Solitude Expansion...

[Long Duck Dong]

Where this issue gets critical for me is the question of responsibility. It has long been the task of the Department of the Interior to allow for public land to be used in ways that best benefit the public. This is why ski areas are able to benefit profit-seeking private parties on publicly owned and maintained land. My question is this: when and why does the private skiing experience on public land get to the point where it is the responsibility of the public to give up more land for private ski area development? Is it the public's responsibility to allow private ski areas to use public land when they are losing money? When they are getting too crowded?

It seems like, if anything, our committment (as a taxpaying public) should be to only devote more public land for ski resport expansion when it is needed because the public is being precluded from enjoying resort skiing due to high crowds. Can anyone honestly say that this is the experience in Big Cottonwood Canyon? Of course not. Why exactly does Solitude need more of our land? It just isn't good enough to say that there are more resort skiers than BC skiers. The protection of open space in this country is not an issue of public referendum, nor should it be. Call the Wastach a wilderness area, or call it a crowded shithole next to a city. That isn't the critical distinction. What I call it is mine (and yours). As long as it is public, it needs to be used to serve the public. Last time I checked, theres already plenty of public land that is perfectly available for the lift-riding public.

Don't forget, ski resorts on public land are essentially concessionaires that the government (and public) permits. Go visit Grand Teton/Yellowstone National Park and see how many private businesses are permitted to operate on public land. Not many. Why? Because the public doesn't need it, and the place is better without it.

[misfit toy]

Ocher Mountains Baby! Ski Kennecott!

Were already paying high prices for what seem to be very little ! I think it's time! With modern EQ and visa mabe we should go larger. Sorry modern commercials.

[ill-advised strategy]

this post is to state that Alto is not a dick, never has been, and probably never will be.

We all know you're a stoke factory.

It's just teh internets.
I know where you're coming from and you had good points that ought to be made.

[ill-advised strategy]

Where this issue gets critical for me is the question of responsibility. It has long been the task of the Department of the Interior to allow for public land to be used in ways that best benefit the public. This is why ski areas are able to benefit profit-seeking private parties on publicly owned and maintained land. My question is this: when and why does the private skiing experience on public land get to the point where it is the responsibility of the public to give up more land for private ski area development? Is it the public's responsibility to allow private ski areas to use public land when they are losing money? When they are getting too crowded?

It seems like, if anything, our committment (as a taxpaying public) should be to only devote more public land for ski resport expansion when it is needed because the public is being precluded from enjoying resort skiing due to high crowds. Can anyone honestly say that this is the experience in Big Cottonwood Canyon? Of course not. Why exactly does Solitude need more of our land? It just isn't good enough to say that there are more resort skiers than BC skiers. The protection of open space in this country is not an issue of public referendum, nor should it be. Call the Wastach a wilderness area, or call it a crowded shithole next to a city. That isn't the critical distinction. What I call it is mine (and yours). As long as it is public, it needs to be used to serve the public. Last time I checked, theres already plenty of public land that is perfectly available for the lift-riding public.

Don't forget, ski resorts on public land are essentially concessionaires that the government (and public) permits. Go visit Grand Teton/Yellowstone National Park and see how many private businesses are permitted to operate on public land. Not many. Why? Because the public doesn't need it, and the place is better without it.

1) We're talking about the Dept. of Agriculture here. As it is in UT-WCF or UWF as they say these days...

2) USDA/USFS loosely follows, or has followed this idea of "The greatest good, for the most people, for the longest time." This isn't some radical environmentalist viewpoint, it's about saying this is public land: what use benefits the public the most? More of the public ski in Alta than next to Alta. Alta's model serves the public more.


