Rumors of ski-resort expansion have two unavoidable consequences: rejoicing amongst the piste-oriented pass purchasers and jaded, not-in-my-backyard derision from the skin-track-centered crowd. Stick this scenario between two incomparable gems (Utah’s Alta Ski Resort and the central Wasatch backcountry), and you’re bound for some ski-world fireworks. We’ve heard that working with fireworks—and avalanche artillery—can be dangerous, so we left the conversation to the pros. Listen to our interviews, become informed, and get stoked or jaded accordingly.
On the web-o-sphere, in the lift lines, on the local skin tracks, and in the après bars, rumors of commotion in paradise (Utah’s Wasatch Mountains, of course) have percolated up into the layers of regular conversation. New avalanche control restrictions in Little Cottonwood Canyon (State Road 210) a dozen miles southeast of Salt Lake City may force Alta Ski Area onto the south slope of Flagstaff Mountain—right on top of a high-traffic backcountry trailhead.
To put these percolated ponderings into context, allow us to digress and explain to you, dear reader, exactly why we view our little backyard as a post-existential playground: a powder paradise for the in-bounds and backcountry skier and rider alike. Utah’s Wasatch Range averages close to 500-inches of light, white magic annually (last year our resorts were reporting close to 700 inches—BOOM goes the dynamite). Just as important, the top of Little Cottonwood Canyon offers unprecedented access to some of the lower 48′s best backcountry skiing (Utah’s in-bounds fame was long lauded on the state’s erstwhile license plate). Forty-five minutes of skin track puts you at the heart of the backcountry skier’s holiest of holies—the untracked, uncontrolled terrain between Alta, Solitude, and Brighton resorts (all names of little recognition in the ski/board world). I’m serious—look:
Alta, Solitude, and Brighton are all visible from the top of Flagstaff Mountain
Now for the conversation-worthy friction—Alta is considering installing a lift right up the above-mentioned 45-minute stairway to heaven. Why? While conducting avalanche control work to ensure a clear path down the canyon road (Utah State Route 210) and to protect their parking lot and lodges, Alta currently fires a WWII-era canon
over hotels, homes, roads, and human beings. Apparently the Department of Homeland Security gets nervous about a giant gun shooting artillery over buildings, given the potential ramifications in this tumultuous modern world. So, Alta is looking for a safer way to conduct avalanche control in a high-traffic canyon infamous for slides.
To add to the rub, uphill travel is prohibited in Utah ski resorts (no skinning up in-bounds terrain), meaning that the fruits of the aforementioned skin track will only be open to paying customers. Furthermore, the entire top of Little Cottonwood Canyon could potentially be cut off to those seeking non-paying backcountry touring access.
Survey stake on the Flagstaff Ridgeline. Photo by Andrew McLean.
Needless to say, some people are stoked about the prospect of new lift-served terrain at one of the world’s best ski areas, some unhappy about the possibility of less publicly accessible green space. Instead of wading through the barstool rumors, we interviewed a couple of experts who helped us distill the info, cut the hyperbole, and examine both sides of the issue.
Andrew McLean
Dawn patroller, backcountry skier extraordinaire, and long-time Utah resident Andrew McLean gives us the low-down from a backcountry skier’s perspective:
Part 1
Part 2
Onno Wieringa
Onno Wieringa, Ski Lift Director for Alta Ski Resort and long-time shepherd and protector of the pow, gives us a perspective from the avalanche safety and control side of things:
Part 1
Part 2
We share bars and beers with birds of every feather—in-bounds skiers, backcountry splitboarders, and everything between—and it turns out there are a lot of different opinions about what may or may not happen. Changes (like the possibility of a new lift) always cause a stir—and when things get shaken up, hard-line opinions often precipitate like Utah powder in March. Hopefully, this info will engender more-informed, less-pretentious conversations at the après bars and haunts as well as an engaged interest and knowledge for when similar change blows across your home mountain.
Links for further learnin’:
UDOT LCC PLAN
http://dot.utah.gov/main/f?p=100:pg:0::::V,T:,1720
http://friendsofflagstaff.com/
Related Posts:
Tags: andrew mclean, backcountry skiing, backcountry snowboarding, video, wasatch mountains
The avi control justification seems pretty suspect. There are plenty of control options that don’t require throwing up a lift that would restrict backcountry access, not too mention cost the resort a lot of cheddar: Gas-X tubes in slide zones or an avalauncher to replace the Howitzer are a couple. Plus putting a lift up there means control has to be done directly be patrol, and the lift would only get control workers to one part of a large slide zone.
