Environment

Thursday marks the beginning of the 59th Annual Ski Sale in Juneau. The event is a fundraiser for the Eaglecrest Ski Patrol and Juneau Ski Club, which is the youth ski team.

Folks planning to sell their extra winter gear can check it in this evening, tomorrow afternoon and Saturday morning at Centennial Hall. The actual sale is 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday. For more information, go to juneauskisale.org.

Meanwhile, Eaglecrest’s new general manager is on the job.

Matt Lillard, his wife and two-and a half-year old son just made the move across America from Londonderry, Vermont, where he worked for Magic Mountain Ski Resort.

Lillard says the two ski areas have some similarities:

“Size wise they’re actually quite similar, 700 acres is where I come from, and two lifts as opposed to four here, but we both pride ourselves in having some great terrain and great community,” Lillard says.

He’s settling into the Juneau ski area, learning the lay of the land as well as the bureaucracy of Eaglecrest, owned by the City and Borough of Juneau. But Lillard says the biggest challenge in the ski industry is always the weather.

“The New England weather is different from Southeast Alaska weather so I think getting a good grasp of that and how that works will be the biggest challenge,” Lillard says, “and after that just a lot of learning curve to pick up in a short amount of time.”

Weather permitting, opening day at Eaglecrest is December 3rd. Snow is building up, with about 7 inches at the base and 41 inches on top on Thursday.

Lillard answers to the city and the Eaglecrest Board of Directors, which sets ski area policy. The board has contracted with a local research firm and international ski area planning company to write a 20-year master plan to guide its decisions.

The first of two public meetings on the plan was held last week, and as KTOO reported, a random telephone survey shows hiking and biking trails and summer tourist attractions to be very important to the future of the area. The telephone survey questions are similar to a current online survey (skijuneau.com), which will be live until the end of November.  Click on the audio for more on the master plan study.

Juneau Police say the man and woman involved in Sunday’s fatal fall into Kowee Creek on Douglas were running from officers responding to a disturbance call.

No foul play is suspected in the incident, which left 22-year-old Evan Marshall Smith dead and his 18-year-old female companion injured.

JPD Spokeswoman Cindee Brown-Mills says police responded to a disturbance at an apartment on Foster Avenue at approximately 2 a.m. Sunday.

“Apparently there was a disturbance out in the parking lot, and that’s what they were called to,” says Brown-Mills. “But when they got there, the people who were involved in the disturbance had gone into the house.”

Brown-Mill says when police tried to contact the people involved in the disturbance – believed to be Smith and the girl – the pair jumped out a second story window in order to avoid talking to the officers. She says they apparently ran into a wooded area, where they fell off an 80-foot cliff into Kowee Creek.

Brown-Mills says alcohol was likely a factor.

“Apparently there were some possible minor consuming issues,” she says.

The incident remains under investigation as an accident. Brown-Mills says the name of the girl is not being released, because she has not yet been charged with a crime.

A hunter who was shot in the back on Admiralty Island in southeast Alaska has been identified.

Twenty-five year old Jason Lindley was flown to Seattle for treatment.

The Coast Guard says Lindley’s hunting party reported the shooting at about 9 a.m. on Sunday. An MH-60 Jayhawk rescue helicopter in the region heard the call and flew to the hunting party’s location near Hawk Inlet, where crew members were able to pick Lindley up.

Lindley was taken to emergency medical personnel in Juneau, then stabilized at Bartlett Regional Hospital for transport to Seattle.

Alaska State Troopers spokeswoman Beth Ipsen says troopers are investigating and planned to question members of the hunting party.

Juneau Police say one man is dead and a woman is injured after falling over a cliff into Kowee Creek on Douglas Island.

Officers say they heard a woman yell for help just after two o’clock Sunday morning as they were responding to disturbance on Foster Avenue.

They found an 18-year old woman who had fallen off 80-foot cliff into the creek.

