I’m honestly not sure what the heck is with the landowner. He runs businesses into the ground (the former operations of Big Squaw) even negligently (more notably with Chalk’s Air disasters) and is so caustic he butts heads with everyone leading investors/partners/purchasers away.
My only take is that he’s has this dream that *HE* and only *HE* will be magical guy to save the day to revive the ski area (as he wished back in the late 90s). This is despite the fact he has no access to capital and refuses to partner or sell with anyone to make it happen.
- 2004 lift accident — no capital to fix the main lift at the area
- Stopped making snow or operation the hotel — no money
- Closes the area down after only operating the bottom third for a bit — clearly uninterested in further ops
- Clear cut the terrain served by the triple. Other tree harvesting across the property. Gets in huge trouble — deed restrictions required tree work to be for ski area ops yet this work was done outside of the ski area and also well after he closed the place
- Leased to the non-profit to operate the lower bit of the mountain
The fact of the matter is the only reason there has been ops at Big Squaw over the past several years is that he leases it out in attempt to overturn the significant fines he receive to argue [some of] the improvements were for skiing.
Yet someone comes by with capital and desire to acquire and rebuild the ski area and he pulls the same stunts over and over again. This is not the first proposal for reopening the mountain. These are not the first people to back out. Every time he forces interested parties away. These developers just got further before being done with his BS than anyone else.
