Craig's Report - September 01, 2006

Progress Report

A trudge up the mountain to check out progress on the new restaurant seemed like suitable penance for the two weeks of inactivity and road food resulting from a family car trip we just completed. At times I feared this might morph into human sacrifice as I panted my way up, but when I finally reached the top, I was rewarded with a nearly completely framed building that made visualizing the final outcome much easier. The building is roughly the size of the Mountain Edge shop building at the base, but has a deck that looks to about double its size. I am told that this concrete surfaced deck will be heated to keep it ice free and while I can�t imagine sitting out there when the frigid mid-winter Lost Boy�s winds are howling, there should be lots of sunny days when sipping a brew of choice out there might be pretty pleasant.

The entrance to the building is on the side facing Siberia Bowl and consists of a large vestibule extending all the way across the building with the inner and outer doors offset to opposite sides to prevent those chilly breezes from blowing right in. The serving area will be along the windowless wall on the lift side of the building, while the remaining two walls have windows and the wall opposite the entrance has the door out to the deck. There is a full basement, but this will be for storage or something and not a customer area. The washroom facilities are in a separate building just across the saddle from the entrance.

The other interesting goodie I discovered is that they are logging a new run variation on the bottom part of Falling Star. This is in the area of the Rock Star mountain bike trail on the other side of the gully that is to the skier�s left of Falling Star. Earlier this summer a culvert had been installed and a cat had cleared out the alder area just below the switch backs on that side of the gully. The logging is creating what appears to be a fairly mild alternate run down to the beginning of the Falling Star run out. It should be a good improvement except that some powder stashes that were kept fresh by the difficulty of extricating oneself down that tight alder infested gully, will now see much more traffic.

At 18:10 it is a beautiful and clear evening and while the thermometer on the sun drenched deck is claiming 29 C, it is probably really more like the low 20�s.


The new restaurant at the top of Timber takes shape.

The pad for the toilet building is visible on the left in this picture.

Another view of the restaurant structure.

And finally one from below.

Walking up the Falling Star run out, the stacks of logs and huge burn pile was the first clue that something new was in the offing.

Looking up the new run from just above the beginning of the Falling Star run out.

Looking back down from part way up.

The cleared area above the tree band, with the Falling Star switchback just above the center of the image.

The view back down on the new route from up on the Falling Star switchback.

Snow cats in various stages of undress await further attention from the summer maintenance program.