For years, the Church of Dirt on Empire Pass has been an ad-hoc spot for couples to tie the knot. The betrothed would reserve a date by writing their names in a book at the site, then leaving natural markers of wood or stone with their wedding date written down.
But not anymore.
The 1,500-acre, Park City-owned Bonanza Flat Conservation area includes the Church of Dirt site at the top of Empire Pass. Last month, the reservation book disappeared, and a notice directed parties to schedule their weddings through a website called pcchurchofdirt.com.
Emma, a local resident who declined to provide her last name, said she created the website to help couples plan their wedding day. She said her family goes there often during the summer, and she's heard of people having trouble with others abusing the scheduling protocol.
"People with double bookings, and I, I really just tried, I wanted to prevent that from happening again, so I just created the website, and you know, some of the socials for this Church of Dirt, because I think it's a really special place,” she said. “Of course, I'm not trying to, you know, profit off of it or anything. I really just wanted to start something, and hopefully, at another point, you know someone can take it over and create a website that would be self-sustaining so that people would, you know, have more reassurance so when they're, when they're getting ready to get married there that, you know, that will be their time and their special moments.”
The pcchurchofdirt.com website has a donate button on it, which Emma said is to help cover her web page expenses. She declined to say how much money she has spent on the website.
Park City Municipal officials said she has not spoken to them about the Church of Dirt, which they maintain.
Heinrich Deters, Park City Trails and Open Space Manager, said the Church of Dirt event setting is a funky, fun Park City offering. But he said traffic, parking, and trash are becoming a challenge.
"While we wanted to preserve that, we also kept sort of a fine eye on the management because what we've seen is, where it used to be a young couple getting married with a couple of friends going up on the property and just walking out there and maybe taking some photos, has turned into almost like a commercial venture,” Deters said. “And while we would rather not overly manage or remove the Church of Dirt, you know, it's unfortunate that you know, egregious issues like the website is one. But you know the parking there on Empire Pass, signage, the trash like, you name it, it begs additional management and enforcement."
Wendy Fisher, Executive Director of Utah Open Lands, said that as the conservation manager of Bonanza Flat, she’s obligated to preserve the ecological and recreational elements for public use. She said it is a unique property.
"There's a lot of interest in the property from the public in general, and there's never been any intent to have any of that be in any way commercialized, and that's probably one of the concerns that Utah Open Lands has with respect to somebody just coming in and taking over something like the Church of Dirt,” she said. “And especially without talking to the landowner, that's just something that you can't do."
Fisher said it's a beautiful spot for a wedding, and as the conservator of the land, she wants to preserve the access.
"Leaving no trace, cleaning up after themselves, and you know, really trying to be respectful of each other in terms of the chalkboard sort of thing that's been up there,” she said. “And there's something precious about that, and sure there are people up there that would say, oh you know it'd be great to have a reservation system, but there's something kind of precious about realizing that this is a resource that everybody's sharing, and you need to figure out how to like we did in kindergarten, how do we share it, and all get along.”
Park City and Utah Open Lands have referred the issue of the new website for legal consideration.
