An informal group of residents pursuing a lift-assisted ski hill in the Chilkat Valley has identified what it considers a strong potential site: Four Winds Mountain, the 1,600-foot peak behind Mosquito Lake Community Center.

Group member Thom Ely, a retired tour operator and long-time resident, broached the topic with residents of the highway neighborhood at a meeting inside the center Sunday night. About 20 people attended to look at maps and photos, hear plans, ask questions and offer advice.

A northeast-facing orientation, protection from winds, a network of historic logging roads, the state’s plans for commercial harvest of timber there, and potential to also develop the peak’s northwest-facing slope all work in favor of putting a ski hill on Four Winds, Ely told the crowd.

The meeting was the third by the ad hoc group in three months, Ely said. Other peaks considered, including one in Lutak Inlet and another upper valley peak nicknamed “Old Faithful,” would pose more challenges for development, he said.

Ely visualized the effort as a “community endeavor” led by a nonprofit that would require considerable support from volunteers, businesses, Haines Borough, the state Division of Forestry, and Alaska Mental Health Land Trust.

But first, the development has to fly with Mosquito Lake residents and that was the purpose of the meeting at the community center, Ely said. Residents cited traffic and noise as potential concerns.

“I love ski areas but the noise factor would be an issue for me,” said Julie Korsmeyer, who has property nearby at 2 Mile Mosquito Lake Road. Neighborhood resident Derek Poinsette pointed out that Four Winds also is home to a resident herd of mountain goats.

Ely said he hasn’t yet spoken to government agencies about developing the peak. He encouraged attendees to talk with neighbors about the idea. “If there’s going to be opposition, we’d rather know it sooner than later.”

Ely said he envisioned the area being developed incrementally, initially by cutting brush and small trees to make way for trails that could be ascended by snowmachines or skiers on skins. A small rope tow operation might follow.

Eventually, the mountain could accommodate a chair lift, with possibly a rope tow leading to higher and windier locations on the slope, he said. He said he envisioned two or three separate runs down the mountain. “I don’t think Mosquito Lake is ever going to be Girdwood (site of Alyeska ski resort), but it would definitely be busier around here,” he told the crowd.

Ely said he’ll be working on a business plan for the venture in coming months and that he’s heard ballpark cost figures for construction of a chair lift at between $5 million and $20 million. Summertime use by hikers and mountain bikers and other recreationists might help justify the costs of such a project, he said.

Ely compared the development to other small, community-operated ski areas like ones in Cordova, Alaska and at Shane’s Mountain, B.C. He said he grew up near a similar ski hill. The valley’s two Alaska Native tribes have expressed interest in the idea, he said.

Resident Phil McAfee, who grew up near a municipally operated ski hill near Chatham, Mich., said many community ski areas were built decades ago, when environmental and insurance costs weren’t as high as today. The initial start-up cost might be prohibitive, he said.

“That would be my concern, getting it off the ground,” McAfee said.

Haines area forester Greg Palmieri attended the meeting and said the development might fit into the state’s plans for commercial timber harvest on the hillside. He said the site offered considerable opportunities for skiing or mountain biking.

A borough lot has been identified as providing the best access to the hill from Mosquito Lake Road. Most of the ski area would be on state forest land but acreage at upper elevations is owned by the state’s Mental Health Trust.

Skier and snowmachiner Charles Peep said he’s been up on Four Winds and it seems to him to be a good area for ski slope development. He said he was encouraged by the meeting. “I’m sort of surprised I didn’t hear anybody saying they didn’t want it. People who don’t ski, they may not get the point.”

Four Winds is about a mile west of a smaller slope nicknamed “Ski Hill,” the site of a volunteer-organized rope tow ski lift that operated briefly about 50 years ago.