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Mineral King Ski Resort
Started by SkiBachelor, Jan 28 2004 10:27 PM
11 replies to this topic
#1
Posted 28 January 2004 - 10:27 PM
It looks like in 1966 that Disney actually had plans of building a multi million dollar ski resort of its time in the Sierras. Disney was planning on starting with 14 lifts and the mountain had 6 bowls. There would be underground parking, and American alpine lodges above. However, environmentalist put a stop to this resort before this place could ever get any magic. Many other ski areas were also opening like Aspen Snowmass and Mt. Snow. If this resort would have opened a few years earlier, this would be like one of the biggest ski resorts in North America today. I will try to dig some more info about this place. :D
- Cameron
#4
Posted 29 January 2004 - 09:04 AM
Wally Ballenger was the ski patrol director at Squaw Valley in the Early 70s. He nearly lost his life performing snow studies at Mineral King. He found that many avalanche paths go across this valley and up the other side! This might be another possible explanation for Disneys pulling the plug. I believe he wrote a few books about his industry experiences.
www.ropetech.org
#5
Posted 29 January 2004 - 03:40 PM
Do you know where this resort would have been?!!! It was planned to be right in the middle of Sequoia National Park!!!! If it had gone in, countless dozens of millenia-old sequoia groves would have been destroyed. Mineral King basin contains a high density of these groves. It truely would have been an environmental disaster! There are some areas that are too ecologically unique to be destroyed for the sake of a new ski resort.
"Quo usque tandem abutere, Catalina, patientia nostra?" -Cicero
#8
Posted 29 January 2004 - 10:23 PM
Quote
Walt Disney was planning a ski resort for the valley, with access to be provided by a monorail. Disney, an avid fan of downhill skiing, had visited Mineral King in the 1950s, and had quietly asked the Forest Service if it was still interested in entertaining development proposals for Mineral King.
http://www.faultline...neralking1.html
Here is a picture of Mineral King.
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- Cameron
#10
Posted 30 January 2004 - 12:16 PM
I don't know, even discounting the fact that the area is and was too ecologically sensitive for a resort, it seems to me that Disney probably have made it to commercialized, like disneyland. The descriptions in the article are also rather discouraging. It seems that there would have been too many lifts for the area, with many redundancies. It would not have been like Squaw: any extreme terrain would have been blasted to make it more accessable. The article mentions the blasting of boulders. Squaw has indeed blasted boulders, but only for lifts and not for the runs themselves, if I remember correctly. Also, it seems as though the lift system might have been more redundant than Squaw.
"Quo usque tandem abutere, Catalina, patientia nostra?" -Cicero
#12
Posted 01 February 2004 - 08:15 PM
Many hills are blasted to make access to runs as another person said that Internationa;e at Alpental the entrance anyway was blasted out as to gain access to that hill.
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