I'm doing a Tony Crocker and shooting from the hip from 6000 miles.....
First off I'm not 100% sure when they plan on having the road open, my understanding is that the road itself is there as they use it during the summer for the bike park which uses the Silver Chief lift. My understanding is that it needs widening, gaurd rails etc before it can be used during winter and there probably needs to be some thought about parking and ticketing.
Anyway, what I will say is this. As a visitor to the area I am not sure the road and plans are viable and will bring all that much more customers to the area.
My reasoning is that in all my trips to Discovery I have found that Flint Creek Pass, which is effectively what they are cutting out the need to go over, is extremely well looked after and although I can imagine on occasion it being a little sketchy I doubt there are many times a season where it is impassable(save for the occasional slide from the rock face). I have seen the access road from the 7 Gables to the hill a little on the slick side but your driving to a ski hill so surely you expect that. So in terms of getting to the mountain I don't see the extra drive from Philipsburg around the pass to the main lodge as being that big a deal more if I had driven say from Missoula for the day. 20 minutes from my door in Philipsburg to the ski hill, would I really worry about saving 5-10 minutes?
However, this is where my opinion probably is a little different to the average person skiing at Discovery. I ski at Discovery for one real reason(apart from friends etc) and that is Limelight. If Limelight was not there I would not be all that fussed about the place. So, I drive for 20 minutes up over the pass, I park within 20 yards of the lift, I get my pass and can be on the lift at 9.45am for rope drop into Limelight terrain at 10am. I ski hard til Limelight closes at 3.45 and then ski to the 350 Club for a whisky before heading home. I can stop at the 7 Gables with people I know coming from Butte and Missoula etc. I can head down to Anaconda for my free beer with friends in the Harp if I feel like it.
Now if this new road was in. To get to the same terrain I ski is now 2 chair rides away. Both pretty long and slow. I'd estimate 20-25 minutes total and no meaningful turns getting between lifts. For me thats not a great trade off. Now the biggest issue they have is what happens at night. Silver Chief rarely opens at the best of times and come March I have seen it spinning a couple of weekends in the last 3-4 years. The terrain is pretty flat and boring but has really low coverage. So I believe they are going to need to seriously get snow blowing in that area to make it a viable alternative to the main lodge or otherwise you would be downloading on the chair which for me is not something I would ever do if there was an alternative. Maybe it will only be used weekends during peak months which seems most likely in the current climate. There was talk of real estate and such like but those days for now are gone IMO.
Local people disagree with me in terms of the numbers. I'm hugely skeptical that a road bypassing Flint Creek Pass will bring in the volumes of "new" customers they think will come with the new road. I personally think they will pickup a few with the majority of people utilizing the road being existing regular visitors who are simply changing habits. Yes that will take away weekend traffic to the main parking area which I am told can be pretty bad during pow weekends in Feb, with a potential lodge down in the new base again taking traffic away from a bursting main lodge.
I don't see the road as an improvement, I don't see the terrain down there as an improvement, I'm skeptical of the impact it will make and feel sure that in 5 years or 10 years time I am not going to be fighting for my space with 100s or 1000s more people at Discovery.
