Member Profile: Mike Rolfs
Passionate skier, active Winter Wildlands Alliance member, engaged grassroots network partner.
Mike Rolfs grew up in Wenatchee, Washington and has been skiing at Mission Ridge, the local ski area, since 1977. Not only is Mike a passionate skier, but he is also a committed advocate for the places and environments he loves.
Mike joined El Sendero, the local equivalent of a backcountry alliance for the Wenatchee Mountains, in 2012. El Sendero is part of Winter Wildlands Alliance’s grassroots network. Mike is also an engaged member of Friends of Mission Ridge, an organization which fights to protect the rural nature of the upper Squilchuck and Stemilt basins including the Wenatchee Mountains and the local ski area. Through his involvement with these organizations and as an individual, Mike has been a dedicated member of Winter Wildlands Alliance for more than a decade. Mike still can recall submitting comments on the 2015 over-snow vehicle rule which introduced the concept of “closed unless designated open” to over-snow vehicle use.
“My main motivation for membership with Winter Wildlands Alliance is to support the very important work they do on a national level. I’m not personally connected to many of the issues, but I care,” explains Mike. “Every specific issue is local to someone, and the national policy fights affect us all. The public landscape would suffer without WWA’s advocacy work.”
Mike is a regular attendee of the Winter Wildlands Biennial Grassroots Advocacy Conference which allows him to hone his advocacy skills and policy knowledge and connect with like-minded individuals from all over the country.
Mike also contributes his own, local experience and knowledge to the grassroots network. Locally, El Sendero and Friends of Mission Ridge have been involved in a number of projects to support backcountry winter landscapes and recreation. These include:
- Negotiations with the ski area for better treatment and access for uphill skiers within the ski area special use permit boundaries
- The 2015 Naneum Ridge to Columbia River Recreation and Access Plan, where we were successful at introducing conceptual non-motorized parking, trails, and winter play areas to the plan on either side of Mission Ridge ski area in the Wenatchee Mountains.
- The 2019 Stemilt Squilchuck Recreation Plan which finalized boundaries and brought those non-motorized winter play areas into existence.
- The 2018 introduced, but still active “Mission Ridge Expansion”, which is a smokescreen to hide the 7812-bed residential development near Mission Ridge ski area. A draft EIS was recently published for this project, and the public comment period just closed on October 21, 2025.
“I am an avid backcountry skier, and I want to protect our wild winter public lands for my generation and for future generations. Although change is slow and wins are rare, I have experienced a few positive changes, and each one motivates me through the next challenge”
Mike’s current focus is on the proposed Mission Ridge Ski Area expansion. “As proposed, the development violates our community’s guiding documents and creates several problems including interrupting elk calving areas and a migration corridor, removing water from the already over-allocated Squilchuck basin, displacing dispersed recreation, doubling the number of skiers at the ski area, introducing 10,000 cars per day to the rural community, and introducing a small city into a high fire danger arid forest,” explains Mike.
Recently, Winter Wildlands Alliance supported Mike and Friends of Mission Ridge by signing on to their public comments on the Draft EIS for this project. “I feel unbelievably lucky to be able to call the pros at WWA with my issues and have real-time conversations and meaningful support,” Mike says, reflecting on the collaboration.
You can learn more about Friends of Mission Ridge and the potential impacts of this proposed development at our 21st Annual Backcountry Film Festival.