Firefighters arrived and transported the woman to the hospital for treatment of her injuries.

The body of a 22-year old man was found nearby. He’s been identified as Evan Marshall Smith.

Juneau Police did not immediately identify the man or the woman pending notification of their relatives.

The investigation into the incident continues.

Developing hiking and biking trails and summer tourist attractions are very important to the future of Eaglecrest Ski Area, according to a random telephone survey of Juneau residents.

The survey is part of the long-range master plan being prepared to guide area development over the next 20 years.

A study of the Eaglecrest market, the survey, and examples of successful summer activities at other ski areas were presented last night (Wednesday) at a public meeting on the master plan.

Jim Calvin of Juneau research firm McDowell Group is leading the work. He said the single most important component of the master plan study is community input.

“The market assessment is important, understanding of what goes on in ski areas across the country is important, the economics and financial feasibility are important, but first and foremost we have to know what is acceptable,” Calvin said. “What kind of future development is consistent with what current users and the community overall really value at Eaglecrest?”

Calvin said the telephone survey results are statistically representative of Juneau as a whole – both ski area users and non-users. But when he analyzed results by those groups, they were quite different. While 50 percent of non-users wanted summer activities, only 32 percent of skiers and snowboarders viewed them important.

Tapping into Juneau’s hundreds of thousands of summer cruise ship visitors may be a way to generate additional revenue for the ski area, but Calvin said it isn’t easy to break into that market.

“It’s not just build it and they will come. The main cruise lines each offer more than 40 different opportunities to see whales, see glaciers, flightseeting, you name it, so there’s a lot to do and there’s really stiff competition for the visitor dollar and visitor time,” he said. He says most people come to Juneau to experience Alaska, such as whales and glaciers. They purchase their tours in four-hour blocks and there’s little time to visit a ski area within the confines of the already limited day in town.

Calvin was careful to note the city-owned ski area is not planning to compete with private-sector operators.

“With respect to the master plan, it’s identifying those kinds of activities that might be compatible with community values,” he said. “Then when a private-sector operator comes to Eaglecrest management or board and says ‘I’d like to do X,’ they will have the plan, the documentation, the measure of community attitude to know whether that’s compatible with what we all think is the right way to manage Eaglecrest,” he explained.

McDowell Group is working with SE Group, an international ski area planning firm. Resort Planning Director Claire Humber has helped many areas build master plans, considered “working” documents.

“It’s not ‘here’s the answer, do it.’ A master plan should never be that,” Humber said. “A master plan is a process as much as it is a document. This is a way of evaluation as you move into the future.”

An online survey asking what types of development Juneau residents would like to see at Eaglecrest can be found at ski.juneau.com until the end of the month. Public comments also can be sent to facilitator Jan Caulfield at janc@gci.net.

It will be several months before the master plan is complete. A draft is expected in February, when another public meeting will be held.

It happens like clockwork, though it’s not tied to a specific date. The arrival of fall in Juneau is usually marked by drivers still stuck in summer driving mode – caught off-guard by icy road conditions.

Juneau Police Officer Chris Gifford says there were as many as half a dozen accidents around town during this morning’s slippery commute.

“The Lena [Point] area there was three different accidents all right in a little stretch of road. So that area had three accidents and the Norway Point area had two,” says Gifford.

One driver was taken to Bartlett Regional Hospital for treatment of minor injuries. His 1990 Toyota 4-Runner was heavily damaged after it left the roadway on Glacier Highway near Lena Loop Road. Twenty-nine-year old Matthew Armstrong was cited for careless driving.

Gifford has some winter driving tips for motorists: “Give yourself extra time to get to your destination, put extra distance between yourself and the vehicle in front of you. And make sure your windshield and other windows are clear before getting into your car to drive.”

Low temperatures are supposed to dip into the 20s tonight (Wednesday) and Thursday, with highs in the 30s. There’s a chance of the first snow at sea level this season on Friday, though warmer temperatures are expected over the weekend.