John Knoblock is the Central Wasatch Commission’s outgoing Stakeholders Council Chair. In this role he has actively participated in nearly every System Committee meeting, every Stakeholders Council meeting, and every Board meeting for the last two years. Since his term is up at the end of the month, we wanted to give him a chance to share his thoughts on his tenure in a podcast-style exit interview.

To make it a special event we asked him to choose a location in the Central Wasatch that he’s passionate about. For reasons that become increasingly clear through the duration of the conversation, he had me meet him at the foot of Grandeur Peak on a sunny summer morning where the latest section of the Bonneville Shoreline Trail has recently been completed.

The conversation switched back and forth as we ascended the singletrack trail, but a strong narrative thread ran throughout: Whether the topic is trails, transportation, or conservation, John touts the importance of embracing long-term thinking. Without a decent grasp of history, he says, it’s hard to remain committed to big and important projects. This newest section of the Bonneville Shoreline Trail, for example, took him more than 20 years to finish. By the end of our walk, 20 years seemed like a much shorter duration than it did at the trailhead. The Mountain Accord is only 10 years old and the Central Wasatch Commission is only seven years old, John reminds us–and big goals such as the Central Wasatch Conservation and Recreation Area Act (CWNCRA) could take 20 years to complete, but they will get done.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Listen on Spotify

Chapters

00:00 The Journey of the Bonneville Shoreline Trail

01:52 Connecting Community and Nature

04:51 The Urban-Wildland Interface

09:00 Land Acquisition Challenges

12:54 Trail Development and Community Involvement

15:48 Trail Design Considerations

19:47 Legislative Challenges and Opportunities

25:32 The Role of IMBA and Community Support

30:52 Incremental Progress vs. Comprehensive Solutions

34:54 Ski Resorts and Legislative Support

35:30 Reflecting on Two Years of Progress

41:08 Building Collaborative Relationships

47:59 The Long View: Patience in Progress

54:07 Education and Long-Term Thinking

01:01:08 Finding Common Ground in Conservation

01:05:51 The Personal Connection to Nature

Resources

Mountain Accord https://cwc.utah.gov/mountainaccord/

Central Wasatch Commission https://cwc.utah.gov/

Visitor Use Study https://cwc.utah.gov/visitor-use-study/

CWNCRA https://cwc.utah.gov/legislation-and-federal-designation/

Donate to CWC Project work https://cwc.utah.gov/contribute/

Trails Utah https://trailsutah.org/

Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02.904)

Good things take time. And so just like this section of Bonneville storyline trail, you know, I worked on this for two decades, two decades of meetings and trying to get land purchases. And finally things happened. Finally happened. Well, now we’re walking on it. Well, the same way with some of these projects, like trying to protect the high Alpine lakes in the central Wasatch.

Now we’re walking on it.

Speaker 1 (00:32.846)

from the conception of the mountain accord through the visitor use study through the tri-canyon trails master plan and then good morning and then through actual construction of those loop trails guess what it’s going to be two decades but it will get done

Welcome to In the Wasatch, a podcast created by the Central Wasatch Commission. The CWC is an intergovernmental entity dedicated to protecting the Central Wasatch Mountains through canyon transportation improvements, pathways for concentrated development, environmental protections, and recreational stewardship. You can think of the CWC as the table everyone sits at, where real conversation happens so we can find

real solutions to real issues. This podcast continues those conversations and brings them to you so you can get involved. You’ll hear from stakeholders, commissioners, and others who love and want to preserve the mountains for generations to come. As we gather Wasatch stories, profiles, and expertise, we hope to establish this podcast and the CWC generally as a hub for finding belonging in the central Wasatch. After all,

It’s the mountains that make this place what it is, and we’re all part of it.

you

Speaker 1 (02:01.454)

Oh yeah, so we, uh, you know, when I first moved here, kind of looked around and rented a place for like six months down near the Capitol. And, and then, uh, was like, oh yeah, if I live here, can be like half a block from a trailhead. Yeah. And that was, it’s all about being near trails.

This is John Knobloch. He’s CWC’s outgoing stakeholder council chair. I asked him to take me to a spot in the central Wasatch that was meaningful to him, a place he had a lot to say about. So he had me meet him at the base of Grandeur Peak on a bright summer morning where the latest section of the Bonneville Shoreline Trail has recently been completed. and I’m Ben Kilborn. I’m your host and CWC’s communications director. I won’t be popping in to add after the fact commentary for the remainder of the show.

It’s just John and some runners and some hikers and me and some laslie buntings out walking in the Wasatch.

And since then, we’ve, you know, I got involved with the Bonneville Shoreline Trail Committee. And then recently, only a decade ago. So what happens when you get old, decade, only a decade ago is recently, I got involved with Trails Utah. And so since then, we’ve built this section that see across the way, just on the north side of Parlees Canyon there.

Yeah, I read that all the time, probably, from the other end.

Speaker 1 (03:30.478)

Yeah, so that was a great project we got done. Section of Bonneville Shoreline Trail and then we got done this section across the face of Grandjere Peak a few years ago too. So now, yeah, it makes it awesome. A 10 mile continuous section of trail to go from Mill Creek Canyon up the new rattlesnake trail that we built across Grandjere, then across the freeway bridges and all the way up to Carrigan Canyon.

Yeah, that’s a great ride or run.

Yeah, but there’s always more to do. It’s difficult trying to get projects done.

So yeah, when I reached out to you to chat about whatever it was that you wanted to chat about, you decided we should come to this place. And why did you want to bring me here in particular?

wow. This is, know, a great intersection of the wild lands of the central Wasatch in the urban lands of Salt Lake City. Yeah. Right. You’re the juxtaposition is just about unequaled anywhere else in the country to be able to have like real wilderness, real mountains, know, serious mountaineering and skiing just

Speaker 2 (04:47.796)

Uh-huh.

