The board of directors of the Anchorage Ski Club, which runs the area 15 miles from downtown, unanimously voted Wednesday night to keep the 320-acre area open this winter.

"In response to the overwhelming support of our members and the community, the board made the commitment to open," club director Beverly Luedke-Chan said in a press release. "We are counting on the community's continued support to guarantee a successful winter season."

Financial woes have dogged Arctic Valley for years, and one option under consideration was to shutter the area this winter. In recent years, too few lift tickets and ski club memberships had been sold to cover expenses.

"We are constantly fighting misconceptions that the area closed, that the conditions are usually poor and that the road is difficult," said Jennifer Gordon, one of the club's more active volunteers and a former board member. "We have never closed to the public. The military ski area closed in the 1990s, and they were located right next door to us. But we have remained open to the public since the 1940s."

Open but, on occasion, troubled.

Beginning in the late 1990s and extending into this decade, Chair 1 was closed for six years because it was unable to meet safety standards.

Poor snow years can also deliver a crippling blow to a ski area that's not regularly groomed.

Older than both Alyeska Ski Resort and Hilltop Ski Area, Arctic Valley traces its beginnings to Jan. 10, 1937, when a group of outdoors lovers formed the Anchorage Ski Club.

Avid skiers began organizing group outings and sponsoring races. They planned the first ski train to Grandview in 1941, and eventually they looked to Arctic Valley as a place to focus their efforts. The military had designated the area as a recreation site in 1941 and offered skiing to military personnel, and the Anchorage Ski Club joined them to make the area accessible to civilians.

The club holds a 55-year lease for 320 acres within Chugach State Park, a lease it earned in 1967. The ski area largely depends on club donations, memberships and fundraisers to keep afloat.

To prosper -- or even survive -- Arctic Valley needs at least three things:

• More skiers. Over the past decade, Arctic Valley has averaged 80 skiers on days its open. "What we really need is 200 skiers a day," Gordon said.

• More Anchorage Ski Club members. Dues help fund the area, and the club has 300 members and 140 lifetime members. During an Oct. 28 emergency meeting at Kincaid Park, about $15,000 was raised in pledges -- about a third of what the club needs -- and some 30 people joined the board and its committees.

• Favorable weather. Poor snow years have occasionally pushed Arctic Valley's season opening past Christmas and New Year's. By then, many skiers are in the habit of going to Hilltop or Alyeska.

For now, Arctic Valley will make due with a new burst of enthusiasm.

"There is almost never a lift line, so finding untracked snow somewhere is nearly guaranteed," Gordon said. "And the wide, graded (six-mile) road can be so much easier than getting to Flattop."

Both chair lifts will run this season, she said, but the old T-bar probably won't because of the difficulty in securing replacement parts.

"But really," she argued, "we've had one success after another. Every year, things have improved. We've eliminated debt, we've gone from 90 to 300 annual members, we've streamlined our volunteer program, we got Chair 1 operating."

But despite all that, the average number of daily skiers remained stuck around 80.

"Here's the reality," Gordon said. "We're not making it. We need to ask for more."

Reach reporter Mike Campbell at mcampbell@adn.com or 257-4329.

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