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Speaker 2 (00:00.446)
you can wake up and go out and have what other people would consider to be like the best day ever. And for you, it’s another morning. I have chosen to be here and chosen to stay here despite the problems of Salt Lake and Utah. And there are, it has its problems for sure. But the quality of the recreation and the quality, I think too, of just the mountain environment is so high.

Right.

Speaker 2 (00:29.996)
that it’s really, that’s what has driven me to be an activist here. I just sort of think it’s the right thing to do. Because it’s so fun. It is, I mean it makes, it’s made me who I am.

Why is it the right thing to do?

Speaker 1 (00:55.286)
Welcome to In the Wasatch, a podcast created by the Central Wasatch Commission. I’m your host, Ben Kilborn. 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. Today, we’re going walking with Tom Daigle in the Wasatch. Tom has been involved with the CWC for some time now and has held the Stakeholders Council co-chair role for the last two years. He’s focused a lot of his efforts on Mill Creek Canyon and has a real special affinity for it. So that’s where we went walking. Tom is headed to Europe for the winter. So I wanted to give him the chance to reflect on his time with the CWC.

before crossing the Atlantic. We discussed timely topics like the construction in Upper Mill Creek Canyon, which I’m sure a lot of you have been wondering about or noticed, and the update to the Mill Creek Canyon Shuttle Feasibility Study. Tom has been working on the shuttle project in particular for a really long time. So he’s able to provide this really detailed lowdown on its history. He really knows this stuff. He is…

the guy to talk to about this. We also discuss the possible rescission of the 2001 roadless rule and what that could look like for the Wasatch, what the potential impacts could be to Mill Creek Canyon, but also other places that we all recreate in the Wasatch. And finally, I ask him my favorite question, the question I ask all interviewees, which is, what does the Wasatch mean to you in unquantifiable terms?

Speaker 1 (03:23.03)
I asked this question because I have this gut feeling that there’s something you can’t put your finger on that underpins all the work we do here at the CWC. And I have this feeling that the real meaning of the mountains can’t be measured in like the distance from your front door to a trailhead or in tax revenue dollars. And it’s possible that that special something

will be described differently by different people. And that’s one of the cool reasons to ask everybody that particular question. So Tom, in his unique and surprising way, identifies fun or the ability to have fun so easily, so readily, as the special something that makes the Wasatch the place he wants to call home and has called home for so long. Personally, I think he’s onto something. Fun and

playing our antidotes to maybe the harder parts of life. And here with these incredible mountains in reach, we’re able to have a type of fun that rejuvenates those parts of our spirits that get sort of beat down over time by the fast pace of the world and the relentless news cycles and the internet and the relentless attention economy.

What’s funny though is Tom also admits that for the last 23 years he’s kept this spreadsheet in which he logs nearly every outdoor activity he does. And the title of the spreadsheet, Perfectly, Amazingly, and Ironically is fun. It made me laugh when I reflected on our conversation later and I realized that his spreadsheet is an effort to quantify the unquantifiable.

In any case, I don’t think you’ll be able to listen to this episode without feeling stoked by the end of it. Tom’s excitement sure rubbed off on me. By the end of our walk, I was like, this place is even more incredible than I thought it was. I’m very lucky. And the result of that realization for me is an increased drive to work for the land, you know, protect it. And

Speaker 1 (05:46.004)
an increased drive to do also everything in my power to find time in my life to just get out there and have fun.

Speaker 1 (05:58.648)
Tom, you’ve been the co-chair of the stakeholders council for the last two years and you’ve been involved with the CWC longer than that, right? That’s right. you are stepping down from that role and in fact you’re moving out of the country. And so I just want to give you an opportunity to talk about some of the stuff here in Mill Creek Canyon that you’ve been working on for the last number of years and think about in the context of what

you

Speaker 1 (06:28.302)
you’ve accomplished, what final things you want to say before you’re out of here.

To be sure, think that I think it’s going to be a sort of a temporary leaving. We’ll be back because we love it here. We have lots of friends here. And to be sure, like Mill Creek Canyon is one of the reasons why we live here, because it’s so convenient and it’s so nice. And relative to the cottonwoods, it’s really quiet here. So.

