SkiLink, the proposed gondola that will link the Canyons Resort in Park City to Solitude Mountain Resort in Big Cottonwood Canyon, is one of the most controversial and divisive developments the Wasatch Mountains have seen in a long time. As a result, a coalition of 20 Utah businesses and community leaders came together at the Salt Lake Area Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday to form Lift Utah, an organization with a lot of weight to throw behind SkiLink and a future resort interconnect. However, outside the press conference, dozens of protesters gathered with signs and slogans to rally against SkiLink.
During a press conference, Lift Utah said that SkiLink is a transportation alternative between two resorts, and is an important first step toward creating a long-sought after interconnect between the seven ski areas in the Central Wasatch. Businesses like Ken Garff Automotive Group, Ivory Homes, Zions Bank, Maverik, The Boyer Company, Vacation Roost, and the Canyons and Solitude resorts joined politicians such as Former Senator Jake Garn, Sandy Mayor Tom Dolan, and Utah State Senator Wayne Niederhouser at the podium to emphasize their support for SkiLink.
In a statement, Niederhouser advocated for SkiLink, saying it would enhance the ski and snowboard industry’s contribution to Utah’s economy, jobs, and tax base. “An interconnect system would boost the ski industry tremendously. This will be a game changer. There’s nothing like this in the United States.”
Sandy City Mayor Tom Dolan echoed the coalition’s platform, saying that that SkiLink would help expand the economy of the Wasatch Front’s cities. “As mayor of a city adjacent to Little Cottonwood Canyon, a significant part of our city services are funded by revenue generated by our ski and snowboarding industry.” Dolan said in a statement, adding, “Total ski-snowboard related spending brings about $1.2 billion into our economy. Linking our resorts will greatly expand those benefits.”
Opponents of SkiLink don’t think a gondola is a viable transportation alternative and won’t have enough of an economic benefit to be worth the environmental damage it may cause. On a public sidewalk outside the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce, protesters carried signs and chanted slogans against SkiLink. They claim the gondola is a threat to the fragile watershed and is simply a land grab by Talisker, a Canadian company bent on expanding ski resort development in the Wasatch Mountains. Save Our Canyons Executive Director, Carl Fisher, says that they don’t stand for the sale of public lands for the betterment of corporations. “We need to protect this resource for future generations and hopefully they (Lift Utah) will hear the message,” Fisher said.
In response to the Lift Utah coalition, Fisher will soon create an alternate coalition of local ski companies who oppose SkiLink, mostly from the backcountry ski industry. “Part of the ski industry has come out against this,” Fisher said. “The backcountry ski community is the largest growing sector of the ski industry right now.” Black Diamond, Voile’, Bluehouse Skis, and DPS Skis have all publicly opposed the project.
Andrew McLean, a well-known professional backcountry skier, was among the many protesters holding signs against SkiLink. His main concern is that SkiLink will open the door to further ski resort expansion in a mountain range with little room for growth. “Ski areas have enough land already and they don’t need to expand into public land. The Wasatch is a teeny little range and there’s more than enough resorts already to go around. So we need to preserve what we have.” McLean said.
Concerns about the way local government has been bypassed in an attempt to put SkiLink on the fast track is another issue raised by McLean, who finds the whole process disturbing. “It just completely removed the local government from the whole equation as well as public input, and I think that sets a horrible precedent for the future of the Wasatch.”
On the surface, the SkiLink issue looks like a battle between ski resorts and backcountry users, but that would be an oversimplification. Ski Utah President and CEO, Nathan Rafferty, who represents the Utah ski industry as a whole was at the Lift Utah press conference. He says he doesn’t support or oppose SkiLink specifically, but is one-hundred percent in support of a ski resort interconnect system of some kind. “What it boils down to is an interconnect would be really cool and it’s hard to argue that it wouldn’t be an incredible concept. In a perfect world, we’d have an over-the-snow connection between ski areas, and then we’d also have a larger transportation component that would be either train or gondolas that would move people between population centers.”
As a backcountry skier himself, Rafferty recognizes the importance of the backcountry component of Utah’s ski community. “I see incredible value in having a really quality backcountry experience and I think they all compliment each other. I love the fact that people can come here to resort ski and backcountry ski as well, and it’s really important to have that balance. I don’t think these things are mutually exclusive.”
You can read more about the Lift Utah coalition at www.liftutah.org.
For more about efforts to stop SkiLink, visit Save Our Canyons, and the Stop Ski Link Facebook page.