Speaker 1 (04:51.392)

a few minutes away from the urban and suburban environment.

Yeah. And this part is kind of emblematic of that because we just parked at your son’s house and walked up here in like a minute and a half or something. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly

So it’s a beautiful spot. I was out here, I rode my bike up here actually yesterday morning and you could see Lazuli Buntings and singing in the trees and things and just a beautiful natural environment up here.

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:32.034)

and tons of people recreate. That’s why people love living in Salt Lake, or at least a lot of them. That’s why companies choose to locate in Salt Lake, because they could be in Iowa, but they could be in Salt Lake. Salt Lake has got this. It’s got the natural world with the native flora and fauna and trails and…

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (06:01.826)

The greatest snow on earth.

So.

That’s all pretty awesome. whole area.

Howdy. The whole area up through Rattlesnake was the other thing you mentioned and that’s great too but you’re almost at the urban wildland interface. For the Bonneville Shoreline Trail, the original concept of the thing was that

it would delineate and set kind of a line in the sand between the urban suburban area and the wild lands. So that, you know, it was originally conceived up above the University of Utah. And one of the things that the folks Rick Reese and Jim Byrne had in mind was that it would help prevent the eventual suburban sprawl all the way up the foothills.

Speaker 2 (06:47.47)

Uh-huh.

Speaker 1 (07:10.094)

it would give a reason for land protection. So that if there was private property parcels, would be a reason why Salt Lake County would want to acquire those lands for open space and the trail. So it was a big deal. In fact, an interesting thing was that Ralph Becker

I didn’t know that.

Speaker 1 (07:38.574)

He was the first executive director of the Central Los Hatch Commission. He was actually a representative in our state legislature before he was the mayor of Salt Lake City. And back in 1999, as a legislator, Ralph got a bill through

to get $100,000 appropriated to the Bonneville Shoreline Trail. And that’s what that money was used to build the initial sections of Bonneville Shoreline Trail above the avenues. So Ralph’s been connected with this for three and a half, for two and a half decades.

Amazing.

And I got involved when I bought that house down on Cascade Way when I first moved here and got involved to try to organize a community along here to get this section of trail built. And it took 25 years to make it happen. Yeah, it took two decades because this was all private property for the most part all along here.

time.

Speaker 1 (08:59.758)

I believe my initial, I still have the initial map with all the landowners and there were like 10 different landowners going across here and it was all private and it took 20 years to get those 10 parcels acquired. So it was really kind of amazing that it finally happened slowly but surely. We got parcels for well,

think this parcel is a white family owned and they donated it, some of it. And then there was a parcel right at the start of the trail where we were that Utah Power and Light owned and they were going to sell it to a developer to extend the road and get another dozen homes put there. we work with the Trust for Public Land and they bought the land.

and then eventually transferred it to Salt Lake County.

And then this hillside in front of us, as we look toward Mount Olympus. Yeah, that further hillside. that had actually been owned by a developer who wanted to build a housing development up on top of the ridge there. Yeah. And it was, and they went through many gyrations to try to figure out how they could build houses up on top of the ridge.

Further, he’ll say.

Speaker 1 (10:33.774)

Good morning. How’s it going?

Learning.

Speaker 1 (10:38.67)

I’m gonna get hot again today. Lots of people out walking their dogs, enjoying nature out here. But Jeff, the mayor of Mill Creek, Mayor Silva Strini lives just on the street below where that hillside was. And trying to prevent development up there was the whole reason why he got involved with the community council.

many decades, a couple of decades ago. And where I first met him through the Mount Olympus Community Council. And then he wanted to try to stop that development. It was, and there was some crazy schemes hatched as to having how a road could get up there and that got all shot down. And then the developer proposed putting some sort of a railway or a tramway.

to get up to the hillside. They kept coming up with harebrained schemes, but ultimately it was the Bonneville Shoreline Trail that helped get that recognized and funded. Because of the trail, it gave impetus for Salt Lake County to purchase that land and preserve it as open space.

huh.

Speaker 1 (12:09.57)

thus fulfilling Jeff Silva Strini’s dream of finally protecting that land.

And that’s why, know, it’s.

Part of the, well through the Mount Olympus Community Council, which I was a member of, is how I got involved with the Full Mountain Accord when it first started back in 2013, 2014. And through that, how I met folks like Sarah Bennett with Trails Utah, who actually

and hire contractors and get trail projects built. So it was all interesting, exciting because one of the fundamental things with the Bonneville Swirl Line Trail Committee was that the committee was more organizers and cheerleaders for the trail, but didn’t have the license or insurance.

you

Speaker 1 (13:21.816)

to actually get trails projects built. other people would get them built. We would encourage it. As opposed to Trails Utah, who actually has the proper corporate set up nonprofit to actually get projects built. So they were able to hire a contractor and get this trail tread all actually built and constructed.

Yes.

Speaker 2 (13:39.746)

See you.

Speaker 1 (13:51.488)

And the whole part of that process was getting that land purchased. And then as a follow-up, I think by the time that land got built, purchased, there was maybe only three more parcels that needed to get purchased to make the trail connect. And then we were able to secure money from

the state of Utah through the Division of Outdoor Recreation, had a program to which Kirk Colomore in the state legislature, who’s been very instrumental in helping out the Central Wasatch Commission with funding and projects. Kirk had worked and had gotten a bill through that.

secured five million dollars for Bonneville Shoreline Trail land purchases. And so it was out of that money that the money came to purchase all the land to the south of that knoll, which then enabled this trail to get the Bonneville Shoreline Trail to get connected. Finally, after two decades, to connect the Grandjur Peak trailhead at the end of Wasatch Boulevard up onto the

end of the pipeline trail and connecting down to Rattlesnake. Good morning. How you guys doing? Great. How are you? Great. Thanks. Good day to get out for a hike before the sun hits us. Right. Yeah. You can see lots, lots of folks out hiking. I think the biggest trail user group on here, in my, observation is trail runners.

