If you Dawn Patrol in the Wasatch, you need to sign up for LCC & BCC road closure text messaging information at:
http://updsl.org/services/canyonalerts
This is the best way to notified about when, where and how long LCC and BCC will be closed in the morning, even if you have already left the trail-head.
Over the past few years the expanding popularity of Dawn Patrolling in the Wasatch has grown into a point of contention and conflict between skiers and UDOT, especially in upper Little Cottonwood Canyon. Alta at 5:00 am on a dark snowy morning is a surreal mix of flashing lights, heavy equipment, delivery trucks, airport vans, resort security vehicles and eventually booming artillery. The avalanche gun crews may anticipate shooting the night before or early that morning, but they don’t actually know or start firing until first light and the last thing they want to see in their spotting scopes is a skin track and four headlamps on the slope they want to shoot. The gun crews have no way of contacting a group thousands of feet up a slope and if they can’t shoot the paths that threaten the road, they can’t open the road, and if the road can’t open customers can’t get to the resorts. A seemingly harmless backcountry tour can shut down Alta, Snowbird and all of the LCC businesses for hours. Aside from the economic impact there is also the fundamental safety concern of mixing human beings, 105 howitzers and large avalanches. Liam Fitzgerald, Mr. LCC UDOT, said that it has reached a point where if it doesn’t stop, “something is going to have to be done about it.”
If they are plowing, you should probably go elsewhere.
The first step to avoiding conflict is not skin up loaded avalanche slopes in the dark to begin with, regardless of how much fun it might be. A second option would be to avoid places that get shot, like all of the south facing lines on Highway 210 (Tanners, Maybird, White Pine, Little Pine, Superior, Flagstaff, Emma Ridges, etc.) as well as the Alta perimeter in general. I’ve never had a problem with DP’ing on Pink Pine out of the White Pine trailhead, but Snowbird or some lame-ass heliskiing company might be bombing Scotties and take issue with that. Coalpit #4 and The Y Couloir don’t see much bombing, but you probably shouldn’t be skiing those in conditions that warrant gun control anyway. Big Cottonwood is a much safer bet although the same issues apply on lines like Argenta and Circle Awl/All. Parking is almost as big a concern in BCC and the plow crews and UDOT will leave you a nasty note, or worse, if your vehicle keeps the plows from clearing the lots and pull-outs.
Dawn Patrolling in a storm - how to lose friends and alienate people in upper Little Cottonwood Canyon.
Mill D (Tom’s Hill, Powder Park, etc) and USA Bowl in Big Cottonwood, all of Mill Creek and Mt. Aire in Parley’s are conflict free 99% of the time.
Road closure info can also be found on the Utah Avalanche Center website which can be Twittered to your phoneor subscribed to via RSS feed. You can even go old school and call for a specific road closure message at 888-999-4019 option 8 to hear the soothing sounds of a human voice telling you the road is closed.
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Derail the Coaster Rally
Ever since I moved back to Utah 20 years ago, Snowbird has been aggressively pursuing physical expansion of the resort to the point that it is almost nothing new. On the Park City side of the Wasatch Mountains, most of the land is privately owned so development is a foregone conclusion, which has led to almost no free public access to the mountains on this side. You can exit out of the resort gates, but with no uphill traffic allowed in Utah, you need to buy a ticket first. In Little and Big Cottonwood however, the ski resorts are mostly on leased Forest Service land, so expansion is much more controversial and involves public input, which resorts must hate.
My first experience with the Snowbird expansion machine was about 15 years ago when they were proposing to put in a 50,000 square foot “warming hut” on top of Hidden Peak. It was billed as being architecturally sensitive to the surroundings, but from the artists sketches it looked like they wanted to construct the Sydney Opera House at 11,000 in the central Wasatch. I attended the public hearing which was standing room only and overwhelmingly against the idea. After an hour or more of comments against the idea, the Commissioners asked if there was anyone in the audience who wanted to speak for it, which is when I first met the Three Horsemen of Irrational Wasatch Development – a child, a senior citizen of European heritage and a person in a wheelchair. Five minutes later, the decision was made – in the name of doing it for the children, the handicapped, senior citizens and of course, to be World Class, it was approved. Thank you very much. Goodnight. Exit out the back to a roar of disapproval. Continue reading ‘Derail the Coaster Rally’