Work has started on a long-planned ski-trail expansion at Mt. Spokane Ski & Snowboard Park following a decision by the Washington state Supreme Court not to hear an environmental challenge to the project.

The project, which will open up 279 acres to skiers and snowboarders on the north side of Mount Spokane, will include clearing seven new ski runs and installing a chairlift.

“We started the day after the decision,” says Brad McQuarrie, general manager at Mt. Spokane. “We were geared up and ready to go, because we were pretty confident the Supreme Court would rule in our favor.”

The expansion plan was approved by the state parks commission in 2014, and Spokane County approved permits for it last year. The project, however, had been stalled in litigation led by environmentalists, including Spokane-based The Lands Council and famed Spokane mountaineer John Roskelley. The appellants claim the ski-area expansion will fragment habitat for sensitive and threatened wildlife.

The state Supreme Court decided on Aug. 1 not to take up an appeal of the expansion plan, effectively letting stand a lower court ruling that determined the plan met legal and procedural standards.

McQuarrie estimates the construction costs for the expansion at $2.5 million.

The new runs will be ready next ski season, although the chairlift won’t be erected until next summer, he says.

Mt. Spokane bought a chairlift known as the Red Chair for the project in 2013 from the Bridger Bowl ski area, near Bozeman, Mont.

“We’ll groom the runs this year and let people ski them with the caveat that they’ll have to ski out to Chair 4,” McQuarrie says. “They’ll have to take their skis off and walk out the last quarter-mile or so.”

Mt. Spokane will handle much of the project in-house and will hire subcontractors where outside expertise is needed, he says.

McQuarrie says an economic study conducted in 2008, in the early years of the expansion planning, concluded that the project would lead to significantly higher skier visits, revenue, and staffing.

“It will require more groomers per night, and there will be more operators for another chair,” he says. “Staffing will increase commensurate with visitation as well.”

Mt. Spokane has employed up to 300 people during the peak of its recent ski seasons.

The ski area, about 30 miles northeast of Spokane, tallied a record 108,000 skier visits and revenue of $3.4 million in its most recent ski season.

The ski area currently has 45 designated runs and five chairlifts on 1,425 acres of land.

Spokane-based nonprofit Mt. Spokane 2000 operates the ski area, which is part of Mount Spokane State Park.

With the state high court rejecting the environmental appeal, Mike Petersen, The Lands Council executive director, says the appellants won’t try to pursue the case in federal court.

“This is the end of the line as far as a challenge,” Petersen says. “From what I hear, they’ve already been up there cutting down trees.”