Okay, yeah I’ve run it myself so that tracks.

Speaker 1 (15:52.75)

Good morning. Yeah, and it’s where there’s about a fine balance of designing a trail like this to be. You don’t want so steep that mountain bikes can’t use it, but you don’t want it so flat that hikers find no challenge in it and feel like they’re endlessly looping around. so it’s a little tough for mountain bikes. It’s maybe a little easy for

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:22.754)

hardcore hikers, but it’s perfect for trail runners. Trail runners love it.

So one thing I observed since I’ve both run and bike this trail is these switchbacks. You don’t really notice going up on a bike. They’re pretty comfortable. This turn is fine. They are coming down too fast. These are tight turns.

Yeah. yeah. Yeah. Yes. And that’s where you can see along the edge here. You know, we built up these corners to give a little bank and a little protection, but more could be done. We could dig in and put a whole nother layer of rock to ensure that 20 years from now, this corner is still stable. But

Even just making improvements to the trail. And we have to now that it’s Salt Lake County open space and administered by the county open space and parks in Iraq. Now that’s a whole nother process to try to get approval to improve the existing trail that we built. my gosh. The bureaucratic hassles and nightmare are sometimes unbelievable. But

That’s what it takes, you know, getting permitting and approvals as a whole challenge unto itself.

Speaker 1 (17:51.416)

But slowly but surely, if you’re persistent through the years and years, things get done. We’ll eventually make those corners a little more level and a little more built up on the outside edge so that it’s pretty obvious. Yeah, like you say, if you’re like, this next corner is a good example of that also where it could use a whole layer of some rock work along the edge.

was gonna say I don’t particularly mind though in some ways because on a bike it forces me to slow down so much that I’m not going to slam into somebody who’s coming around the corner.

Yeah, right. Yeah. We don’t want, this isn’t a trail where we want huge bank turns like the new trails up at Solitude or Deer Valley where they’re designed as downhill only mountain bike trails. yeah, having this a little tricky and there’s penalty points for going off the edge. That does cause people to slow down, which is a good thing.

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:49.144)

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:54.7)

Yeah, I think.

Speaker 2 (19:02.158)

So, remind me, was this whole section originally going to be addressed in the CWN CRA and then it ended up being addressed through the Bonneville Shoreline Trail Advancement Act?

Well, that’s a whole saga unto itself of the Bonneville Shoreline Trail Advancement Act. during the Mountain Accord, one of the things that Jim Byrne, who is the chair of the Bonneville Shoreline Trail Committee, then had proposed was that as the Bonneville Shoreline Trail went across

there was areas where it went across little corners of the wilderness area. Because the wilderness area was designated along the forest service boundary, which for the most part are these squares and rectangles. And so there were little corners that you cut across that prevented mountain bike use on whole sections of the trail. And not only that,

Right.

Speaker 1 (20:16.568)

For construction and maintenance, you couldn’t then use mechanized equipment. So like this trail, you see all along here? This was all built with a hydraulic jackhammer on a mini excavator. This is solid rock underneath only a foot of dirt. This, to try to build this by hand, would have been very difficult proposition and taking dynamite and stuff like when they built the pipeline trail.

Yeah. You know, that was done with by hand and with pipeline and with dynamite. And so this was done with a hydraulic jackhammer on the mini axe. And if it was wilderness, if it was wilderness, you wouldn’t be able to do that. Right now, fortunately for this section, this none of this is wilderness. And in fact, this isn’t even national forest here. So this we’re still on this area.

on land that was purchased and then put into the hands of Salt Lake County open space. So this wasn’t directly involved in any of that issue with the Bonneville Shoreline Trail Advancement Act. But to get back to that topic, so as part of the Mountain Accord, one of the pieces that got included in the final accord,

was to make these slight wilderness adjustments on the corners so that the trail could be built and maintained with mechanized equipment and it’d be mountain bike legal because that was one of the original concepts with the Bonneville Shoreline Trail is that it would be a multi-use trail. that was in there and then

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:14.85)

The, and along with the whole Central Walsh National Conservation Recreation Area bill, you know, had gone nowhere and was going nowhere fast. Well, in parallel, there’s our Senator Mike Lee, who’s known for

some brash proposals. Mike Lee had proposed to have a bill that would allow mountain bikes in all wilderness across the country with no limits. And some folks, I guess it was a large contingent in California in particular, and I think in Colorado, thought that was a good idea.

But the mountain bike community was divided on that issue. And the International Mountain Bike Association, IMBA, came out opposed to it. They said, no, that doesn’t make great sense to allow mountain bikes in all wilderness. know, there’s obviously a lot of trails where it’s foolish or impossible, but…

There’s some trails where it might be reasonable and could provide good access. And IMBA folks said it should be done on a case-by-case basis. And upon that, the majority of members of IMBA in California all uniformly quit.

So Imbo was looking for a poster child to demonstrate what they wanted. That they surgically would do reasonable and smart projects to do wilderness trades so that mountain bike access could be secured. And they saw that the, howdy, that in the,

Speaker 2 (24:29.953)

Uh-huh.

Speaker 1 (24:41.878)

mountain accord that had been proposed to and people had agreed that this was a reasonable place to adjust the wilderness boundaries for mountain bike access. And so they took that on as a project and it was really all pushed by them. But then folks like Trails Utah, the Bonneville Shoreline Trail Committee,

We were approached by IMBA, say, hey, can you help us out and support this? it was like, answer was, yeah, sure. It was not in opposition to what the community had agreed upon. And it would provide more access and allow the trail to get built.