It’s definitely one of the reasons why I like the, I love the Wasatch. Here we are at the closure, the Mill Creek Canyon closure. We’re right near the Winter Gate and it’s closed above this for the next couple of years as they redo the road. They’re widening it and straightening it as per the Forest Service and Salt Lake County’s desire to widen and straighten the road for a variety of reasons. The reason for this is that they wanted to make it safer.

They also saw some places where there was asphalt that was falling into the creek and they wanted it to to fulfill sort of government regulations of lane width. and there were places that anybody who’s gone up Mill Creek Canyon knows where it’s it was quite narrow. They’re now maybe a third of the way through the project. They’ve torn up the whole upper part of the road and they’re

they’ve cleared a lot of trees and they’ve widened the roadbed quite a bit and I they’re going to do the upper half of the canyon this year and lower half of the canyon next year. When it closed for the winter last October it was going to be closed for I think basically two and a half years completely while they do this construction to make it better.

Speaker 1 (08:20.086)
Okay.

Speaker 1 (08:23.822)
So give me the sort of how has CWC and the Stakeholders Council been involved with this flap project?

Yeah, it’s a great question. The stakeholders council when it was formed.

into the shade over here. good idea. get you in the shot too.

Okay, so here we are at the closure. The Winter Gate is just out of sight, another couple hundred yards up, and the parking area is there, the bathrooms. Yeah, what basically happened here is that when the Stakeholders’ Council was formed, there was talk of subcommittees as well. And the very first subcommittee that was created was the Mill Creek Canyon Shuttle Committee.

Okay, I didn’t know that

Speaker 2 (09:05.27)
Yeah, and that was the only subcommittee that was on the Stakeholders Council for quite a while. It eventually morphed into this Mill Creek Canyon committee without the shuttle thing because we realized there were lots of different aspects to Mill Creek Canyon that that committee should, could and should address. And then the shuttle of course came back, has always been part of the equation of the desires for

Since mountain of course.

That’s right, since being in Mountain Corps and even before that too. But independently of the shuttle, the District Ranger had a desire to widen and straighten the road. As part of that, there was going to be shuttle infrastructure, but it was not very specific and they basically used a vehicle, so to speak, called the Federal Lands Access Program, FLAP.

to get money for improving natural lands. And it’s an application that agencies do. In this case, it was a forest service and the county. And they got together to, went together and applied for the grant. was 19 million bucks. Salt Lake County needed a match. I think about 600,000 of that. And they, in order to accomplish this.

It was a little frustrating at the time because there was a hole in order to get to that flap grant application Salt Lake County came up and did a very comprehensive analysis of Mill Creek Canyon and identified like a hundred different things that needed to be done. And it probably probably was something like a hundred million dollars worth of work. And they settled on doing this for 19 or 20 million dollars. And it was a bit frustrating for a lot of people who had

Speaker 2 (10:56.558)
pushed for lot of diff improved in the canyon, service because 19 million waste towards this canyon. the road. But that’s how So the Mill Creek Canyon agency, Salt Lake County and and say,

We got the central Wasatch Commission, the commissioners involved as well with a couple of sort of resolutions that reflected the, what we had learned in working with the county and the forest service. So, Mill Creek Canyon historically has been in management terms, been sort of the third wheel of the Wasatch management because Little Cottonwood, Big Cottonwood are more popular, more people, more issues and

Mill Creek has been a bit more obscure, we were trying, we did then and have continued to try and keep it at the forefront of the Central Wasatches, Central Wasatch Commission’s sort of radar. And we found they, it’s a really important canyon to people in this valley, again, because it’s so convenient and so nice here.

Yeah, I mean so many different uses too. That’s right. that as I’ve been going through the comments for the Mill Creek Canyon Feasibility Study update. And it’s interesting to me how many people picnic up here. And I guess because I haven’t spent that much time picnicking up here, I didn’t realize that that was like such a big use of it, but it really is. Yeah. Yeah. And then people ski, all sorts of different things.

It really is.

