The Cottonwood Fire left Eagle Point Resort hanging on by a thread. Or, rather, a ski lift.
The family ski and snowboard area nestled in the Tushar Mountains above Beaver suffered extensive damage when the wildfire ripped through it last week. Late Monday, owner Shane Gadbaw revealed the extent of the destruction after his first visit to the site.
Four of five chairlifts “sustained damage,” Gadbaw wrote. The one that did not was the Monarch Lift in the upper, less steep area of the resort. The view he captured of that lift, with a lush green meadow beneath it, almost belied the fact that the fire — which Gov. Spencer Cox called “the most destructive fire in state history” — had passed through the area. Beyond the lift sat black hills with smoke hovering above them.
That scene contrasted with a photo that went viral last week showing Eagle Point’s Canyonside Lodge engulfed in flames. Gadbaw acknowledged and shared a photo in an Instagram post Monday that the lodge — the larger of the ski area’s two lodges — was decimated in the fire. More than 100 condos also burned, as did 30 cabins, Gadbaw said.
Half of the resort’s 600 acres were “impacted.” Most of them were in the steep area directly behind the Canyonside Lodge. The Skyline Lodge remains intact.
Read the full article by Julie Jag at sltrib.com.
This article is published through the Utah News Collaborative, a partnership of news organizations in Utah that aims to inform readers across the state.