It’s in line with what the community agreed upon because it was touched upon in the mountain accord is that what you mean? Yeah

Yeah, within the mountain accord it agreed that the wilderness boundary should get adjusted to allow mountain biking on the Bonneville Swirl Line Trail.

Mountain cords sort of set the precedent for, or set that in motion in some ways.

Speaker 1 (25:53.516)

Yeah, exactly. Like I say, Imbo is looking for a poster child to demonstrate what they believed was in opposition to Mike Lee’s Bikes in All Wilderness bill. And they wanted to show Californians that had all quit that you could do this in a smart way. So we wanted to support that. Well, then, of course, got controversial within the community here where

Okay.

Speaker 1 (26:23.822)

Some folks that had been part of the Mountain Accord said, everything needs to get done all at once. You shouldn’t do piecemeal work on the Mountain Accord.

I can see the case for that because if you, it makes it a little bit harder to get the whole thing done if you remove parts from it, which brings up a question for me, which is are there other opportunities similar to what happened with the Bonneville Shoreline Trail Advancement Act, little pieces of wilderness that could be trimmed away to further the compromises and if there was

an adjusted version of the CWNCRA? Are there more parts of the Bonneville Shoreline Trail that could be included in the Act?

yeah, you know, the adjustments that were made as part of IMBA’s Montevil Shoreline Trail Advancement Act, that was supported by Curtis, or Senator Curtis. That was great, but it was done at a time when the forest service was tasked.

to put together the map to adjust it. And it was done pretty well, but imperfectly. So there’s actually some, now we’ve come to discover some of the land owners whose property that we thought we could get easements through is probably never gonna happen. And so there’s some more adjustments that would be nice to make. Yeah, so there’s still potential and a need.

Speaker 2 (28:11.416)

So there’s some potential.

Speaker 1 (28:16.102)

for a couple of more tweaks, pretty minor tweaks, a couple of, you know, two, three acres here or there. Like going south from Little Cottonwood Canyon and in between Big and Little Cottonwood Canyon, there’s a landowner owned by a company that is holding this, holding land. They have no intention of ever allowing

Where at?

Speaker 1 (28:44.61)

public access on the land. In fact, they fenced it off and patrol it to prevent access at this stage, much to the chagrin of oaks and cottonwood heights. they said that they don’t plan to do anything with it for probably a couple of decades until they hope that they’ll be able to build on steep hillsides now prohibited and that

most of the members of their board of directors of this multinational company that holds land all over the world, that they wouldn’t even be able to identify Utah on the map. That’s how little, that’s how unimportant it was. And that they wouldn’t give any time to try to deal with land access for the community’s sake, which is disappointing. anyways, trail.

in

Speaker 1 (29:41.976)

would have to go up and around their property. We’re just over the border of what’s now Lone Peak Wilderness. But again, would be such a small chunk, it’d be like a two acre sliver along the boundary of the wilderness. So that still needs to get done.

It kind of seems like every piece that gets done paves the way for the next piece potentially.

Yes, well, and maybe in a broader brush view of the Mountain Accord and trying to achieve the goals of the Mountain Accord in what’s done within the CWNCRA legislation versus getting things done outside of the legislation. I’m personally of the mind of trying to have, instead of trying to have one bill that does everything all at once, that that’s actually gonna be

an impediment to getting things done and that if we can nibble them off bite by bite, that’s gonna be easier than trying to eat the whole elephant at once.

Because you’re saying bite by bite, you’re still implementing the mountain accord.

Speaker 1 (30:56.482)

Yeah, if we can get the mountain accord implemented bit by bit and get it done, that’s great. That meets the objective. as opposed to trying to say, we’re not going to do anything until we can get one piece of legislation that will do everything. That will just lead to further impediments along the way and maybe never get it done.

And I understand, you I certainly understand people’s perspective that yeah, maybe you do bit by bit. There might be some pieces that are important to people that unto themselves, their little bit may never get done. But you know, if it’s warranted and it’s valid and reasonable, then I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t be able to get all of the pieces of the accord done by bit by bit.

Yeah.

But certainly, well, you were at the, stakeholders council retreat last week where, you know, the point was brought up with respect to the, CWNCR legislation that one of the pieces of the grand compromise to get the mountain accord approved and the CWNCRA.

Concept initiated didn’t have that name at the time Was that there’d be good morning. How you doing?

Speaker 1 (32:39.886)

that we would, the ski resorts, you know, if the wilderness advocates were going to get hundreds of acres of more wilderness included, the ski resorts wanted to be able to trade their base areas where most of their parking is and hotels and restaurants and ski lodges are. They wanted to get that.

Exchange so that they owned that land rather than the Forest Service owning that land because then they change They’d want to make on their base area Would have to go through Forest Service NEPA in approvals and it made it very difficult and It would make sense to have the Forest Service own the land that was more Like National Forest open lands apply in the mountains, but then

That whole deal fell through. So now the question that we brought up were the points that we brought up during the stakeholders council retreat was that we need the ski resorts to be in and supportive of the legislation if we wanted to go forward.

Seems like a critical piece.

And so you have to ask yourself the way it is right now, what’s in it for the ski resorts? And right now, basically nothing. So we’re not going to get the critical support until we figure out what’s needed. How you doing? Good. Good see you. Good see you. so it’s a challenge.

Speaker 2 (34:14.456)

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (34:35.148)

Maybe with change in NEPA rules, maybe with change in forest service management, who knows, maybe we’ll be able to revive that in some way. But that’s a critical piece.

They would probably need those land exchanges. Yeah, or some something.

Something something something yeah doesn’t have to be the land exchanges said be nice. That’s what they wanted But maybe there’s something else that could be substituted for that but We need to we need to figure out what that is and help them out

I see.

