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Show although it remains relatively small. But lacking money and a staff didn’t keep Save Our Canyons from making a big difference. Enumerating the group’s successes or failures is difficult, because much of what they have done has been behind the scenes and out of the headlines. But every time Snowbird wants to add a chairlift or parking lot, every time Alta wants to blast rocks away or fill in a streambed for a new ski run, every time Solitude wants to add condominiums or an alpine slide and every time Brighton wants to build onto adjoining public lands, it is the volunteers of Save Our Canyons who are writing letters to the US Forest Service, attending public hearings the Forest Service might see the folks from and making sure that environmental laws are Save Our followed and that the public land is being because the group has put the agency in the middle of more than one dispute. But for the administered in the public's best interest. People, like Snowbird’s former CEO Ray Gardiner and Greg Smith of the Powerderbird Guides helicopter skiing service don't have kind words for the volunteers of Save Our Canyons. Let alone Earl Holding of Snow Canyons as a pain the derriere, past 25 years, Save Our Canyons has been the public in the “public process” - that determines how US Forest lands - public lands - are used, or perhaps more appropri- Basin, who is probably uttering something ately, not used. Still, volunteers under Among say that with a few exceptions they are will- other things, Gardiner has publicly called the group environmental elitists. Behind the ing and able to work with resort owners and operators to reach compromises that allow his breath at this moment. scenes he and others have called them other things. And sometimes "the brass at for Save Our Canyons tourism and the ski industry to prosper, while at the same time making sure conser- vation issues remain on the front burner and that our canyons are preserved for generations to come. The Early Days Kelner, one of the founders and the author of several ski guide books, including Wasatch Tours, is still active in the organization. Looking back on the early days of Save Our Canyons, he says he isn’t sure the group was responsible for stopping a tram to the Pfeifferhorn or a huge condo project slated for Patsy Marley at the top of Little Cottonwood Canyon. Those projects may have fallen from their own weight. “Tm not sure we had a lot of influence early on,” he recalled. “The first major influence we had was on Lone Peak Wilderness in the ‘73-’74-era. We were very active at that time on wilderness issues.” Working with former Utah Sen. Ted Moss and former Utah Rep. Wayne Owens, PAGE 8 * SEPTEMBER 1997 i: was a dangerous time. Richard Nixon had just been re-elected and Snowbird had just been completed. A plan had surfaced to build a tram to the top of the Pfeiferhorn in Little Cottonwood Canyon and the notion of building a tunnel from Alta to Brighton was taking root. The spectacular canyons at Salt Lake's back doorstep seemed ripe for rape and three locals were getting a little concerned. The construction of concrete monoliths creekside below Alta at Snowbird, the resort built by Texas millionaire Dick Bass, as well as the audacity to scrape off the top 30 feet of Hidden Peak for the resort’s tram, was plenty of reason for pause. As ‘was Salt Lake City Mayor Jake Garn’s plan to bring t 1¢ 1976 Winter Olympics which had just been won by Colorado but summarily tossed out by Colorado voters - to Utah’s Wasatch Mountains. But what could be done? How could the canyons be saved from resort developers who seemed to care little for the pristine and fragile environment? What could be done to save the canyons for Utahns, rather than have them set aside for industrial tourism and the pinkies-up-crowd who could afford to ski anywhere, including Aspen or St. Moritz or wherever it was the Olympics would be held that year. Perhaps not exactly sure what could be done but knowing they had to try something; Gale“Ditk, Alexis 4<efiner and Floyd Sweat took.a deep breath and, started the Citizens Committee to Save Our Canyons. The year was 1972. In the last quarter century, the &s= all-volunteer group has grown, photos by Christopher Natural beauty abounds.in the caverns eastof Sait Lake-Gitys And the-Gitizens-Gommitiee to Save Our Canyons is intent in Reeping it that Wey. Smart |