National Park Service and US Forest Service are not one and the same, not even close. One is about creating and preserving a pristine park, the other is about land use. This is an important distinction between the park service and the USDA Forest Service. Solitude is on Agricultural land, land that in other places is grazed, or logged on the public's behalf because more people benefit from food supply and lumber than from hiking. Disagree with the rationale if you choose, but that is the working rationale for use prioritization in the USDA forest service.
It's not a national park. National parks don't want you to ski. Try to go ski the Olympics on a Wednesday: nope, any road going into the mountains is closed. It's a park, they don't want you in there. The Park Service doesn't want you to surf, they really only let people camp out of practicality. The Forest Service says go ahead, the greatest good for the most people. USFS as an agency wants people to benefit from their public lands, the most people for the longest time. That would also, I think, in theory include the members of the Utah public who benefit economically from ski tourism. The park service is much more exclusive to enjoyment. Bunch of little kings and queens who think they're better than the public doing their best to exclude you from your own land.

[Trackhead]

Bunch of little kings and queens who think they're better than the public doing their best to exclude you from your own land.

Spot on there. Try going to the Fiery Furnace in Arches on your own, without a "guide".

[Long Duck Dong]

2) USDA/USFS loosely follows, or has followed this idea of "The greatest good, for the most people, for the longest time." This isn't some radical environmentalist viewpoint, it's about saying this is public land: what use benefits the public the most? More of the public ski in Alta than next to Alta. Alta's model serves the public more.

You missed my point, which is that we already have an Alta, as well as 6 other ski areas open to the public within a few miles of Alta. Theres plenty of public land that is already being used to serve the lift-riding public.

And the last time I tried to ski in a national park, I had no problems. I just had to hoof myself back there rather than rely on some sort of vehicle to take me there. Its too bad that the concept of preserving a place that is beautiful and wild and not reachable by car indicates to some people that the land is off-limits. For shit's sake, you can drive everywhere else in this country. God forbid you have to work your ass off to ski in a National Park.

[alto]

I support building new lifts in the Wasatch. Lifts that connect different valleys and resorts which could eliminate a lot of road dependence and would also offer the public more and better use of their lands.

The shady line is in saying that the Silver expansion is for the greater public good or use. Soli probably has, in ranking of priority, ticket sales and real estate sales a little bit higher on the list than "public use."

Expansion as I've witnessed it in Utah has generally been more about sales and non-sustainable growth than public use.

How's about a north-south rail line through the Central Wasatch utilizing existing mining tunnels. Stops at Park City, Brighton/Soli, and Alta/Bird.

[tuco]

1) We're talking about the Dept. of Agriculture here. As it is in UT-WCF or UWF as they say these days...

2) USDA/USFS loosely follows, or has followed this idea of "The greatest good, for the most people, for the longest time." This isn't some radical environmentalist viewpoint, it's about saying this is public land: what use benefits the public the most? More of the public ski in Alta than next to Alta. Alta's model serves the public more.


National Park Service and US Forest Service are not one and the same, not even close. One is about creating and preserving a pristine park, the other is about land use. This is an important distinction between the park service and the USDA Forest Service. Solitude is on Agricultural land, land that in other places is grazed, or logged on the public's behalf because more people benefit from food supply and lumber than from hiking. Disagree with the rationale if you choose, but that is the working rationale for use prioritization in the USDA forest service.
It's not a national park. National parks don't want you to ski. Try to go ski the Olympics on a Wednesday: nope, any road going into the mountains is closed. It's a park, they don't want you in there. The Park Service doesn't want you to surf, they really only let people camp out of practicality. The Forest Service says go ahead, the greatest good for the most people. USFS as an agency wants people to benefit from their public lands, the most people for the longest time. That would also, I think, in theory include the members of the Utah public who benefit economically from ski tourism. The park service is much more exclusive to enjoyment. Bunch of little kings and queens who think they're better than the public doing their best to exclude you from your own land.

Are you sure ALL of Soli is on Agro land?

I'm sure there are also groups of people that would like to use 'their' public land for things such as:
1-4-wheeling, but can't(used to be able to)
2- General rifle hunts(used to be able to) and shooting firearms
3-riding ATV's, motorcycles and snowmobiles(used to be able to)
4-People wanting to take their dogs out
and probably a whole list of others
So, under your argument, why limit it to just resort skiers then? Or do you want it to benefit the resort skiing public only? Because you could argue that each probably has it's own economic benefit.