Speaker 2 (35:15.854)

So shifting gears a little bit, just since we touched on the stakeholders retreat and stuff here, you’ve been the chair of the Stakeholders Council, right, for a while now.

Two years, two long years.

And your term is up the end of the month basically, right?

Yes, exactly. Another two weeks, three weeks.

You sat in on basically every single meeting on every committee and as well as the larger stakeholder council meetings and board meetings. It’s a lot of work. What are you happy about that has happened over the last two years? What have you accomplished over the last two years or what progress do you think has been made?

Speaker 1 (36:06.862)

When it comes down to concrete things that we can say got done, it’s hard to put your finger on, but from the process point of view and the relationship and dialogue point of view, a lot’s happened. And that is in those two years that we set in motion to have these system groups before when the stakeholders council first

It’s okay.

Speaker 1 (36:36.086)

was formed, we’d quarterly, I think. So only a few times a year. And those meetings turned into presentations. Somebody from the forest service would come or somebody from watershed would come or, know, we’d hear a presentation and then somebody would try to dominate the meeting and

have some proposal that they wanted us all to consider and negotiate. And it was frustrating for people because they didn’t feel like there was any dialogue happening where people could share ideas and thoughts. so now we’ve kind of cut off the presentations and by having our four systems groups.

Meet you know, there’s lot more discussion and dialogue about What we should do with the mountains how we can what’s needed to maintain a healthy business environment for stable sustainable businesses in the central wasatch what’s needed to sustain and improve recreation in the mountains

What are the issues for improving the environment and measuring that, documenting environmental things? And of course the transportation issues, trying to solve the transportation issues is a huge thing, but they’re all intertwined, right? The transportation is needed for the economy and for recreation.

Recreation is what drives the economy for the most part. And so everything’s all tied together, but having these separate groups, they’re, it makes the meeting small enough that people can develop interpersonal relationships and better understand people and their viewpoints. And everyone can have time to speak and discuss issues. And that was a critical element.

Speaker 2 (38:43.362)

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (38:59.692)

Way back at the start of the mountain accord, when Ralph Becker and Mayor Ralph Becker from Salt Lake City and Mayor Ben McAdams with Salt Lake County conceived of them, whole mountain accord process was they wanted people to stop having competing legislation, to stop having competing lawsuits. And it was so acrimonious that

that, you know, the, some of the leaders of the environmental community really couldn’t barely stand to be in the same room with the ski resort executives. know, people just wouldn’t talk and I know it turned into more competition as opposed to collaboration. so that was, know, Ben McAdams, his theme throughout his

term as mayor of Salt Lake County was the future we create. Now, how do we work together to make a future that we can all have consensus on? Right? We might not all be able to, we’re not all going to love all the parts of it, but we can live with it. We can understand other people’s points of view and work together.

And so I think at this stage of the the central Wasatch commission and the stakeholders council serves that purpose to be able to get at least ongoing regular discussion of all these issues. Yeah.

So that makes a lot of sense to me. It’s kind of unquantifiable what, so you started out saying it’s hard to come up with a solid thing that’s happened, but this sort of dialogue is a critical piece of making concrete things happen and you can’t like put numbers on it exactly.

Speaker 1 (41:08.27)

Yeah, right. But, you know, but, we’ve helped to nibble away at some of the issues on the mountain of cord. as I said earlier, trying to make everything happen in, in one swoop fell swoop is difficult, but things are happening. And so for example, the, after four years now, I think of working on it.

the forest service with the aid of Salt Lake County for financing and a consultant is finally going to get the Tri-Canyon Trails Master Plan done. That was, in my view, right, I’m trails geek. But a lot of people are in, you know, love trails for hiking and biking and running and everything that trails do to connect.

people to the natural environment and the land and mental and physical well-being. But so finally this Tri-Canyon Trails Master Plan that was conceived in the Mountain Accord is going to get done at the end of this year. So that’ll be great. That’ll be an opportunity to do a lot of trail projects to not only improve recreation for people. Good morning. But also

to protect the environment because anyone that’s been up around secret lake or up at Lake Mary or up around Lake Blanche knows that, you know, a lot of the areas people love to hike up to high up on lakes, but then there’s no trails that loop around the lakes. So people just kind of go hither and yon.

And a lot of the area has been denuded of vegetation. Yeah. So it’s not good for the environment, but how do you get people to not do that? Well, so one of the concepts in the drafts of the Tri-Canyon Trails Master Plan and was in part conceived by and pushed forward by the visitor use study, which right was the visitor use study.

Speaker 1 (43:34.134)

was conceived of and implemented by the CWC Stakeholders Council.

So that’s an example right there.

So that right. The CWC stakeholders council, uh, pushed forward this visitor use study. One of the elements was that the high Alpine lakes were being denuded by not having loop trails around them. And another piece of the mountain accord, the tri-canyon trails master plan, uh, saw that and see that, you know, recognize that that’s a smart thing to do for recreation and conservation.

And so hopefully those projects are now going to get done.

That’s really a useful example of how conversation turns into a project like the visitor use study informs decisions.

Speaker 1 (44:31.48)

Yeah, right. things are finally gonna get done. good things take time. And so just like this section of Bonneville storyline trail, you know, I worked on this for two decades, two decades of meetings and trying to get land purchases. And finally things happened. Finally it happened. now we’re walking on it. Well, the same way with some of these.

on it.

Speaker 1 (45:00.706)

projects like trying to protect the high alpine lakes in the central Wasatch. Yeah. It’s from the conception of the mountain accord through the visitor use study through the tri-canyon trails master plan. And then, good morning. And then through actual construction of those loop trails, guess what? It’s going to be two decades, but it will get done. Yeah.

I think it’s pretty hard for people to wrap their heads around that sort of time scale, especially everybody’s attention spans I think are shorter than they used to be.

