It’s possible there are more isolated areas in Washington than Loup Loup Ski Bowl. But you can bet none of them have a quad chair.
Midway between Omak and Twisp, Loup Loup is one of a handful of nonprofit ski hills in the state run by communities and clubs to give locals and kids a place to slide. Loup Loup offers a little more than other community areas, however.
It has 1,240 vertical feet, for starters, with 660 acres inside its boundaries. And it has that quad chair.
At any commercial ski area in the state, a fixed quad chair would not be a headline attraction. Stevens Pass, the Summit At Snoqualmie and Crystal Mountain have high-speed detachable quads that whisk skiers up the mountain in less than five minutes. Loup Loup’s takes a comparatively plodding nine minutes to go a shorter distance.
To locals, though, the chair is a thing of beauty.
"Duey (Hatfield) and I thought we were going to hate the chairlift, but it’s really nice to sit on this moving couch," said Barry Culp, a Loup Loup regular who has been coming to the mountain for 52 years.
The chairlift was installed in 1998, but locals — and at Loup Loup, nearly everyone is a local — still talk about it like it happened yesterday.
Replacing the platter lift (a sort of rope tow with a handle attached that riders tuck between their legs) had been a longtime dream. A sizable donation from a local orchardist who died earlier this year, Francis Crane of Omak, got the project started, and things really took off when Crystal Mountain decided to replace its old Midway Shuttle chair with a new high-speed chair.
One thing led to another, and pretty soon Loup Loup general manager Ron Mackie was driving from the Okanogan to Crystal Mountain a dozen times in a week, toting the disassembled chair back to Loup Loup on a semitruck. Volunteers from all over the Okanogan pitched in to build and install the lift towers.
"Everybody in the world pitched in up here," said Jim Archambeault, a Forest Service employee who helped with the project. "It was a pretty amazing feat."
Locals who donated money have a blue plaque on the back of one of the 107 seats on the chairlift, while major donors have their names on one of the lift poles. Volunteers who helped with the construction have a red plaque that signifies their membership in the "blood, sweat and tears club."
"Before we put in the chairlift, our lift lines were 25 minutes," Mackie said. "Now, on our busiest day, we have no lift lines."
In October, the ski area held a big party to celebrate paying off the last of the $250,000 it borrowed to buy the lift.
The mountain beneath the quad has its high points, too. The top of Little Buck mountain is 5,240 feet, while the base area is at 4,000 feet.
Ten runs snake down from the chair. Most are modest intermediates, but a couple qualify as expert runs. From the ridgeline, there is a nice view eastward over the valley. Most of the runs are just a few minutes long. Even the longest, somewhat optimistically dubbed "Two-mile," quickly loops back to the base.
Mackie wasn’t kidding about the lift lines, though. There aren’t any, and as a result it’s easy to get several dozen runs in during a day at the mountain.
A busy day at Loup Loup is 500 skiers spread across 660 acres. On a slow day, you can have a whole run to yourself every time you come down the mountain.
One thing that holds Loup Loup back is snow — or lack of it. The mountain sits in a dry pocket amid an arid region. Two feet of snow or less is not uncommon early in the season. That’s one reason Mackie and his crew spend so much time in the off season smoothing out the hill.
"The grooming is what makes this place," Mackie said. "We groom the crud out of it. We don’t have a lot of snow, but with 18 inches of wet snow, I’ve got some great skiing."
The flip side of low snow cover is plenty of sunshine, and when it does snow, Loup Loup usually gets light, dry powder. The combination makes for pleasant skiing, even if an occasional branch pokes through the cover.
Loup Loup’s other problem is a decidedly humble base area. There is a lodge with a small cafeteria and a rental shop next door, but the restrooms are a row of crude concrete outhouses. A new lodge with real restrooms is on the drawing board, but could be another year or two away.
To some Loup Loup fans, the area’s intimate feel and friendly locals make up for everything. Parents drop their kids off at the mountain and leave them to roam the slopes, everyone has a smile and a nod for newcomers, and Loup Loup has so far avoided the pitfalls of theft and petty crimes that plague more urban areas.
"When we first came here, the ski instructor didn’t lock her car," said Lori Bussani of Aldergrove, B.C. "I couldn’t believe it. We drive five hours from Vancouver to come here. It’s refreshing."
The out-of-towners who do come to Loup Loup often combine a day at the mountain with snowmobiling or cross-country skiing. The Methow Valley is rich with cross-country ski trails, with more than 100 miles of groomed trails. Loup Loup has its own set of more than 30 miles of groomed trails.
"A lot of people will go cross-country skiing one day, snowmobiling one day, downhill one day," Mackie said.
Reporter Andrew Wineke: 425-339-3465 or wineke@heraldnet.com.
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