After three years, Eaglecrest plans to finally get its gondola project off the ground

Construction to get Eaglecrest Ski Area’s controversial gondola up and running is finally underway.

The ski area announced Wednesday that work has begun to develop the access road to one of the gondola’s stations on Douglas Island. That means that the mountain will be closed off to the public beyond the main lodges for the foreseeable future.

The road construction comes more than three years after the city bought the used gondola from Austria.

And now, the ski area’s future is riding on it.

In the coming years, the ski area is slated to run into a multimillion-dollar deficit. That is intentional – it’s part of a plan to repair some broken and aging infrastructure while boosting pay to employees and preparing to operate year-round. The plan to dig out of the deficit relies heavily