Master plan calls for big changes at Rib Mountain State Park. But they won't come soon.
RIB MOUNTAIN - The door opened for groundbreaking developments such as adding mountain bike trails, expanding the downhill ski area and adding new land at Rib Mountain State Park when the governing body of the Department of Natural Resources approved the park's new master plan.
The Natural Resources Board gave a thumbs up to the planning document in its December meeting. Six members of the board voted for the proposal, one member abstained. The controversial approval was a significant step toward further development in the park. But implementing on-the-ground changes outlined in the document will be a evolutionary rather than revolutionary process, requiring detailed planning, funding and bureaucratic approval.
"What a master plan does is authorize what can happen at a state park," said Bayli Christorf, the natural resources property supervisor who oversees management of Rib Mountain State Park and the park's lone full-time, year-round employee. "It gives permission for property management and development. It doesn't necessarily mean that all things in this plan will happen and that we have a timeline. It just authorizes what can happen."
Don't ask Christorf when skiers will be swooshing down the slope on new runs or when mountain bikers will be able to pedal between the trees on the hill. She doesn't know, and she won't even hazard a guess. But she will say that the mountain bike trails and downhill ski expansion are likely the first changes considered, because the DNR has strong partners advocating for the changes who are willing to do work and help fundraise to make them happen.
Representatives of those partners − the Central Wisconsin Offroad Cycling Coalition and Granite Peak Ski Area, owned by Duluth resident Charles Skinner's Midwest Family Ski Resorts − say it's likely to be at least two years before any trails are put in on the ground.
Downhill ski expansion will take time
Granite Peak Ski Area first unveiled its wish to expand in 2014. At the time, the ski operation asked the DNR for an amendment to the master plan in place at the time, a plan put in place in 2005. Instead of addressing the ski expansion proposal on its own, the Natural Resources Board opted to start the process to create an entirely new master plan that would look at wholesale changes for the park.
The work creating the new master plan has taken over eight years, been the focus of umpteen meetings and has included thousands of remarks from members of the public. And still Natural Resources Board members tweaked the final version of the master plan recommended by DNR staff members, adding in an amendment to the plan that allowed Granite Peak Ski Area to expand more than what DNR planning staff members recommended. That change allows the ski operation to develop three ski runs that would encroach on a State Natural Area located within the park, with a ski lift running over the natural area. Mountain bike trails also will be allowed in the area.
The amendment came with a stipulation that trail and ski area developers make every practical effort to limit the impact on the natural area, and avoid particular sensitive spots.
Skinner promises that all due diligence will be taken when considering how the ski hill expands, but no plans to even consider the expansions is imminent.
"The (master) plan that got approved ... it intended to be at its core, conceptual," Skinner said. Right now, Granite Peak and its operators are focused on, and their time is consumed by, offering a great winter for skiers and snowboarders. Once the season is over and activities quiet down, Skinner said, Granite Peak operators will turn their attention to how best to expand.
That process will need to begin with renegotiating the lease agreement Granite Peak has with the DNR. It is during that process that some of the details about how developers will protect the State Natural Area will be mapped out.
"The lease is the foundation for the relationship and it needs to describe all the lands included (in the expansion area) and some of the processes (that will occur)," Skinner said.
After the lease is negotiated, ski run developers will "go out and lay out things on the ground, find things we want to avoid and work with the DNR," Skinner said.
There is approval to expand the ski area to the east, on the opposite side of the area from the natural area, as well. Skinner said he could not be sure which area would expand first until more details are worked out.
Mountain biking trails will 'be unlike any other in the area'
When the Central Wisconsin Offroad Cycling Coalition, a group of mountain biking advocates and riders, first organized more than a decade ago, the cyclists looked at Rib Mountain with yearning. Off-road cycling, despite being related in adventuresome spirit with downhill skiing, was never allowed, and the cyclists didn't foresee that changing.
"We thought we'd never be able to touch it," said Aaron Ruff, CWOCC president. So the club looked elsewhere for other cycling opportunities, developing trail systems at Ringle on Marathon County landfill property and steep downhill trails at Sylvan Hill Park in Wausau. Sylvan offers downhill tubing opportunities during the winter, so it has parallels to what is envisioned at Rib Mountain State Park.
