Resurrecting this thread from ten years ago! Remember ONE Wasatch?
- Editorials: for and against
- Former Admin's 2012 FTO piece
- NYT 2015 article
Wasatch Interconnect
- Thread starter jamesdeluxe
- Start date
Resurrecting this thread from ten years ago! Remember ONE Wasatch?
Here’s a comment from this thread that did not age well.
Pre-duopoly
More local skier population growth, which former admin predicted early in this thread.
EMSC
Well-known member
While it may be popular in ski towns to blame 'outside' vacationers for the crowds. Many analysis of pass usage have shown its all about the 'local' skier growth (skiers from within an hour or two).
"We have met the enemy and it is us."
ChrisC
Well-known member
It's all locals in Telluride creating crowds on powder days. And it's so obvious, too:
- The Telluride Town side lifts (lifts 7 and Lift 8) use the drop your gear/skis method to hold a spot in line. You are free to get food/coffee/go inside, etc. Equipment lines generally start at sunrise, so one of us (brother or me) gets up to put equipment in line.
- Everyone knows this custom described above - would not work with tourists.
- Everyone knows each other in line.
- Crowds disappear by 12 noon when things get a bit tracked and/or people need to go to work.
Telluride is only on the highest $ Epic Pass, so not many vacationers have access to it. Interestingly, Telluride pass holders get nothing from Vail - I think half-off window ticket rates.
ChrisC
Well-known member
From The Storm Skiing Journal:
One group, energetic and optimistic, is running full speed for the future.
The future group understands that Utah and Utah skiing have changed forever, and that they’re not returning to their pre-Olympics, pre-Epkon secret-stash-of-the-Wasatch days. To survive as anything other than a study in gridlock, Utah skiing must evolve to accommodate more skiers. And to do that, Utah needs to create more ski terrain, maximize the use of existing facilities, excise as many personal cars from the mountains as possible, and create more human-scaled spaces for people to sleep and eat and socialize as close to the chairlifts as possible.
Folks in the future group (we’ll call them Utah 2050) are tripling the size of Deer Valley and reconfiguring the resort from a car-dependent sprawl into an aerial-lift-connected axis of two walkable hubs; driving new mixed-use developments at Nordic Valley, Brian Head, and outside of Park City; planning an aerial gondola network throughout Park City and hoping to flush most cars off of Main Street; and attempting to erase most vehicles from avalanche-prone Little Cottonwood Canyon with a gondola.
The other group, equally energetic but as pessimistic as its opponents are upbeat, is running as fast as it can toward the past.
The past group (let’s call them Utah 1950) views any sort of development as damaging to the bucolic wilderness setting that they see as defining their community. They are alarmed and dismayed by the rise of Utah as a global ski destination. They yearn for a Utah that more closely mirrors the 20th Century version of itself – a Utah that was more affordable, more local, less crowded, and less celebrated, with more open space and fewer people.
Rather than accommodate the growth in Epkon-clutching skiers drawn by huge snowfalls, easy and cheap airport access, and large ski resorts equipped with modern lift fleets, Utah 1950 seeks to curb skier access. Triggered by sprawl creeping up from Salt Lake City, they aim to limit development. Burdened by traffic in their daily commutes, they seek to close communities to new residents. Frustrated by the soaring cost of living, they interpret every infrastructure proposal as an added tax burden with little clear benefit to them.
These are the folks who are fighting the Little Cottonwood gondola, shutting down lift replacements in Park City, petitioning against walkable mixed-use developments, and fighting to preserve Deer Valley’s Snow Park as a grid of surface parking lots rather than convert the space into a pedestrian base village. Utah 1950’s finest moment may have been shutting down a plan that would have connected the Wasatch’s six major ski areas via aerial lifts.
These two groups appear to harbor vastly different ambitions for what Utah could and should be. But perhaps those visions are closer than they often appear.
Earlier this week, Summit County, Utah’s Community Planning Department released the findings of what Town Lift described as a “series of community meetings, surveys, and discussions” among local residents that distills many of the tensions between Utah 1950 and Utah 2050. Majorities of residents, according to the report, value open space, support concentrated development near existing commerce, prefer walkable commercial areas, favor limits on short-term rentals, and want more transit options, including more and better bike infrastructure. But “most residents” also want little or no growth, while “the community wants cars to have a less visual presence while maintaining access,” and only two to five percent of residents “consider their own homes as ‘development’ impacting open space.
These collective ambitions – denser, walkable, more affordable and transit-connected development, but no growth, continued car reliance, and a grandfathering of the poorly considered sprawl of the past six decades – sound contradictory. But they also point to potential compromises between partisans marching for Utah 2050 and Utah 1950, because their distinct visions of the state’s ski country, when reconsidered through desired outcomes rather than individual projects, are not so different. Both want a reduced human footprint, ease of movement throughout the community, and a sense that they are not living in Beverly Hills 84060. Both want a better Utah.
