Utah’s Mountain Accord blueprint could finally put an end to the long battle over The Greatest Snow on Earth. Andrew Pollard takes a taste at Alta. Photo by Derek Taylor
When Ski Utah, the marketing organization representing the state’s ski areas, announced the One Wasatch concept in March 2014, it was hardly groundbreaking. Nor was the reaction unexpected. For decades, the seven resorts of the central Wasatch have discussed connecting through a series of ski lifts into essentially one mega ski system—often referred to as the Interconnect. For just as long, conservationists and backcountry skiers have put up firm resistance.
What changed with the One Wasatch announcement, however, is that it presented a scenario where the resorts could connect with just a few lifts (i.e., reasonable financial investment) across land they already own (requiring very little governmental approval). In short, it sent a message that a version of the Interconnect was imminent and that there wasn’t much the opposition could do to stop it.
A map of proposed changes to the central Wasatch; image courtesy of Mountain Accord
Ski Utah President Nathan Rafferty made two very calculated statements during that One Wasatch press conference last March. First, he was very clear that One Wasatch was a “concept, not a plan.” While anyone with reasonable knowledge of the area could get a general idea of where lifts (roughly a half-dozen of them) would need to go, actual alignments and construction plans were left for future consideration. Rafferty also promised that One Wasatch would work with Mountain Accord, a collaboration of more than 20 organizations—including Ski Utah and Save Our Canyons, often the most vocal of conservationist groups—with a stake in how the central Wasatch are developed.
Now, almost a year after the One Wasatch announcement, Mountain Accord has unveiled its own blueprint for the central Wasatch. It is much farther-reaching than One Wasatch ever attempted to be, aiming to tackle transportation, environmental and economic concerns, as well as recreation.
The blueprint is extensive, but the short of it is that it involves tunneling from Alta to Brighton to Park City and connecting the three ski centers (Little and Big Cottonwood Canyons and Park City) by train or Bus Rapid Transit. The proposal also calls for the transfer of large parcels of prime backcountry ski terrain to the public in exchange for land near the resorts’ base areas that can be used for development.
A look at lands that could be exchanged under the Mountain Accord blueprint; image courtesy of Mountain Accord
Save Our Canyons, which vehemently opposes One Wasatch and all other ski-area expansion, appears to be grudgingly on board with the new Mountain Accord blueprint. “We, and by we I mean a host of conservation and recreation organizations and our members, have little if any interest in seeing trains in the canyons,” writes Save Our Canyons Executive Director Carl Fisher on the SOC website. “However, we also have little interest in seeing more development outside resort boundaries.”
The carrot for SOC and other conservation groups is the more than 2,000 acres of undeveloped land currently owned by the ski areas that would be transferred to public ownership and protected. In exchange, the resorts will get about 260 acres of base-area land to set aside for future development, and 200 acres of ski-area boundary extension—mostly into areas that are already best accessed from resorts. Included in the protected lands would be prized backcountry stashes such as upper Silver Fork Canyon, Days Fork Canyon, Mount Superior, and Cardiff Fork.
The trains, according to Fisher’s piece, are an acceptable compromise that would lead to the conservation of some of the most hotly contested wild areas in the country—a move that Fisher equates to the preservation of Yellowstone and Yosemite. “Resorts want efficient, reliable, convenient, and safe transportation and they believe that rail [is] best for this,” Fisher writes. “We disagree, but sweeping conservation gains of resort-owned lands were not going to happen if buses were the option.”
As for the resorts, Rafferty says they are encouraged that future transportation needs are being addressed. (To understand the need for this, simply look one state over and see the quagmire Colorado’s I-70 corridor has become.) But Rafferty was not ready to put a fork in the One Wasatch concept just yet. “It’s way too early in the process to come to any kind of conclusion about what plan may or may not move forward,” he says via email from Switzerland, where he was travelling with other Mountain Accord stakeholders to study transportation options. “Connectivity of some sort is the goal. Could be ski runs and lifts…could be trains or gondolas.”
The Mountain Accord blueprint is open to public comment through March 16. Environmental review on a revised plan could begin as early as April 15, 2015.
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