Speaker 2 (12:42.05)
Yeah, and picnicking, think, is not as much of a thing as it is in the… or it’s more of a thing here than it is in the cottonwoods. the cottonwoods, you ski, you go hiking, even at place like Reynolds Flat, you go sledding or just walk at Donut Falls. Here, there’s lots of picnic tables and a lot of families come up here for free entertainment to get out of the heat in the summer in particular and hang out in these beautiful trees in the shade to picnic here. So it’s… it provides…

a really wide range of values to people.

So I was going to ask this later but maybe I’ll ask it now. Hold on, actually let’s the truck go by.

Speaker 1 (13:29.218)
You sort of touched on it, but what does Mill Creek Canyon mean to you?

That’s great question. Ever since I moved here, I’ve been here for 25 years. I’ve been coming up here probably a few times a week, mostly because it offers such great quality recreation year round. There are a lot of trails here that are really easy to access. The Forest Service has actually done a great job in improving, in adding and improving the trails. So there’s great mountain biking here. There’s great easy hikes. There’s great challenging hikes.

There is great picnicking, like you, haven’t done a lot of picnicking, but I did take my 90 year old mother up here a lot. And we spent several of her birthdays just like this early September here. And it’s great. The leaves here in the fall are the best in the Wasatch too, I think. in the winter, the Nordic skiing, this is almost the most convenient Nordic skiing up above the gate. It certainly is a great place to walk the dog.

and go for little snow hikes. And then also the backcountry skiing up Porterfork up towards Gobblers, et cetera, is extraordinarily good skiing with a short drive, a slightly longer walk, which I like. So it’s good year round. And even in the shoulder season, sometimes when the central Wasatch, the upper Cottonwoods is too muddy in the spring or the trails are under snow in the early season, down here at the lower elevation,

The trails stay good later in the fall and open up more in the spring. So it literally is great year round. that’s why people really like it here. It does. It does have it all. Including running water. Which is, you know, it’s not a lot of running water, but it’s really nice. I’ve got friends who do this all year round.

Speaker 1 (15:18.03)
It has it all.

Speaker 1 (15:27.214)
can go dunk in there.

Speaker 1 (15:32.136)
Get done with the hike and go cold plunge.

That’s right. That’s right. And people fish in here too. They’re Bonneville cutthroat. In fact, about 15 years ago, they poisoned the whole creek and killed everything in it and then planted the Bonneville cutthroat. It’s a crazy story. Like in order to save it, we have to kill it. But I think it worked actually.

I didn’t know that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:55.584)
Okay, so circling back to flap.

Well, think so there’s a new phase now. They’re working on this canyon. That’s done deal. Yeah. And what’s going on now is that indeed there is going to be some better infrastructure for a potential shuttle to happen here. What happened in the past is that a local development company did a big feasibility study on a shuttle here and came up with a lot of good conclusions.

and that was contracted by Salt Lake County and.

The fair and peers transportation.

That’s right. Fair and Pierce did it. They’re a local sort of consulting development company. And that was in 2012 when it was published. So they did the work probably a year or two in advance of that. It’s now 2025. So it’s old now. And we, meaning the Mill Creek Candy Committee and the CWC staff, just thought it’d be a good idea to get Fair and Pierce to update that study. And Fair and Pierce was, of course, keen for that.

Speaker 2 (17:00.754)
and gave a very reasonable quote to do that and a reasonable timeline. And it was proposed to the Central Watchtower Commission, the commissioners, to spend the money with fair and peers. And they would do the feasibility study for the shuttle. And that would give the Forest Service a huge head start, which the Forest Service needs help these. Given the huge head start in doing the NEPA on the NEPA analysis, National Environmental Policy Act.

days.

Speaker 2 (17:30.08)
in order to facilitate getting a shuttle done. so hopefully we would be doing it in this period of time, this two year span where they’re building this road out. So that when the road opens to the top and the infrastructure is in place and there are big turnarounds for the van and maybe a trailer for mountain bikes, et cetera, that study has all been done and we can sort of plug and play the financings in place for the shuttle, et cetera, to get

the shuttle happening as soon as the road is open. And in order to do that, the Fair and Peers is going to do their study. The Forest Service will be able to use that. They won’t necessarily take everything from it, but it’s a huge head start for the forest. And I think it will be a good jump start to getting the shuttle in. we really need that. Everybody’s known that for years and years that a shuttle

is not only needed here, but it’s actually a great, a very logical place for it. It’s a dead end canyon, just like Zion Canyon is. Where you can go up, turn around and come back down. So it’s an efficient place for a shuttle.

