The skyline over Marshall Mountain changed dramatically this month. While the ski-lift towers and cable remain standing in their epochal pink glory against the reds and yellows of autumn, their 78 matching chairs are gone.
Where exactly the storied chairs end up is still to be determined. But a group raising money to officially convert the area to public land is hoping you’ll want one.
Getting to the moment of taking down these chairs has been, let’s say, bumpy.
Since the Marshall Mountain Ski Area closed in 2002, there have been efforts to make sure this popular spot for biking, skiing and hiking remains publicly accessible. Those efforts became more urgent in 2021 when a doctor from Missouri and his wife made a deal to purchase the property from long-time owners Bruce and Kim Doering.
That deal fell through—though it’s the subject of ongoing litigation after the Missouri couple alleged breach of contract—and the property was ultimately sold to Missoula-based Izzy Dog LLC, owned by Rick and Rika Wishcamper and Sandy and Pam Volkmann.
Izzy Dog took a page out of the Doerings’ book, keeping the mountain open to public recreation for the length of its lease with Missoula. Once that lease is up, Izzy Dog is giving the city the option to buy the property. That 160-acre parcel, in combination with 160 acres owned by the Five Valleys Land Trust and 160 more owned by The Conservation Fund, makes up the beloved hodgepodge entity locals fiercely favor for their pre- and post-work downhill zips on skis and bikes.
The total cost of securing the land and opening it to the public is projected to be $3.8 million. Funding to do that has been—like this entire effort—piecemeal.
Some of the pieces are beginning to come together. A joint public hearing hosted by both Missoula city and county government and scheduled for Oct. 4 could lock into place one piece of funding advocates have been counting on. Voters in 2018 authorized a $15 million open space bond to enhance open space land and preserve public access, $2 million of which is on the table to help buy Marshall Mountain.
And at the end of last month, Missoula County received a $600,000 grant toward the purchase via the U.S. Forest Service’s Community Forest and Open Space Conservation Program.
Friends of Marshall Mountain, the aforementioned fundraising group, hopes to get about $1 million more in grant money. And it’s chipping away at its $1.25 million goal in private funds. That’s where the pink chairs come in. The group’s co-chair, Jeff Crouch, says it will disperse them by raffle and as thank-yous to donors starting in the next couple of weeks, thus launching the group’s first public fundraising effort.
“I’ve literally heard hundreds of people tell stories about learning to ski there,” Crouch said. “[There’s a] lot of public attachment to that mountain.”
Crouch didn’t learn to ski at Marshall, but he spent plenty of time on those slopes in his 20s. “I’m just really doing this because we almost lost this opportunity to have this county park,” he said. Not only does it improve public land access in the underserved East Missoula area, it also opens proverbial gates to bigger and further excursions. “You can literally leave Marshall Mountain and get to Glacier Park crossing two roads,” Crouch said.
Crouch gathered a dozen volunteers this month and the team managed to remove all the chairs from the lift in about six hours—an accomplishment Crouch deemed “kind of a miracle.”
A Sept. 13 Instagram reel from Marshall Mountain Park shows the process of disassembly (to the soundtrack of a big band tune that would fit under the opening credits of a Quentin Tarantino film). A couple people tilt a chair on the cable, another stands on a ladder and loosens the grip and, just like that, it’s off. Onto the next one.
Perched up above the bull wheel and conducting the orchestra sits Jim Winn, who’s now in his mid-70s. He was already intimately familiar with the 1974 V8 Chrysler backup engine he was running for the job (the lift typically ran on electric power).
He had the title of Mountain manager during the 1980s, though he calls himself a mechanic—on the T-bars, the groomers and the lift. “You knew you’d be laying in the snow at some point for some reason,” he said. “But you get used to it.”
Winn recalls teaching his own kids and grandkids how to ski at Marshall Mountain, and running hayrides there during family reunions. When asked how it felt to watch the iconic pink lift be removed—“It started out really bright red,” Winn corrected. “Over the years, the sun really faded it.”
But he’s excited to see where the chairs pop up throughout the community. “You’ll know who was originally a skier up there,” Winn said. “After they’re all sold, give it a month or two. If you see a chair, you’ll know they had something to do with Marshall.”
Both Winn and Crouch reported a pretty unsentimental scene during lift disassembly—perhaps reflective of the general buzz around Marshall’s future—and the work still needed to get there.
The Marshall Mountain Park Conceptual Master Plan became available in May of this year, after a volume of public comment “to the tune of double” other projects, Crouch said.
The plan identifies community priorities, like youth programming and a more balanced approach to recreational access, including paths designed for a diverse age-group. It also marks long-term goals like constructing a building at the base for private events and a mid-mountain camping area.
“But really, [it’s] a real success if we do that first phase,” Crouch said. That includes $600,000 earmarked for initial work like removing asbestos and lead from old structures and installing bathrooms and signage.
As for the remnants of that familiar chairlift? The towers will likely remain, partly to save money and “partly to honor the history of the mountain,” Crouch said.
But, yes, an early project will be cutting off those faded pink lift tower ladders, so no one gets any funny ideas.