Except that the trails on Rib Mountain would be on a much higher level. The master plan calls for 12 to 20 miles of mountain bike trails, offering experiences for beginning riders to experts. The crown jewel of the plan would be lift-operated downhill cycling opportunities. That is, cyclists could use a Granite Peak ski lift get up the mountain, and gravity would offer thrills downhill.
"This is a whole different ballgame. The topography and geology at Rib Mountain is really special," Ruff said. "Trails can be engineered and built in such unique ways. The experience is going to be unlike any other in the area."
Adding mountain biking as an option will help make Rib Mountain State Park a year-round destination, proponents say, and if the lift-aided proposal becomes reality, Ruff predicts that cyclists from across the Midwest will come to Wausau to ride.
But, like the ski area expansion, the details about how the trails will be developed will take a lot of time, Ruff said. CWOCC has experts in mountain bike trail designing and building, he said, but there will be a lot of work done before any of that occurs. The DNR will need to approve any trails developed, and on the northwest side of the mountain, CWOCC will need to coordinate with Granite Peak to best make sure two trail systems mesh.
Christorf said she reckons that the mountain bike trails will likely be the first new thing developed under the new master plan, though, because of CWOCC and its eagerness to be part of the process.
"We're a willing partner," Ruff said. "And we have the experience."
In addition to mapping out specific locations of trails, Ruff said CWOCC will need to get its fundraising game on, and that could take time as well. "The DNR doesn't have a budget surplus, that's very clear," he said. "We're pretty confident that local foundations will be part of the conversations."
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Master plan does not have universal support
The master plan, along with its amendment, received muscular and vocal support from wide swaths of community and business leaders in the Wausau area. Expanding the ski hill and adding mountain biking at Rib Mountain State Park will help make the Wausau area a magnet for outdoor adventurers, helping bolster the local tourism economy and helping attract young people to live in the area.
Major employers, economic development groups and other civic leaders lauded the updated plan.
But it did not receive universal support. Smaller groups of preservationists, environmentalists and other Rib Mountain users who treasure the natural environment of the park have opposed the expansion of the ski hill from the start of the planning process.
The Friends of Rib Mountain State Park, a group of advocates for the park dedicated to supporting it, sent a letter to the Natural Resources Board, DNR Secretary Adam Payne and Gov. Tony Evers protesting the way the amendment to the master plan was approved.
Christopher Ecke, the president of The Friends group, said that the group took issue with the fact that members of the public did not get the chance to voice opinions on the specific amendment. "Because the amendment was not publicly disclosed until just before it was voted on, there could be no public response to it," Ecke wrote on behalf of the group. The letter requested that "the NRB reconsider the amendment and allow time for adequate environmental analysis and appropriate public comment."
The politics of the amendment was further complicated by the fact that the NRB member who made the amendment was Dr. Frederick Prehn, a retired Wausau dentist and an appointee for the board by Republican Gov. Scott Walker, and who stayed on the board for two years after his term ended. Prehn relinquished the seat after the master plan was approved.
Ecke said the group was not taking an official stand over the master plan and the amendment because there were members who supported the full new master plan and those against it.
"We just feel it didn't follow proper protocol," Ecke said. "We feel the amendment warranted additional consideration."
Supporters of the plan, including Charles Skinner, who are organized in a group called the Greater Wausau Prosperity Partnership, also sent a letter to the Natural Resources Board. That letter, signed by Skinner, Ruff and Matt Rowe, chair of the partnership and president of the Ruder Ware law firm in Wausau, argues that members of the public did get the chance to comment on the option earlier in the planning process when the DNR considered several alternatives to the state park.
He hopes that once people see the changes on the ground, they will accept them and understand that the expansion allows for more people to use the park. "The legacy (of the park) is about cooperation," Skinner said. "And working with your neighbor. This park has hundreds of thousands of people who use it each year, and that's something that should be celebrated."
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Features reporter Keith Uhlig is based in Wausau. Contact him at 715-845-0651 or kuhlig@gannett.com. Follow him at @UhligK on Twitter and Instagram or on Facebook.
This article originally appeared on Wausau Daily Herald: Rib Mountain State Park Granite Peak Ski Area expansion plans update