When we were chatting on the drive up here, we mentioned how there was a public comment period for the one of the public comment periods for the flap grant the number one most common comment was People having some reservations about how much the road was going to be widened and then people being in favor or or asking Why don’t we have a shuttle yet something along those lines? Yeah

And that reflects the comments that were done in the NEPA analysis, the public comments that came in as they did the NEPA process for this road winding.

Speaker 1 (19:22.382)
So people want it.

People want it and it’s obvious. The parking up here is limited and the flap grant expansion, the new construction up here is not increasing the net parking places. They are going to make sort of quote illegal parking, places like this where there’s boulders here and that kind of thing, more difficult, which is good. It’ll keep people from parking in the bike lane, et cetera, but it still doesn’t…

take into account the fact that there’s a lot of people who come up here many days in the winter, summer, all seasons, as we talked about, and they come up and there’s no parking places. And so they come up and they try and jam in or they park illegally or they just go, worse, they go up, turn around, drive home and they’ve created traffic, but at least they’re going home disappointed. I mean, it’s a bit of a bummer for everybody involved. So it’s a great place for a shuttle.

And people are like, what do you do about dogs? What do you do about bikes? Well, those are problems for sure, but they’re not unsolvable. They can have dog cages. They can put bikes on racks. The Wasatch shuttle gets hundreds of bikes, cyclists, up to Wasatch, to guardsmen every day with lots of bikes.

Ski racks are not a problem. That’s right, ski racks. One of the big comments that I noticed, and like I said, I’ve been sifting through all those public comments, people want to be able to put their coolers and stuff somewhere. Right, great But that’s another not unsolvable problem. Just think about airport shuttles with shelving and stuff. would work.

Speaker 2 (21:00.846)
Yeah, you can come up here and have a full picnic with a cooler and a couple of duffel bags and it’d be fine. Yeah, totally fine Yeah, I think it’s great that the that the central wasatch Commission staff got this and pushed it the some the The Mill Creek Canyon Committee, which I’ve been on since the inception was instrumental in getting making that happen, too The Forest Service initially supported the concept of the shuttle and then they kind of nagged against it and they said well, there’s no

you didn’t hit the parking well enough and the financing. And actually we’ve since gone back, we meaning the committee members have gone back and they’ve done, they’ve talked to Skyline High, Granite School District and UDOT. And then the financing, know, yeah, it’s not cheap. Vans aren’t cheap, especially kind of specialty ones that, you know.

12 to 15 passengers.

Sure. And I think it would be a million or two dollars to get it up and going for the first year and then less, of course, after that. But, the grand scheme of things, honestly, a million or two dollars relative to the budgets of cities and such is not that much money. And again, it would be a huge use. You know, and then there’s talk about like, well, how are we going to offset the fees that are coming in at the the kiosk down there? Like, well, that kiosk is still going to be going. It’s not going to be a mandatory shuttle. People are going to use it.

So there will still be fees coming in and the shuttle doesn’t have to be free like we can charge people for the shuttle too and that’s part of it that’s gonna be part of the study as well.

Speaker 1 (22:29.966)
Yeah, that’s part of the scope. so far what I’m seeing from comments is people are willing to pay the same amount as the fee they’re currently paying for the booth if it replaced that fee basically. Yep. Yeah. So that’s interesting. I don’t know. I didn’t know what people were going to say.