Another question is whether controlling slides on Flagstaff is really Alta’s responsibility. What about UDOT? They control plenty of other slide paths in Little Cottonwood (and without the use of lifts), so why can’t they handle this one?
And let’s not forget that the skiing on the south face of Flagstaff won’t even be that good most of the time with all the solar heating it gets. There’s plenty of mediocre lift accessed terrain/snow in the world, but backcountry access points like Flagstaff are few and far between. It would be a shame to ruin it with a resort lift.
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was also wondering about the Gaz-Ex solution…
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I agree with what Daniel says, Gas-X seams to be a much better alternative to current avy control techniques. Currently resorts use war surplus comp-b, how is 60 year old explosives going off above your house better than a shell going over your house? And since when is homeland security better server in such a case (what its doing sticking its nose in Avy work is anyone’s guess)? Lift accessing flagstaff MAY help control that area better, but its really just a thinly veiled attempt to increase resort boundaries by using the Alta township as a cover. There are lots of places to ski in the Wasatch, but none that offer the access and speed that this area provides, and for dawn patrollers like me who have jobs to go after a morning ski, this area is about the only good place there is. Tell you what Alta, round up all the dawn patrollers and back/sidecountry folk who rely on this area for their turns pay us to be at your resort in the mornings instead of at ours jobs and we will come and track it up for you. Otherwise, leave it alone.
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And not to mention that Alta will ban snowboarders from accessing this terrain.
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Is uphill travel banned at ALL Utah ski resorts? While visiting Park City, I’ve skinned up to the top of PCMR a couple times and nobody has said a word. I started after sun up but before the lifts were turning. Patrol was making their morning rounds in preparation for the day and they didn’t say anything to me. Did I just get lucky?
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Too many people too close to a limited resource… what did you expect ?!
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I think its bull crap in the first place that Alta is voluntarily looking to give up their artillery control method.
here is an article I happened to find while doing a little research and i think it is a good read to get a little better bearing on the situation.
http://www.avalanche.org/~nac/NAC/techPages/articles/04_Manali_Abro.pdf
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So if this lift happens, will Alta open up to snowboarders? If not, arent they just taking more terrain that could have been used by boarders and claiming it for skiers?
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@ John,
If the opening of a lower than average slope would help to conduct as good avalanche control, maybe. But the area controlled by this lift-proposal is lower than 1/3 of what is needed, the long term effects are reasoning of future lifts into now prime bc-canyons and at the same time the incidents with non-bc-travelers, who ride the north-sides without experience and equipment would just add more confusion and trouble.
Also, sorry to say, but it seems you are a couch-potato. I know plenty of folks that are well above your 40 year age “barrier” and actively do backcountry skiing. It’s for all we could compare it to a hiking sport. And how many people above 40 years of age do hike? Many!
As for me, I am going to be 40 this year and have sure no intention to stop bc-trips in the coming years.
Personally I rather have me and my kids together, learning about the intricacies of BC-travel and have them work their way up the mountain to enjoy some quality time with their dad. There is plenty of lifts one can enlarge or improve to cope with increased amounts of skiers.
Regards,
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Alta, Share, Its hard to believe those two words can be in the same post.
I know a forty some year old guy that splitboards multiple times a week,not all forty year olds are out of shape,sounds like you should hit the gym.Alta breeds division we need to merge our thoughts and become united as One Sliding Entity and stop this travisty.LCCSU
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To quote Edward Abbey/ Hayduke- Pull up survey stakes where ever you may find them.
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What a joke…If you cant read between the lines here then you are missing something…enough is enough no more lifts!!!
It takes resorts days to do control work and get all their zones open, now Alta wants to expand so really they’ll have to do more control work even on the backside of Flagstaff and put more clueless people into slackcountry. You say your making things safer but if anything you are exposing people to more dangerous terrain.Then all this will close off prime backcountry access to skiers and especially snowboarders who you don’t even allow at your resort in the first place…SCREW YOU!!!
Hey John, get off your couch and get some exercise you fat slob!!
Onno we see right through you, your logic is weak!!
love
-d
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The avalanche control issue is just a little to convenient for my tastes, which is a shame, because Alta is usually my resort of choice for downhill skiing because their environmental practices have been better than their canyon neighbor and they are local. I prefer the resorts – both Alta and Solitude – to stay within their current boundaries. Though I am not a backcountry skier or a boarder, I do hike and snowshoe up to Flagstaff and in Silver Fork, and putting lifts in either of those two areas will destroy some beautiful terrain, full of wildflowers and wildlife. Additionally, I don’t particularly enjoy hiking in the midst of trash – Clif bar wrappers, water bottles, gloves, trail maps, cigarette butts, and other ski-related paraphernalia all manage to find a way to the ground underneath the lifts and all around slope areas.