You know, everything moves so fast and we’re just bombarded with information. So comprehending a project that takes 20 years sort of feels unfathomable. But what I’m hearing from you is you’re saying it’s worth it.

Yeah, it’s worth it. You know, you got to go for the, the, the long war, right? It’s not the, there’s lots of battles along the way, lots of discussion, lots of controversy, people with different viewpoints, but you know, that’s part of the stakeholders council is to get people to discuss issues and viewpoints. in the long run, things finally get done. And I guess that’s helps, you know, when the,

folks that have been around for a while. Now that I’m on Medicare and Social Security, now my perspective changes. I joke, I only measure things in decades and half decades. Yeah, that was a decade and a half ago. Yeah, that was three decades ago. Because you stop counting the years. After a while, you realize that we as individuals

Speaker 1 (46:59.244)

are just a speck of time and I’m a fan of reading history and historical fiction and things and you realize that, you know, so many generations have gone, come before us and will follow behind us to get things done and a couple of decades to get projects done is no longer.

seeming like a crazy idea.

So you really need the long view to do work like the CWC is doing.

Exactly. So there may be frustration on the CWNCRA. Like, gosh, CWC has been around for a decade and we’ve made little headway of getting that legislation to move forward. But the other perspective is we’ve only been around for a decade. It’s not that long. It’s relatively a young organization still. And so if it takes

That’s.

Speaker 1 (48:06.51)

20 years to get the legislation pushed through, you know, that’s probably what it’s going to take. Yeah. no, it, month to month, year to year, it may seem frustrating that things don’t move along as quickly as we’d like, but in the big perspective, you know, things, things get better. and here’s another good example of

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (48:36.684)

When we built the Parley’s Point section of the Bonneville shoreline trail, some of that was done with federal highway administration, recreational trails program, grant money. And because it’s federal money, you have to do NEPA, federal NEPA, even though it wasn’t a federal land. was land owned by Salt Lake city and Salt Lake County, the developer that’s building the homes below.

donated what was it, 190 acres to open space as part of a settlement agreement to allow them to build. the NEPA, one of the aspects is you have to go through the historical review, you know, as well as all the other things like dust and hazardous waste and water impacts and things.

So on the historical view, the state office of historical preservation gets involved and they had to document all the Jeep roads and motorcycle trails of the hillside. I really have a hard time wrapping my head around why documenting 60 year old Jeep trails is of historical significance, but anything over 50 years falls in the category.

where they have to do a historical evaluation. That was kind of funny in that sense. It was a little painstaking and frustrating at the time. But the point was that three used to be people four wheeling and riding motorbikes on the foothills of Salt Lake City.

And right. now there’s controversy over improving the, the hiking, running and biking trails. But remembering that it was only a few decades ago that people used to go jeeping up there.

Speaker 2 (50:25.538)

Kind of hard to imagine that now,

Speaker 2 (50:43.288)

This is an example of how things get better and unfortunately our memories are sort of short and we don’t remember that. But things do get better.

Yeah, exactly. Black chin hummingbirds and some lazly buntings.

I I heard one. didn’t see it though.

the

They start to show up in the spring.

Speaker 2 (51:16.578)

That’s what I noticed as well.

And so another example of that and the impacts of long-term thinking of like the Mount Olympus wilderness area was conceived to, you know, in part to stymie helicopter skiing all over, right? Folks didn’t want to see the helicopter skiing take over every inch of our greatest snow on earth.

And the at that time was really still a developing community around backcountry skiing kind of stuff. But also for summer use, places like Neff’s Canyon, people used to go jeeping up Neff’s Canyon, which is like kind of up behind my house along the flank of Mount Olympus there. Right? Look at that view.

So people used to go jeeping up there and ride motorcycles and it was causing a lot of erosion and huge ruts in the land. And one section of trail would get washed out. So people would blaze a new loop trail around it and people would find old mining roads, At one point there was mining roads that went up through there.

Speaker 1 (52:43.776)

Yeah, there was.

been in there and I noticed that the trails do go all over so that kind of explains that.

Yeah, exactly. Like up Thomas Fork, there’s an old mining road that goes up through there. And it, so as a result of the establishment of the mountain Olympus wilderness area, all of that motorized use got cut off. And now, you know, the land’s getting restored. Now, you know, you can tell that there was old roads in areas, but for recreational value, it’s.

for people hiking and running. It’s great not to have motorcycles and jeeps up there.

Speaker 2 (53:34.488)

Stop in the shade here for a

You can step a foot forward and then you’ll get in the shade too.

All right. Here’s a question for you in that vein related to what you’re talking about. If people are having a hard time with long-term thinking, do you have any recommendations for how people can develop a practice of long-term thinking in order to have more trust in these processes that things are actually going to happen and get better?

That’s too to No, I guess, you know, I’ll turn it around to, you know, a well-educated population is really important and learning to like to read history. Yeah. And maybe changing the way we teach history. All right. Might help instead of people memorizing dates of battles and who the generals were instead of people through our educational system.

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (54:36.91)

read more broadly about the world history. Then you develop a perspective. The old saying, those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. We need a well-educated population to be able to make good decisions. And by being more broadly read in history, I think you can develop that sense at a younger age, where you don’t have to be on Medicare.

to finally have an appreciation for the long run. But when you’re, you know, when you’re 32 years old, it’s hard to have a perspective of decades. so I guess that’s all I can say is, you know, through education and learning about history and taking the time to read about the history, do then have an appreciation for and an understanding.

Totally.

Speaker 1 (55:34.316)

of how long things take. people like you read about the 30 years war in Europe, you know, and it doesn’t mean much, right? But then you say, okay, now 30 years for a conflict to get resolved is not crazy, right? Because there’s lots of conflicts that we’ve seen that just, you know, take a long time to work through and resolve and get things done. So, yeah.

wondering the geologic time scale is a whole other thing.