[AKA]

There's lots and lots and lots of places to go cross country ski, or backcountry ski. If that's what you want, why even bother with the cottonwoods. You could just go to central Idaho and never have to see another awful lift or ski area again. Or go to Upper Michigan and cross country ski until your balls fall off.
Why do you insist that some place next to a huge city, in between like 7 ski areas, is some sacred wilderness?

I guess given good terrain I'd rather get on a chair at the bottom and ski laps than cross country ski uphill and get 1 or 2 runs a day on better snow.

well said!

[skifishbum]

there is nothing wilderness about it. that point has been covered. Just because you want to ski some low angle bullshit on your lunch break doesn't justify not building a lift there.

If you want to go for a tour, go somewhere else. Silver fork mostly sucks dick anyway.



/ENDRANT

Not every day in the Wasatch are conditions conducsive to bootering up the "Y" or centerpunching the Superior gnar, but I'm sure you realize that cause you've been here how long?

Some days are about assessing, observing, learning and making it home safe. Like this one.
Not everyone is as EXTREME as you some of us enjoy getting out with our wives and having fun skiing safe but sucky by your standards terrain.
Ive had the pleasure of touring this terrain with 20 or 30 maggots and even a few maggettes. None of them thought it sucked. So is that your google earth terrain assesment? Looking in from the top of flag or have you actually spent some time back there. Silver/Days has pretty much been my bread and butter for the last 8 or 9 years. due to ease, work obligations, partners and it just didn't make much sense to leave solitude drive down canyon and climb 2k when I had free lift rides to the bcc/lcc ridge. Is it as grand as broads, coalpit etc. hell no. Is it a large easily acessed drainage with a lot of diverse terrain ranging from mild to wild that doesn't need to have lifts up it imo yes
Sweet rant though

[Buzzworthy]

I am all for it. I like the lifts. I see SF from said lifts and want to ride/ski it.

I don't care that people have skied it for years without lifts.
I don't care that people in the know can get there without lifts.
I don't care that the Helis will drop you off there all day.

I pay Solitude for a pass to ride the lifts to access runs and other terrain. The addition of SF via a lift(s) is great for a rider/almost skier like me.


I do NOT see this expansion as taking up BC at all. If you can see it from a lift, it is too close for a good BC adventure.

Lastly, to those that access SF from the Solitude parking lot, not paying for a damn thing and taking up us paying customer's spots, please go park on the road (and you get the damn ticket). If you want to skin up there, a few hundred more feet is not going to kill you. With a daughter that is learning how to ski, I would like my parking spot I paid dearly for.

I honestly hope Solitude starts to tow these peeps cars. And yes, you could be one of these peeps, and should freakin know better.

[skiski]

I do NOT see this expansion as taking up BC at all. If you can see it from a lift, it is too close for a good BC adventure.

Brilliant. Once they put a lift up Silver, Days will be in plain view. Then, once they put the lift up Days, Cardiff is in view. And while we're at it, Superior is not backcountry because I can see it from Alta. And you know what, I can see the mill creek ridgeline from Solitude. Better put a lift there.

This whole argument is really about different people wanting to do different things with their free time and both feeling that their government should devote their private land to their preferred use. Lift riders want lifts everywhere, backcountry skiers want lifts no where. Anyone who tries to frame their argument as anything other than self interest regarding their recreation time is simply trying to find better reasoning to reach a predetermined conclusion.

But seriously, you fuckers who want lifts in Silver Fork are a bunch fags.

[skifishbum]

^^^^ You talkin to me Buzz?
I've never paid Soli a dime I've gone out of my way to hook maggots up so they didn't have to give soli a dime either my soli dues have been paid and I'll park anywhere I fuckin feel like. You want to ski silly fork lets go aint nothing but a few steps some teravesing skinning etc. I'm certain if a 14 year old flatlander icegrom can do it you can. Don't worry I'm patient and I'll pull over and roll and smoke one while waiting for ya

[Buzzworthy]

^^^^ You talkin to me Buzz?
I've never paid Soli a dime I've gone out of my way to hook maggots up so they didn't have to give soli a dime either my soli dues have been paid and I'll park anywhere I fuckin feel like. You want to ski silly fork lets go aint nothing but a few steps some teravesing skinning etc. I'm certain if a 14 year old flatlander icegrom can do it you can. Don't worry I'm patient and I'll pull over and roll and smoke one while waiting for ya

Not you man, not you. You have a pass. And would be willing to try it (as you wait).

