White Pine Gulch in Little Cottonwood Canyon is paradise for the backcountry ski and splitboard crowd.
On one hand, it offers gentle, low-grade slopes leading to open meadows and wind-protected glades. On the other, steep chutes with ample snow can be found on the surrounding 10,500-plus-foot peaks — at least for those willing to spend half a day hiking.
But what if they didn’t have to hike? What if a Snowbird chairlift delivered skiers to this Shangri-La?
Theoretically, that and other ski area expansions could be one step closer to reality if the Trump administration repeals the Roadless Area Conservation Rule as it proposed last month.
According to The Salt Lake Tribune’s analysis of Forest Service roadless-area maps and ski area boundaries, at least half of Utah’s 16 ski areas — including Brighton Resort, Solitude Mountain Resort, Deer Valley Resort and Snowbird — are either adjacent to or overlap with an inventoried roadless area.
At the moment, they face several barriers to expanding onto those public lands, but rescinding the rule would eliminate one of the sturdiest ones.
“Getting rid of things like the Roadless Rule,” said Jack Stauss, the executive director of the nonprofit conservation group Save Our Canyons, “it just creates ambiguity in the protection of our lands in perpetuity.”
Established by the Clinton administration in 2001, the rule curtails the construction of roads and mining and logging operations on more than 44 million acres of National Forest land across the country while still allowing for nonmotorized activities like hiking, biking, fishing, hunting and backcountry skiing. The Trump administration is proposing a rule change, it says, to allow for better wildfire mitigation, increase timber harvests and to give local entities more say in the management of federal public lands.
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.