Mt. Hood Land Trade in Peril
When you care about the future of your community, you stick with it. For decades. Thrive’s longest running effort has been protecting the north side of Mt. Hood at Cooper Spur and protecting the upper valley’s water supply and agricultural communities. About 20 years ago, Mt. Hood Meadows acquired the Inn at Cooper Spur, the Cooper Spur Ski Area and about 600 acres of land in the Crystal Springs Watershed zone of contribution. Meadows proposed to develop a 650 unit destination resort, a golf course, a mountain village and expand the little ski area into the Cloud-Cap Tilly Jane historic district.
The community rose up. People turned out by the hundreds to express their opposition to these proposals. Thrive challenged the plan in court and ended up negotiating an innovative settlement to put an end to decades of discord over development on the north side of Mt. Hood.
In 2005, after a year of tough negotiations between Mt. Hood Meadows, Hood River County and Thrive, a historic solution emerged: permanently protect the north side of Mt. Hood with a land trade where Mt. Hood Meadows would give up its 770 acres on the north side of the mountain in exchange for 120 acres of developable land in Government Camp owned by the US Forest Service. Over a dozen groups in the Cooper Spur Wild & Free Coalition supported the deal and Oregon’s Congressional delegation prepared legislation to move it through Congress. In 2009, the “Clean Sweep” as we called it, was one of the driving forces behind the passage of the Omnibus Public Lands act which included 125,000 acres of new Wilderness on Mt. Hood.
The “Clean Sweep” would result in permanent protection for the Tilly Jane-Cloud Cap Historic District, 2,000 acres of additional protection for Crystal Springs Water and an end to the fight over Meadows’ expansion plans at Cooper Spur.
The Forest Service was supposed to complete the trade in 18 months, but we hit some snags along the way. Last year, the Forest Service agreed to redo flawed appraisals that had greatly overvalued the land on the north side and undervalued the land on the south side. We received the new appraisals a few months ago and we had experts review them. Again, the experts determined that the appraisals significantly overvalued the north side and undervalued the south side.
Meadows has stated that they do not want to keep the Cooper Spur Ski Area, rendering the future of this beloved place uncertain. Instead, Meadows wants to obtain the land in Government Camp AND keep significant land holdings around the Inn at Cooper Spur, which they could seek to develop in the future.
Obtaining over 100 acres in Government Camp is a big prize, as it would allow Meadows to build hundreds of ski homes. Meadows stands to make tens of millions of dollars, yet it is standing in the way of protecting the north side of Mt. Hood, the Crystal Springs Watershed and settling a two decade long dispute.