I stand by my comments and would love to see it and ski it.

Yep, totally about different skiers wanting different things.......and that is the way it is.

[ill-advised strategy]

Are you sure ALL of Soli is on Agro land?

I am not sure sure.

There may be some private involved. When we had a fire on solitude it was a WCF fire, USFS land.

I really, really, really doubt there are Interior holdings in the area of interest here. If there are it would probably be BOR, not NPS. The only park service holdings in that area are timpanogos cave and golden spike. There is no BLM in that zone, no BIA, and no FWS.

If it's a public lands policy argument, the agency in question is the USFS and their policy is clear: greatest good/most people/longest time. If you want the USFS to manage the public lands in a different way, a more exclusive way that manages land to benefit smaller groups over the public, or to benefit some non-human entity, you have a much different US forest service and you'd better be prepared for a tsunami of unintended consequences.

[powdherb]

There's more than just an abundance of terrain in the Wastach if you want to be a pussy.

It's not about being extreme. I prefer to spend my assessment and observation days taking pills and watching the clouds.

Hell, you could even ski in one of the several ski areas!

Just think, riding a lift when the conditions are unstable and dangerous...

And now you have one more lift!

Not every day in the Wasatch are conditions conducsive to bootering up the "Y" or centerpunching the Superior gnar, but I'm sure you realize that cause you've been here how long?

Some days are about assessing, observing, learning and making it home safe. Like this one.
Not everyone is as EXTREME as you some of us enjoy getting out with our wives and having fun skiing safe but sucky by your standards terrain.
Ive had the pleasure of touring this terrain with 20 or 30 maggots and even a few maggettes. None of them thought it sucked. So is that your google earth terrain assesment? Looking in from the top of flag or have you actually spent some time back there. Silver/Days has pretty much been my bread and butter for the last 8 or 9 years. due to ease, work obligations, partners and it just didn't make much sense to leave solitude drive down canyon and climb 2k when I had free lift rides to the bcc/lcc ridge. Is it as grand as broads, coalpit etc. hell no. Is it a large easily acessed drainage with a lot of diverse terrain ranging from mild to wild that doesn't need to have lifts up it imo yes
Sweet rant though

[StraightChuter]

Yeti - if you are so amp'd on lifts, interconnects, parking, condos, grooming, McMansions, trams, escalating ticket prices and increasing exclusivity, why don't you move to Europe instead of suggesting locals leave their hometown? By your logic, since Central Park is surrounded by millions of people and high-rises, why not just let Donald Trump develop it with roads and casinos so people wouldn't have to walk (whaaaaaa) in the rain (whaaaaa) to get to the other side?

And, in Solitude's case, more terrain would hardly matter as the place is usually empty as is. They want more terrain because the Canyons got more terrain, so in turn Alta wants more terrain to keep up, and of course Snowbird has to stay ahead of Alta and then Deer Valley needs more acreage so they can develop Stag Pointe Villa Phase 17, and then Brighton feels left out so they need to start developing the backside down into Heber, which upsets Sundance, so they ask for more terrain in the Timp area.... and it just never ends. The sad part is that it is all just more of the same crap - I don't even know why Park City bothers to name their runs as they are all boring variations on a lame theme to begin with.

The reason Solitude shouldn't expand into Silverfork is that there is value in non commercial open space, especially in the mountains.

[ill-advised strategy]

I like skiing in ski areas. I always have. I guess I'm kind of surprised how many skiers have this big problem with ski areas. Lifts are nice.