Besides, larger resorts mean more people, which means more parking is needed, more traffic up the canyons, more expensive lift tickets to pay for the construction…. ENOUGH! The Wasatch range is a very small area with very heavy use – we can’t afford to lose our undeveloped space. We need to preserve what little wild space we still have – once developed, it is lost forever.
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It always seems like the larger corp. is in it for the buck? Whether this is the case I don’t know? But when you start to defend your decision to build a new lift with “the public wants more recreation”, why not follow that comment with “and we are going to make money off of that desire”?
Too bad you couldn’t have found an ultra rich tree hugger to buy the property before the ski resort did? Oh ya, it was on the hush hush, I forgot. Sounds like bull-pucky to me?
Why not go after the ruling on “No up hill travel”? I thought you could still do that in Colorado?
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To borrow the quote from a friend about ski area expansion-
Why don’t they just pave everything and put up quads everywhere?!!!!
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As if the Wasatch is limited in lift served capacity….Utahn’s have a love affair with exploiting resources, even if it is a ski area for outdoor recreation.
Clearly there are other alternatives for Avalanche control. Seriously Alta, call a spade a spade.
The Wasatch Front doesn’t need more lift accessed skiing. The existing infrastructure can hardly support the existing Piste. The natural Beauty of the Wasatch holds a resource of value to significantly more Utahns than more developed ski terrain. Hold the line on ski area expansion as long as possible. For the backcountry…once its gone, its gone.
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Backcountry.com should have the courage to take a stand.
What is the name of your company?
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I have lived in Alta for 12 years. I am 47 and skin/climb uphill over 100 days per year, on average about 7,000 feet a day. There is life after 40!
It is UDOT (Utah Department of Transport) who have the mandate to protect the road through the Town of Alta from avalanche, in addition to the rest of the highway up Little Cottonwood Canyon (SR210). UDOT’s comprehensive 2006 SR210 Transportation Study listed a lift up Flagstaff as one possible avalanche control solution for this section of highway. UDOT is therefore pivotal and center stage in this issue.
Having said that, the ski areas of Alta (Alta Ski Lifts or ASL) and Snowbird were heavily involved in the 2006 study and will continue to be heavily involved in assisting UDOT with any solution. Obviously, they each have their own commercial interests and agenda that go beyond protecting the highway from avalanches.
If UDOT and/or ASL decide to build the lift, and it may well be that the majority of the cost is provided from public funds through UDOT, then, ASL would be a major beneficiary in terms of expansion of their ski area.
From my own personal perspective, this lift (it it ever gets built) would cease to make Alta an attractive place to be. The balance would have tipped too far away from the “natural” to the “man made”. The paving of this particular paradise will be essentially complete.
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The Flagstaff lift is a thinly veiled ploy to add potential snowboarding friendly terrian to their resort. The recoiless rifle is being replaced by a howitzer so the issue of running out of ammo is a moot point. ASL is pushing for the lift a lot harder than UDOT. Having ski patrollers manually control the area is a laborious and time consuming process that is not a realistic option for opening HWY 210 in a timely manner.
Please Note in video 2 Onno spends a lot of time talking about skier compaction.
The Laughlin family, who have a controlling stake of ASL have stated that the business model for ASL is to generate a profit (as with any business) and that the Flagstaff lift is being pushed to open up snowboarder friendly terrian (Note: my information is second hand from someone who has spoken with a family member).
Todd Leeds
Friends of Flagstaff
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There are clearly other alternatives to skier compaction (code word for ski area expansion). Among lift served areas anywhere, Alta is my favorite. However, as Andrew Maclean’s statement says, they seem to be going to the dark side, under the guise of a UDOT directive.
Maybe it is time for the users of the backcountry to either engage an organization like the Nature Conservancy or Access Fund, or create our own, to buy that land from Alta.Then we can negotiate with UDOT, and likely our wonderful legislature, to put in the air cannons which seem to be sufficient for down canyon use.
When was the last slide to hit the town of Alta from the north side of the canyon? Current methods of control seem to be doing fine. There is and will remain limited capacity at the head of the canyon for more people. I’ve been here 16 years, and have heard of no injuries or issues with north side slides.
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Living on the other side of the Rockies, I don’t ski your canyons often, but have visited the slopes of both Cottonwood Canyons upon occasion.
Interesting that the Executive Summary of the UDOT study of LCC snow safety doesn’t mention building a lift to the top of Flagstaff Mountain for the sake of SR-210. The logic of building a lift into avalanche terrain escapes me.
