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POSTED: 21 March, 2000 Mt. Ashland Ski Area must grow To Linda Duffy: I am writing in support of the Mt. Ashland expansion. There is broad community support for the expansion and painstaking study (the recently released EIS) supports the expansion. The good of the community clearly outweighs the environmental concerns in this matter. Mount Ashland needs to expand to be able to handle inevitably increasing numbers of visitors as our community grows. There needs to be more room so that school groups, racers, freestyle enthusiasts, and the general skiing and snowboarding public can all have enough room to safely enjoy our unique, community-owned mountain. As part of the expansion, there should be a skiway as proposed by Ski Ashland. Without a skiway the options for evacuating injured people are severely limited, as well as more time consuming, logistically complicated and (in the case of helicopter evacuation) more expensive for the injured party. The skiway provides the ability to speed an injured guest from anywhere on the slopes directly to the ski patrol room or waiting ambulance. People also need to have shelter, food, drink, and bathrooms within reasonable proximity when they are out on the slopes. Cutting additional ski runs without including a small lodge as part of the plan would be a mistake. The current lodge is sub-standard as compared with most ski areas as it is. To ask it to service an even larger area isn't practical. Thank you for all your efforts regarding the Mount Ashland expansion. John Gronberg Ashland Visit our back issue library Email your... Technical questions & comments to: WebMaster Daily Tidings editorial comments & questions to: Editor Visit our other Western Oregon Newspapers... | Albany Democrat-Herald | Corvallis Gazette-Times | Lebanon Express | Newport News-Times | | Ashland Daily Tidings | Gresham Outlook | Springfield News | Ashland Daily Tidings 1661 Siskiyou Blvd. Ashland, OR 97520 Telephone 541-482-3456 © Copyright 1997, 1998, 1999 Lee Northwest Publishing