US Forest Service Accepts Brundage Mountain Master Development Plan

The Payette National Forest has officially accepted the 2022 Brundage Mountain Master Development Plan (MDP).

The resort says:

"Over the past two years, Brundage Mountain Resort has been hard at work with our partners at the Payette National Forest to put together a master plan that will shape the next ten years of development at our mountain.

What is a Master Plan, and why do we have one?

Why are we completing a Master Development Plan?

Brundage is a privately owned and operated business that, like many ski resorts, operates on lands managed by the US Forest Service. A “Special Use Permit” or SUP is required to operate on these public lands.

As a requirement of the SUP, a Master Development Plan or MDP is a planning process resorts go through to make sure we are being thoughtful stewards of the public lands we operate on and to illustrate our vision for the next decade.
The Forest Service accepting the MDP does not mean that the planned projects are approved; environmental studies of potential impacts are needed prior to implementation as regulated by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

Brundage Mountain’s MDP

So, what does our MDP say?

The planning process starts with a vision statement that describes how we see ourselves, what is important to our guests and what makes our resort special.

Our vision is ‘To maintain [Brundage Mountain’s] strong local vibe and continue providing an affordable, accessible, family-friendly skiing experience.’
From this vision, we crafted our goals: ‘Future resort planning will preserve and enhance the attributes that make Brundage “The Last Great Place,” and will expand the year-round recreational experience.’

Once the vision has been set, the Master Planning process looks at the ‘existing conditions’ of the resort.

We found a need for more on-mountain food service facilities and more beginner/novice terrain and circulation routes.

The last part of the MDP process is planning future changes to our resort. The projects are concepts that could be analyzed and implemented in the next decade. These concepts are designed to address problems found with the existing conditions, as well as to move us towards fulfilling our vision.

Major planned projects include:

We plan to replace Centennial Lift with a high-speed quad. This will help people get up the mountain faster and take demand off of the Bluebird Lift.
We plan to revitalize the base village to improve the arrival and experience of our guests.
We’re planning to do various utility improvements and upgrades, including expanding our snowmaking. This will make the mountain run better.
We plan to expand on-mountain food offerings. This would let more skiers get lunch while staying on the mountain and enjoy the mountain vistas.
The Sargents Pod is planned to provide access to new intermediate and advanced skiing and a novice circulation route to the base area.
Eastside pod is a planned expansion on the backside opening over 50 acres of developed east-facing, lift-served ski runs.
We want to expand our summer offerings to build on the robust summer demand in the McCall area.

What’s Next?

The next step is to analyze projects in our MDP through the NEPA process.

The NEPA process is designed to make sure that actions taken by federal agencies or on federal land consider the environmental effect of those actions.

Planned projects will go through one of three NEPA processes: Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), Environmental Assessment (EA) or a Categorical Exclusion.

Public comment periods are part of the EIS and EA processes that you’ll be able to participate in. Stakeholders will be notified of these comment periods via mail or email, as well as public notices posted in local publications and online.