That’s right. You ever read the John McPhee books?

Yeah, I’m familiar with John McPhee.

Yeah, so I’ve read all those. Yeah, I like to kind of think in geologic history time, you know, over the billions of years and the hundreds of millions of years and the, you know, the Wausage fault and the uplifting of these mountains is relatively young. It’s only what 20 million years and the latest uplift process was only 5 million years ago. That’s really recent, you know, in geologic time.

Speaker 2 (56:36.802)

compared to the rock you find at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

Yeah, right. Or compared to the Rocky Mountain Uplift or the Appalachian Mountains. grew up in upstate New York in the Adirondack Mountains, which are some of the oldest mountains in the continental United States. And there you can find rock, know, granitic rock with crystals in it that are, I think the age of some of those are dated at like three and a half billion years old.

that’s really old rock. Right. Yeah. And so but in those mountains used to be you twenty two thousand feet high they estimate and now are worn down to be only four thousand feet high. In only the lower core of the granitic center of the mountains is around it all. As opposed to these mountains that still have sedimentary rock and that’s been transformed into quartzite.

And of course, you know, we have this really interesting geology here where like little Cottonwood Canyon, then the last glaciation scraped away a bunch of the quartzite and sandstone and has exposed the granitic base in the canyon, made the U-shaped canyon. So it’s all pretty interesting that people should spend more time at, you ever go to Liberty Park and go to the seven?

canyons Water play area there. Yeah, you’ll be bringing your young kid there you play they used to have Little balls that would go down the water and my son would spend an hour throwing balls into the water and watching them come down the the the canyons and there was I believe there there’s a little exhibit on that talks about the geology of the canyons how you know from above the

Speaker 2 (58:12.76)

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (58:38.952)

avenues and in through there where it’s sedimentary rock and then you get into the more uplifted areas here where it’s transformed into a quartzite and then all the way into little cottonwood canyon where the glaciers have scraped away that surface rock down to the granite so it’s you know it’s interesting geology and you’ll you’ll get to spend hours and hours there with your

that

these days. Yeah, right. Exactly. So that’s you know, the whole you know, Central Waushev’s Commission and Mountain Accord and all that, you know, at least people are talking. There’s dialogue. People understand each other better. And as the saying goes, you know, we discover that we have a lot more in common than we have in difference. Yeah, you know, sure. Dave Fields with Snowbird.

wants to preserve and protect the natural environment too. He’s a nature lover. His wife, Melissa, is on the Cottonwood Heights Trails Committee and is a lover of hiking and nature. And nobody wants to see that part of our world destroyed and paved over. But people do want to solve the problems before us.

with respect to the ski resort businesses of, gosh, know, how do we resolve the transportation issues? How do we push the envelope to finally get investment and made to get those things resolved? And it’s, you know, slow and steady and maybe it may seem like crazy world sometimes when there’s this idea off in left field and this other idea off in right field. And how do we pull it together towards the center?

Speaker 1 (01:00:39.682)

You know, how do we reach compromise on those things? But sometimes it’s a little bit of that spit balling of ideas of, things that a lot of people might not understand or things are, unrealistic to then see that maybe those soul push the envelope and finally lead to investment in things that are rational and reasonable. And people can work consensus around. So, you know, you see that in a lot of fields of.

politics and things where there’s the far left and the far right, but the majority of the people are in the middle of the bell curve.

Yeah, it seems like CWC is corralling those people.

Yeah, right. And to some extent, Carl Fisher, who used to be the head of the Save Our Canyons organization, how he used to put it to me was that, you know, there’s a pendulum of ideas and there’s in his perception, folks that would want to pave over paradise. there’s and so he thought, you know, the Save Our Canyons thing was sent to

be so far to the other side, to the environmental side, that he wasn’t gonna give an inch on any issue because he thought any inch that he gave up would just move the center line the other way. But in reality, the purpose of the Central WallSatch Commission and the Mountain Accord is to bring everyone toward the center and recognize that we have a lot more in common than we have in difference. hopefully that happens.

Speaker 1 (01:02:21.172)

At times, know, there’s, we’re doing the current moment with some of the parking proposals in Big Cottonwood Canyon, it may seem like people are going off in the left field or right field without considering the middle, but hopefully through dialogue and meetings and talking, different proposals, you know, we’ll move toward the center line and figure out how to get things done.

and thinking long term.

and thinking long term but but but in the same light. Getting things done in the short term getting yeah actually get making progress on these issues. Like trying to get the- you know enhanced busing systems moving along and- in trying to free up the money to do that. You know. It’s it seems frustrating month to month how.

the legislature has approved almost $200 million to address the issue, but it’s caught up in lawsuits and it can’t be spent. It seems so frustrating, like, okay, this next season, we want to have 10 minute bus service. We don’t want half hour bus service. Let’s get on with this people. I don’t want to have that take two decades to get done, but that’s the frustration, right? Is to try to…

keep that long-term perspective. And it’s easy to get frustrated with the short-term.

Speaker 2 (01:03:56.248)

Well, should we start moving back down?

it

see that over there.

Speaker 1 (01:04:28.974)

It’s pretty fun. who should I find when a friend and I are climbing up the Apollo chute to ski down and you rarely see other people up there. And so here comes two guys skiing down the Apollo chute. And who would it be but my CWC stakeholder co-chair, Tom Daigle. Of course. Of course. Where else are we going to meet?

up in some desperate shoot up on the side of Mount Olympus. Because we were this trail that we’re on now, the Bonneville Shoreline Trail loops all the way around and then cuts over the Salt Lake Overlook point there at the end of the pipeline trail and then makes its way down into Mill Creek Canyon.

I’ll ask you one last question just as we walk down.

