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Show m - tnrrwr mw i PREVIEW IBOUE QEPTEMBER 1972 THIS ONE'S FREE 3C0D GQstD Gtescfe, (03336 Hi) QMesoo (Jfo&ssQe S0i2 SEEIPAGE dteM THrO ad consfrvatiwiitjbtklHvethireyej m iUuttlK caip itself ny lave tk bit md Devebpers of who could use it Moving off By NICK SNOW White Pine Canyon doesnt the American Fork West Twin look that much like a political puts you into terrain that is buffer zone. It starts innocently dosed off to all but the best enough at its 'mouth, a small skiers. At the present time, were draw on the south side of Little leaning to the thinking .that it Cottonwood Canyon that widens wouldnt be feasibly for Snowbird to expand into White Pine into a nearly-levcanyon conproper. basin tinuing into a fairly lage But Snowbird says it needs at the with steep slopes 'top. White Pine which offers a ski to White west lies its But the area almost as large as the rePine-Re- d Pine ridge, the boundruns down Peruary in the proposed Lone Peak sorts current and Gad Valley.' We Wilderness Area. And to its east vian .Gulch White Pine to accommodate need is the Snowbird ski resort. Both the conservationists and .our planned village expansion, Snowbird have their eyes on says Snowbird public information director Mickey Gallivan. White Pine. Seeing their WilderWithout .it arell have ness area rapidly shrink hearing lift lines, like the other major after hearing, members of the resorts. We dont want that. Wasatch Mountain Club are Snowbirds prime interest in pushing to have the wilderness White is as an area for inPine . boundary moved to the road run-tain- g termediate skires since .their is up White Pine. Snowbird, no continuous intermediate run meanwhile, is urging develop- -' The offered. canyons ment of the upper basin as a ski currently in awildernessarea area, building an independent : inclusion to the resort seems inconsistent 'tram from their cynrest' jgpper since1 a and mantoed' 'logging'' tramterminal to the top of the are in it. dam made x already American Fork West Twin in the no Theres necessity terracing southeast portion of the basin. Pine, Gallivan adds, Its a sticky, almost political, inandWhite of timbering a minimum question thats being batted since the avalanches clear most an areand. And It also may have unexpected solution within the of it away. Two skiers who have skied eanyon Itself. Pine offered varying re--. White Our questions surrounding development are with the very ports. Pete Coon described it as a dream up at the top, where real problem of avalanche conAmes Salt theyre interested in expanding,enHarrison, trol, says while Cort Richards is less with District the Lake Ranger U.S. Forest Service. The upper thusiastic. My feeling is that the part of White Pine that Ive skied bowl of White Pine is fragmentisnt that good, particularly when ed almost entirely, making it extremely susceptible. If we think you get to the bottom where it narrows down. Alta and Snowbird have probAs for avalanches, he said that lems, I dont want to think of what could happen in White Pine the entire Little Cottonwood where we had one of our biggest area frees that problem and that avalanches ever a couple of years White Pine probably could be back. patrolled pretty much the same Avalanche control is a possiway other areas up here are pability but then theres the matter trolled. How big a patrol would el 45-min- -- The view ip V1 White Fine Canyon la mate of avalanche threat - : a depend upon the method, you used. If yen bombed it eat from the that is had skiers along the top of the ridge plant bombs it wenld take a patrol beto a the numcause theres limit can a skier bombs carry. ber ef Bnt if yen plant a gun at the bottom, yen can do it all with and a just two or three guys helluva Mg charge. Snowbirds expansion wouldnt take place until 1975, according to resort .plans. But area conservationists are still concerned, particularly since toe Moss bill which established the Lone Peak area was killed a month ago and the White Pine area sits in an uneasy limbo along with toe rest of toe acreage thy asked for in their original Lone Peak propo- fop frir-sise- d ... Kl. V s Around the taka, cue feels for romqved from debate an canyon usage. i . i V' 1 i You have to decide now what is going to be developed in the Wasatch, says Wasatch Mountain Club president Dennis Koto. Right now, we have a pretty good balance. But its reasonable to assume that any area not designated will be developed. If this happens to the White Pine-Re- d Pine ridge, it will make Red Pine a second-rat- e wilderness canyon. There are several ways to proceed now that the Moss bill has been killed. Wed like to see it proceed as a study area, including the west half of White Pine as a defactor buffer between the wilderness and the developers. I dont think its at all unreasonable for us to ask this. The main thing is to keep people from jumping in there helter-skelt- er with the bulldozers. Just how great the chances are of that happening is doubtful. Lone Peak and most of the surrounding territory is a forest service management area, according to Ames Harrison. And well continue to manage it, unless something like a mineral discovery, a fantastic one, is uncovered. Then it would be beyond our jurisdiction. Some subsidiaries of Kenne-co-tt were exploring White Pine Canyon for a couple of summers and they pulled out last year. We haven't had a report, but if they found anything its probably extremely futuristic. I would guess they didnt find anything. All the same, notices of mining claims are posted up and down toe White Pine road and mineral interests have opposed classifying any of toe area as wilderness. As a government agency, were forced to take the middle of the road, says Harrison, but we do appreciate the interest people are taking in these things. All of us developers, conservationists and foresters have started thinking the same way in .torms of planning ahead. -- I would like to add that, overall, Snowbird, as a major development, has been good to work with. They have' some people who are concerned with preserving as much of the canyon as they can. There is a lot of cleanup and erosion control they have to do, but theyre, going after Our stock and trade is the atmosphere of this canyon, says Mickey Gallivan, and. if we destroy it were destroying our calling card. It would seem the Wasatch Mountain Club is against development. Thats a moot question as far as were concerned. Were here. The question would seem to be how far we can go in our plans. So for the moment White Pine Canyon rests in an uneasy limbo. Along its rocky wagon road a few hikers pause to listen to toe sounds of toe forest, sounds often interrupted by toe noise of trail bikes and four-whe- el drive vehicles finding their way to the small lake at toe top. The hike is a veritable stroll compared to the steeper Red Pine trail to the west. And it winds through one of toe loveliest buffer zones in the world. Within it, Its difficult to hear the sounds of battle. it WHO ARE WE? Were a group of newspaper-nu- n, mostly once associated with the University of Utah, with some peculiar ideas in journalism that wed like to share with other people. We plan to circulate through the Park City area during the next few weeks gauging response to this preview Issue. If you think wo might miss you and have something you'd like us to hear, write to us: The Mountain Flower, Box 117 22, Pioneer Station, Salt Lake City, Utah. |