Monday, Aug. 8, 2005 | 3:22 a.m.
Dozens of people went to Mount Charleston on Saturday for the annual Festival in the Pines at the Las Vegas Ski and Snowboard Resort. This year, many of those attending also took a swing at a resort proposed for a few miles down the mountain.
The Jack Johnson Co. of Park City, Utah, has proposed building a 100-unit hotel or lodge, cabins, a restaurant and a nightclub with video poker near the intersection of Lee Canyon Road, State Route 156, and Deer Creek Road, State Route 158, on the way up to the ski resort.
The company, which has built golfing and ski resorts across the country and especially in the West, presented its vision of the new resort at a recent meeting of the Mount Charleston Town Advisory Board, but as of last week had not formally applied for the new zoning it would need.
The company has not responded to multiple requests for comment on its proposal.
The proposal is a sign of the popularity of the mountain as an escape from summer heat or an opportunity to play in snow during the winter. In Kyle Canyon, closer to Las Vegas, there is already lodging in the Mount Charleston Hotel and Mount Charleston Lodge.
Still, Lee Canyon residents and their mountain neighbors in Kyle Canyon are concerned that the Lee Canyon proposal is coming. Stephanie Myers, a Lee Canyon resident, distributed a petition at Saturday's festival that warned of a hotel and casino.
Residents and visitors stopped at the entrance to the festival at the ski resort, which has no overnight lodging, to indicate their opposition to the proposal.
Although Clark County planners say only video poker, and not a full casino, would be allowed even with a zone change, some said gaming is not appropriate for the rural mountain, much of which is designated wilderness within a national forest.
"There's enough casinos in this state," said Neal Frechette, a Las Vegas X-ray technician. "We don't need to put it on the mountain. Leave the mountain alone."
Barbara Frechette, his wife and a customer service representative with a medical benefits company, said she likes the mountain as it is. A resort would change the character of the area.
"It's going to bring more traffic up here," she said. "We don't need it."
Some of the volunteers who set up tables at the festival agreed. John Fitzgibbons, whose parents live in Lee Canyon, is a volunteer with the Spring Mountains Association, which sponsors Festival in the Pines.
"I'm not very happy with it," Fitzgibbons said. "We don't want kind of large development up here."
He noted that there were "for sale" signs along many of the small parcels of private property that line SR 156. But the construction that has already come in the area has been private homes, mostly hidden amid the dense trees of the mountain's higher altitudes. A hotel complex would be something different.
"Everybody up here was kind of trying to keep this canyon with an unbroken visual appeal. It still looks like wilderness. We want to keep development as minimal as possible."
Robert Maichle, a Las Vegas computer scientist and Spring Mountains Association volunteer, agreed.
"There's two Nevadas. There's Nevada where we have gaming and urban blight. This is not that," he said, gesturing to the mountain side. "This is the safety valve for all the people in the pressure cooker down below."
And others echoed Maichle's perspective.
"This is a recreational area that generations have been going to," said Iris Flores, a Nevada State Bank employee and a native Las Vegan. "It will attract a different breed of people."
Myers, the Lee Canyon resident who is leading the ad-hoc effort to resist the proposal, said she had about 140 signatures by about 2 p.m. -- when a sudden thunderstorm dumped copious amounts of rain and hail on the festival.
Not everyone is ready to oppose the proposal. Brian Strait, Las Vegas Ski and Snowboard Resort general manager, said he is withholding judgment until he has seen the detailed proposal.
Strait said he has concerns about the level of services, including police, fire and water, that would be needed for a new hotel on his side of the mountain. But the project "could potentially generate enough impact fees so that all the potential impacts are addressed," he said.
"That could be considered a good thing. It's difficult to answer the question without seeing the details."
One of those who shares the concerns about the level of services is Clark County Commissioner Chip Maxfield, who has had a look at the company's proposal.
"We know there's scarce resources," said Maxfield, whose board will have to approve any needed zone change to allow the proposal to go forward. "The proposal is a very intense proposal. It's a very nice, good-looking proposal, but I think it may be in the wrong place.
"I don't know if the infrastructure and the resources from the fire and police department and the Forest Service would have the ability to handle such an intense development."
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