditions and car numbers in the Hilltop and Abbot Road entrances to the Hillside ski trail system.

Surveys were made on weekends, weekdays including Spyder nights and on many occasions at more than one time during any one day. They were taken under varying ski conditions including times when we thought the skiing to be excellent on both systems.

Here is a summary of what we found:

The average lift line length was 41 seconds, which is approximately half that of the 1993-94 season.

On three nights out of the 78, lift lines were greater than 5 minutes long or 4% of the total. One 17 minute long lift line was observed.

On Spyder nights the lift lines averaged 1.1 minutes and on weekends 1.3 minutes.

As to cross-country ski use, during the same time period, the number of cars parked at the Hilltop and Hillside trail entrances averaged 36. If we assume 1.5 skiers per car, this indicates an average of 54 skiers out on the trails. The number could easily be much larger due to the high turnover rate at the lots and that fact that we only monitored two of the four entrances to the trail system

I will end with these points:

Our observations indicate that long lift lines at Hilltop occurred during a very small portion of total operating time and are considerably shorter than last year.

Hilltop appears to have made their skier use estimates from ticket sales verses lift capacity and skiable acreage. Have they monitored the lift to determine to what extent the long lines occurred during the day? If so, we would like to hear about it.

Hillside\Hilltop 1994-95 Ski Data - Summary

On three days, or 4% of the total time observed, lift lines were greater than 5 minutes long.
On Spyder nights, lift lines averaged 1.1 minutes long and on weekends 1.3 minutes long.
All averages rounded to the nearest whole number.

Hillside\Hilltop 2000 Ski Data

Limited data collected in the Spring of 2000 support the conclusion that Hilltop operates far below its capacity. So why expand?

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Copyright Friends of Far North Bicentennial Park 2000
Paid for by Friends of Bicentennial Park, 11701 Hillside Drive, Anchorage, AK 99516; Dan Rosenberg, chair
Last revised: March 21, 2000.