This isn't a personal jab at anyone but if I'm a douche for not enjoying skinning, you're a douche for not enjoying skiing bumps. Fair is fair.

I like ski areas. I just don't really think that needs defending.
The condo/real estate development not so much.

I suppose if baseball was a really big part of my life and I lived in New York City I'd like to see Central Park turned into baseball fields. The free-baseball people would get bent because they like to play catch without the fields. Or if I was a skater I'd like to see it become a massive skate park? The street-skaters would probably get all bent about that. Anyway, I don't really think your park->roads analogy works for sidecountry-->lift served. Not really an apt analogy brobrah.

[tuco]

I am not sure sure.

There may be some private involved. When we had a fire on solitude it was a WCF fire, USFS land.

I really, really, really doubt there are Interior holdings in the area of interest here. If there are it would probably be BOR, not NPS. The only park service holdings in that area are timpanogos cave and golden spike. There is no BLM in that zone, no BIA, and no FWS.

If it's a public lands policy argument, the agency in question is the USFS and their policy is clear: greatest good/most people/longest time. If you want the USFS to manage the public lands in a different way, a more exclusive way that manages land to benefit smaller groups over the public, or to benefit some non-human entity, you have a much different US forest service and you'd better be prepared for a tsunami of unintended consequences.

I misunderstood you dude. I thought you were saying the agro land was private ie old mining claims n' such, my bad.

As far as USFS and the land policy, you still have the 'few' deciding what is best for the 'whole'. If you think about it, putting a lift in there is doing just that, making it 'exclusive'(smaller groups). Also isn't a ski lift a 'non-human entity' and the ski resort that it is benefiting a 'non-human entity'.
And since it is a watershed(public) it could be argued that the greatest good would be to keep it exactly the way it is, because once the water gets over a certain PPM, something will have to be done about the way water is treated and that opens up a whole other can of worms and it's tsunami of unintended consequences.

As I stated in my posts above. I don't really care about the expansion or new lifts as long as it makes sense. This just doesn't seem too.

In my above post I talked about the things that used to be able to be done and can't anymore. But I can see why they had to do away with these things "for the greater good". Sucks but oh well.

[Trackhead]

If you can see it from a lift, it is too close for a good BC adventure.

Buzz, I like you, but this is just too damn funny to not quote. I can see Snowbird from Lone Peak, Pfeifferhorn, Lake Peak, Timp, Box Elder, Twin Peaks, Dromedary, and just about every other peak in the Wasatch, including Provo Peak, Cascade. I can see Snowbird/Alta/Brighton/Park City from the Uintas, 50 miles away.

These threads are pointless, but they are fun to take part in.

[Trackhead]

Just think, riding a lift when the conditions are unstable and dangerous...

And now you have one more lift!

Often times high danger days are the best days to go out and travel around in familiar terrain and learn from the day. More often than not you can get some pretty sweet skiing in with everyone else staying home or going to Bralta.

Obviously if you're a total noob, then taking pills and staring at the clouds might be better use of your time.

[StraightChuter]

This isn't a personal jab at anyone but if I'm a douche for not enjoying skinning, you're a douche for not enjoying skiing bumps. Fair is fair.

True enough, but my skinning doesn't interfere with your bump skiing, whereas once you plug a lift in and bump it out, the ability to skin is lost. Not only that, but it becomes pay-to-play on public lands.

Just for reference, do you think there is such a thing as too much expansion?

[powdherb]

Often times high danger days are the best days to go out and travel around in familiar terrain and learn from the day. More often than not you can get some pretty sweet skiing in with everyone else staying home or going to Bralta.

Obviously if you're a total noob, then taking pills and staring at the clouds might be better use of your time.

Man you really got it out for me. I think we should have a bar fight.

[Trackhead]

Man you really got it out for me. I think we should have a bar fight.

No, just bored, at work, trolling, and shooting for that elusive 10k post count.

LIFTS R 4 FAGS-HOMOS-AND GIRLZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Real men ski in tights on Dynafits!

3 more to go!

[Trackhead]

Yeti is a HOMO!