It's possible. Here are five points that Utah 2050 and Utah 1950 can negotiate on to draw up a shared vision of what Utah in 2025 (or 2034, if we’re aiming for the Olympics), ought to be. Done in good faith, the two sides could map out a sustainable version of 21st Century Wasatch skiing that lets more people in while maintaining – perhaps even enhancing – the small-town, alpine character of Park City and the communities around it.
Is the Future of Utah Skiing 1950 or 2050?
Community feedback suggests a common vision for a state that often feels at war with itself
Is there room for a peace treaty in the Battle for Utah?
Utah, home to America’s finest skiing, often seems defined by two groups sprinting in opposite directions.One group, energetic and optimistic, is running full speed for the future.
The future group understands that Utah and Utah skiing have changed forever, and that they’re not returning to their pre-Olympics, pre-Epkon secret-stash-of-the-Wasatch days. To survive as anything other than a study in gridlock, Utah skiing must evolve to accommodate more skiers. And to do that, Utah needs to create more ski terrain, maximize the use of existing facilities, excise as many personal cars from the mountains as possible, and create more human-scaled spaces for people to sleep and eat and socialize as close to the chairlifts as possible.
Folks in the future group (we’ll call them Utah 2050) are tripling the size of Deer Valley and reconfiguring the resort from a car-dependent sprawl into an aerial-lift-connected axis of two walkable hubs; driving new mixed-use developments at Nordic Valley, Brian Head, and outside of Park City; planning an aerial gondola network throughout Park City and hoping to flush most cars off of Main Street; and attempting to erase most vehicles from avalanche-prone Little Cottonwood Canyon with a gondola.
The other group, equally energetic but as pessimistic as its opponents are upbeat, is running as fast as it can toward the past.
The past group (let’s call them Utah 1950) views any sort of development as damaging to the bucolic wilderness setting that they see as defining their community. They are alarmed and dismayed by the rise of Utah as a global ski destination. They yearn for a Utah that more closely mirrors the 20th Century version of itself – a Utah that was more affordable, more local, less crowded, and less celebrated, with more open space and fewer people.
Rather than accommodate the growth in Epkon-clutching skiers drawn by huge snowfalls, easy and cheap airport access, and large ski resorts equipped with modern lift fleets, Utah 1950 seeks to curb skier access. Triggered by sprawl creeping up from Salt Lake City, they aim to limit development. Burdened by traffic in their daily commutes, they seek to close communities to new residents. Frustrated by the soaring cost of living, they interpret every infrastructure proposal as an added tax burden with little clear benefit to them.
These are the folks who are fighting the Little Cottonwood gondola, shutting down lift replacements in Park City, petitioning against walkable mixed-use developments, and fighting to preserve Deer Valley’s Snow Park as a grid of surface parking lots rather than convert the space into a pedestrian base village. Utah 1950’s finest moment may have been shutting down a plan that would have connected the Wasatch’s six major ski areas via aerial lifts.
These two groups appear to harbor vastly different ambitions for what Utah could and should be. But perhaps those visions are closer than they often appear.
Earlier this week, Summit County, Utah’s Community Planning Department released the findings of what Town Lift described as a “series of community meetings, surveys, and discussions” among local residents that distills many of the tensions between Utah 1950 and Utah 2050. Majorities of residents, according to the report, value open space, support concentrated development near existing commerce, prefer walkable commercial areas, favor limits on short-term rentals, and want more transit options, including more and better bike infrastructure. But “most residents” also want little or no growth, while “the community wants cars to have a less visual presence while maintaining access,” and only two to five percent of residents “consider their own homes as ‘development’ impacting open space.
These collective ambitions – denser, walkable, more affordable and transit-connected development, but no growth, continued car reliance, and a grandfathering of the poorly considered sprawl of the past six decades – sound contradictory. But they also point to potential compromises between partisans marching for Utah 2050 and Utah 1950, because their distinct visions of the state’s ski country, when reconsidered through desired outcomes rather than individual projects, are not so different. Both want a reduced human footprint, ease of movement throughout the community, and a sense that they are not living in Beverly Hills 84060. Both want a better Utah.
It's possible. Here are five points that Utah 2050 and Utah 1950 can negotiate on to draw up a shared vision of what Utah in 2025 (or 2034, if we’re aiming for the Olympics), ought to be. Done in good faith, the two sides could map out a sustainable version of 21st Century Wasatch skiing that lets more people in while maintaining – perhaps even enhancing – the small-town, alpine character of Park City and the communities around it.
EMSC
Well-known member
Now that's some seriously funny and delusional stuff right there.