Cause I’ve been thinking about trying to interview people in this way, know, and like walking in general. And everybody has a different relationship with the Wasats. You’ve been here for a certain amount of time. Some people have been here their whole lives. And you touched on it just a second ago. Everybody loves the place. Even if it seems like, even if you, may think that they

I want to ask you about the unquantifiable piece. What does it mean to you? And answer that question in way without using any kind of numbers or quantifiable language. What does it really mean to you?

Speaker 1 (01:06:09.806)

guess the you know the whole central Wasatch means to me the the natural landscape and the wildness of these mountains. When I used to live in Marin County where it was you know 60 % of the county was open space it was great hiking and biking and things there but we had to drive three and a half hours to get to the Sierra Nevada where there were real mountains.

or to get down toward Mount Whitney and in through those zones, Kings Canyon National Park, you’d have to drive six hours to get there. here you can live within half an hour of the mountains and be in real wilderness and wild lands and beautiful mountains. We have the greatest snow on earth. We’ve got

amazing wildflowers that are, you know, so much better than most places in the country. And it’s just food for the soul and the body to be able to be out and hike and ski and recreate or just stroll about and

do your thoughtful meditation or whatever your personal vibe is to have this greatest recreation amenity available to us. It’s just right, it’s amazing. There’s not many places in the country or the world where you have this at your doorstep with a city that’s also large enough to have.

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:08:02.124)

great music venues and restaurants and and all the all the trappings of a big city but then have this also available to you at the same time. Mm So, I I guess that’s that’s what this means to me. It’s just the

such accessible recreation and availability to the natural environment is just an amazing thing to have.

What would your life be like without it if you just lived in a place that didn’t have something like this? Could you even imagine that?

All right,

yeah, right. Then you would be, you know, we we’d be in one of this dystopian worlds where you’d have to sit in your computer with your 3d goggles on so that you could experience the, the, the beauty of the Alps or the Rocky mountains or the Wasatch. Right. It just wouldn’t be the same. So at least for me, you know, I there’s, there’s lots of people that are city folk.

Speaker 1 (01:09:25.57)

that just love their cities and all the things, you know, going out to breakfast and doing all the city things all the time. And so everyone’s different. But for me personally, you know, I live for the outdoors and recreating outdoors and being immersed in nature. So that’s, guess, my soul. I grew up on a farm.

a dairy farm too, was 10 years old and lived in the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York where there was real mountains, although not as big as this, but there were mountains with cliffs and wild lands that were just 10 minutes from my house. that’s kind of been part of my life for my whole life.

When I moved from upstate New York to Marin County to San Rafael in the Bay Area, was kind of in the same zone where I lived in a neighborhood that had open space, ridges on both sides. The neighborhood was only, I think, like three blocks wide, this long strip going up this valley. And there was trail running and hiking and mountain biking up the…

up the ridges and you could go all the way from my house and jump on a trail and get all the way to Point Reyes National Seashore with only crossing like three roads. But basically being on trail for the whole way for 25 miles across the Marin Peninsula. So that’s just me.

These almost look like Utah jennipers.

Speaker 1 (01:11:18.284)

They are. I believe they are Utah Juniper.

a lot of Utah junipers around here it’s simply more rocky mountain junipers

I assume I think these are you. You know they’re they’re. In the wall set so they get more water. And they’re not all twisted and

different than they do in Canada.

Yeah, when I was doing the layout of the trail, I got through here because of that. This little grove of juniper, this would be a cool place for the trail to cut through.

Speaker 2 (01:11:56.214)

I was just up here the other day and I had the thought someone made a nice decision to go right between these two.

Exactly. spent, I spent, don’t know too much of my life. No, I spent, I spent a long time hiking back and forth through here trying to, your, your Klinometer trail layout process is interesting and fun, but I, you know, you have a Klinometer to measure grades and kind of lay it out on the computer on Google earth and, you can measure grades there, but that it’s not as nuanced.

And then you got to walk it and remeasure and put flagging up and then record your track and then download the track onto the computer and look at it again relative to the original one and adjust the line and then come back out. it’s kind of a little bit of an iterative process of coming out and back and forth to get, because you want to have these grade reversals on the trail so that water drains off. You know, if you have a, if you have a steady grade,

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:13:00.974)

climbing, eventually the trail gets cupped and then the water goes down the trail and then it erodes and becomes less sustainable as when you have a trail that has the rolling up and down on it with a bit of an out slope, then the water goes off the trail and the trail lasts a lot longer.

Thanks for going walking with me and John Knobloch in the Wasatch. The In the Wasatch podcast was created by the Central Wasatch Commission. Learn more about us at cwc.utah.gov. And if you would like to donate to our project work, go to cwc.utah.gov slash contribute. Please also follow us on Instagram, Twitter, threads, Facebook, and TikTok.

at Central Wasatch Commission and hashtag we are the Wasatch. While you’re on our website check out the Central Wasatch Dashboard. A tool for the public, land managers and policy makers to explore the historic and current environmental conditions of the Central Wasatch including air quality, climate, geology and soils, vegetation communities, water, wildlife and humans in the Wasatch. Also, if you haven’t already

learn about the Central Wasatch National Conservation and Recreation Area Act. Emerging from the Mountain Accord, the CWNCRA is a locally driven consensus-based bill aimed at protecting the sources of our drinking water, preserving recreational access for the future, and ensuring enjoyment of the Central Wasatch Mountains in the face of pressures from a growing population. This podcast was envisioned by Lindsay Nielsen and evolved by Mia McNeil.

This episode was recorded, edited, and produced by me, Ben Kilborn, intro music by Andy Noblock, cover art by Madeleine Pettit and Mia McNeil. Thank you to all of the commissioners, the stakeholders, and the Youth Council for your continued support in implementing the Mountain Accord and working toward getting the CWN CRA across the finish line. We can’t thank you enough.