BOISE, Idaho — Bogus Basin has had a record-breaking season.
The mountain recreation area's general manager, Brad Wilson, said each month this season has been a record-breaker in terms of the number of visitors to mountain.
With the season winding down soon, officials are already looking ahead to next winter with several summer improvement projects happening.
On Monday - April Fools Day - Bogus Basin posted on its Instagram account that a gondola from Boise to the ski resort would soon be installed.
It later posted a second picture saying the gondola was an April Fools joke.
"It would be the world's longest gondola and would be out of anybody's price range to pay for," Wilson said.
The gondola would cost roughly $80 million and would be nearly impossible to build.
But Wilson said that social media post did open up a community discussion about transportation and other needed changes at the resort.
KTVB spoke to a few avid snowboarders enjoying the last days on the slopes and asked what changes they would like to see for next season.
“Probably some brush cutting," said Chandler Abel. "There’s so many runs that could be totally better if they just like took a landscaping crew or something – whatever they do – to get rid of some of those twigs that are just in the way of some perfect powder.”
Austin Ravnikar, another frequent Bogus snowboarder, said easier transportation would be beneficial.
“I think a bus route would be nice but I think for the most part just keeping the roads safer so people feel more confident on the way up here," he said. "I think a big part of it is just the danger, people don’t want to take their own cars up here.”
That's why Wilson said transportation is the one thing Bogus Basin is working hard on, with the goal being to reduce the amount of traffic on the road to the resort.
Students in an MBA program at Boise State University are working to come up with several different options to improve transportation, Wilson said.
“The low-hanging fruit are things like ride-sharing apps where you can find other people that are coming and more than one of you could drive up in your car," he said. "Because we do see, especially mid-week, a lot of singles driving up and it’d be great if you could get two or three people per vehicle.”
Wilson said for the current season, they did implement a bus service that ran on weekends and holidays. He said it was funded by Bogus Basin and they charged a fee to ride on it. But that bus is something they want to expand on for next season.
Other changes that will happen over the summer include the installation of a new chair lift.
“We’re going to be replacing Chair 2 this summer with a new high-speed detachable quad," Wilson said. "And that lift will cut the ride time from about 11 minutes to 3, 3 1/2 minutes.”
That's a $5 million dollar project, which regulars to Bogus Basin feel is needed.
"I’ve been snowboarding here since I was like five," Abel said. "And that chair has always been so slow. So it’s going to be nice to have that upgrade and get to the backside [of the mountain] quicker.”
Along with the new lift, some other work will be done.
"On the Morningstar side that that lift will access, we’re going to enhance some other trails, some beginner trails, and some low-intermediate trails on there to be able to groom more terrain and have more terrain open,” Wilson explained.
Another focus will be brush cutting. According to Wilson, that is something that a lot of people at the resort comment on and ask to see improved.
“So we’re going to spend a fair amount of time and money removing brush as much as we can,” he said.
The winter season ends at Bogus Basin on Apr. 14. But Wilson said the resort is still open during the summer months with lots of different activities and events.
More details on summer hours and events can be found on the resort's website.