Is the plan for a lift just a land grab, locking up more terrain for a for-profit ski area? Wait, won’t this encourage more skier visits? One of the key factors driving the avalanche hazard to SR-210 travelers is the high density of traffic! Building more lifts means more traffic and greater risk from slides.
Look, folks. You’ve got a geography problem. The very nature of the narrow canyon that makes it a great place to ski also makes it a dangerous place to have a road.
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I would be sorely disappointed if a lift is developed in this area. The Wasatch is a benchmark in the backcountry skiing community. This area is a playground for a lot of experienced and beginner backcountry skiers. There are enough lifts as it is and they are all over priced. We have already screwed our economy because someone wants to make a buck. Lets leave the area to the people who want to earn their turns with hard labor and have a good time. If you want to ski the area then hike it.
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Was it just me or was Onno’s interview painful as all hell to watch… trying to make UDOT look like the bad guy and not Alta.
I agree with Q’s comment above, companies that have a high stake in retail that focuses on backcountry travel should take a firm stand against this. I would love to hear that Backcountry.com, Black Diamond, and Voile could stand up and push their weight around a little.
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I don’t buy the avalanche control excuse either. Use your imagination to see how a lift would impact that whole Silver Fork-Cardiff-Superior area; Lift to the top of Flag, out of bound entry points into Silver fork, Days, Cardiff- this is some of the best bc skiing/boarding in the world. Some of these canyons have private land holdings that expand to the ridgeline….is Alta positioning for even more future expansion like all of the other resorts have done and are planning?
The other disturbing point is that Alta has already purchased Flag, what is going to stop them from proceeding? It sounds like a Walmart fight. It will require some big $ to have a chance to stop this resort expansion. Our natural treasures compromised in the name of profit..oh, I mean avalanche control.
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Learn more at: http://friendsofflagstaff.com/
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For once can someone just do the RIGHT thing and not be a slave to the BUCK
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I think we can all agree that Little Cottonwood Canyon is a very unique and special place for skiing. In my mind the main reason for this is the combination of lift, heli, and backcountry served opportunities.
As both a backcountry and resort skier for over 25 years in Little Cottonwood I believe the current situation is pretty balanced. The way I measure this is… When I’m skiing the backcountry I wish there were fewer tracks and more terrain and the same is true when I’m skiing in-bounds.
If the proposed lift is built it will truly throw this balance out of whack. The uniqueness of Little Cottonwood will be gone and for many backcountry skiers upper Little Cottonwood won’t be worth the drive. The resort skiers may rejoice this lift but in the end it will just make the place less wild, less remote and less appealing to those seeking adventurous skiing opportunities.
I vote to keep the balance and unique opportunities of skiing Alta alive.
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Skier compaction is a myth.
Check out this monster avalanche at Alta on 1/24/2010:
http://tinyurl.com/altaslide
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There are several points here that I think make building a lift totally absurd. As far as avalanche control goes there are many other ways to do it. Gas X tubes, etc. The skier compaction myth is just that. Not any reliable sources that I can find support it. If a lift was allowed to be built on Flagstaff would snowboarders be allowed to go up on it? If so would Alta then be opening the rest of the mountain to snowboarders? If snowboarders were not allowed up the lift on Flagstaff would the entire upper section of Little Cottonwood be cut off to snowboarders? Why make an area that already is used by tons of backcountry skiers even more populated? Will this lift increase the number of backcountry rescues needed? From my time living here seems like the resorts with open gates have lots more rescues to deal with. Also is the closed to up hill traffic rule for real? If so that makes the building of this lift even worse! You would cut off an access point for not only skiers but snowboarders as well who would now not be allowed to use the lifts at Alta, if their current rules continue. Also, as has been pointed out, who will pay for this lift? Will UDOT be helping to fund it? If so then Alta is already becoming like many bigger corporations by using public funds for a private companies benefit! If any one has answers to these questions please respond. Basically what I’m getting at with all these questions is that it seems sill,y if there are other ways to do avalanche control work, to build a lift that is not needed or wanted to the top of a peak that will only give the in bounds public mediocre skiing/riding at best.
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Great news!
Local congressman Jim Matheson will introduce a bill this coming Leg. session that will attempt to limit expansion in watershed areas–rumor is that Alta and Solitude are unhappy with the bill (Wasatch Wilderness and Watershed Protection Act) as it staunches the ‘potential’ plans for expansion for both those resorts. Interestingly, there’s talk of expanding Snowbird into a non-watershed area near American fork canyon after a compromised land swap deal.
Check out a local story on the issue:
http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_14811828
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[...] Remember our article about Alta’s recently hoped-for expansion plans? [...]
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