And I think it’s emblematic really of the central Wasatch Commission itself, the Stakeholders’ Council and the subcommittees. This is a good example of how an idea sort of germinated in the committee of the Stakeholders’ Council. It was brought to the broader Stakeholders’ Council, which is whatever 35 people with sort of interests all over the Wasatch. And then it was brought to the commissioners themselves. The commissioners are mostly mayors and political leaders.

around here and they don’t necessarily know what’s going on. You can’t really expect the mayor of Sandy to have intimate knowledge of this canyon. She’s the mayor of Sandy or the mayor of Park City or whatever. So we have, but they’re relying on the stakeholders council that gives them sort of advice. And honestly, the central watch that the commissioners were reluctant to really lead on this. They were like, well, we should only pay half of it because other, there are other agencies, know, the watch that’s front regional council, Salt Lake County, Salt Lake City, who

who we want to, we think they should be part of it too. And my argument to the commissioners was, look, this thing was established for you to be the leaders, to show initiative and lead the various charges here. So this is an opportunity to lead and the others will follow. And I was disappointed when it looked like they weren’t gonna do that.

and then really pleased when they changed their minds and said, we’re going to go ahead and fund this, this $35,000 for the updated study on the shuttle. then from there, again, that’ll be the jumpstart to spending more money and a bit of time, et cetera, to really make it happen.

Speaker 1 (24:34.686)
One of the questions I was going to ask you is what the role, how does the stakeholders council work in terms of informing the board? And you really just sort of answered that question saying that this project is emblematic of the way that the stakeholders council works.

I agree that that is a good example and it’s it’s it’s challenging because the Stakeholders Council is made up of everything from ski resort managers to forest people to citizens, land, know, homeowners, landowners, etc. So it’s sometimes hard to gain consensus with people that may have contradictory interests. But what happens is, you know, the sort of the committee comes up with a proposal for the Stakeholders Council and then

it gets brought up to the Stakeholders’ Council, which is kind of a big challenging group sometimes, depending on the issue. But come together and sort of majority rules and people are really willing to work to come to agreements. And as always, you have to kind of, you know, a little bit of push, a little bit of give, a little bit of take, and it tends to work. But then finally, it ends up being a resolution that is sent to the commissioners and that’s…

a really important sort of document, you know, that a lot of time is spent giving like a page or page and a half or whatever summary of what we’ve been discussing and trying to get them to sort of understand the magnitude of this. And we don’t do it all the time. It happens, you know, a few times a year on issues that we really think are important. And I think if you started doing resolutions all the time, you’d just be like, oh, it’s another resolution. But if you do it once a quarter or something,

Then it’s like the then the commissioners will really take a hard look at that more impactful. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And honestly, I mean, I don’t say this lightly, but it gives them something to do and something to kind of like focus on because a lot of what we talk about here in the Central Wasatch Commission and the Stakeholders Council, a lot of it’s sort of kind of theoretical. Like, you know, we got to get going on this on the Central Wasatch legislation. And that’s great. We got to do that. But

Speaker 1 (26:26.52)
That’s right.

Speaker 2 (26:51.072)
It’s kind of like too big of a project, too far out there. And these resolutions usually, because of the intimacy of the stakeholders and the committees, we can get to a spot quickly that is sort of an intensive moment in time where we really feel like we represent our respective constituents and can create some really good change.

Quickly, yeah, I mean, I’ve seen you guys discuss something, come up with a resolution to bring to the board within like a couple weeks or something like that. So in some cases, quickly it’s like.

Sure, sure. Yeah, that’s right. And I think that it depends a little bit on the nature of the issue. Sure. This one was a bit more complex and took a bit more time to sort of sort out. You know, think there’s been some, there’s been some, there was one, the most recent one was about a proposal by Solitude in this parking lot up in, you know,

That’s the one that I’m talking about. It was just like, it seems so urgent. This is happening now. We gotta say something now.

And it was pretty clear to all the stakeholders that it really needed to be done. There was very clear consensus. even though the issue, of course, is complex, we were able to address it fairly quickly because it’s complex in its execution, but the concept itself is very simple. Parking lot, aspen trees, wildness, that was the thing.

Speaker 2 (28:27.228)
This Mill Creek Canyon deal was a bit more complex.

Yeah. Maybe we could walk a little bit. Sure. Let’s dig a little bit more into the stakeholders council stuff in general. So I asked John Knoblack your

fellow chair there in the stakeholders council over the last two years. I asked him this question of what has the stakeholders council accomplished over the last two years that he was proud of and he had a really interesting answer which is that it’s kind of hard to point to really material things from time to time.

but he feels like the conversation and the sort of immaterial, interpersonal stuff moves everything towards something actually happening all the time. And so I want to ask you the same question of what you’ve accomplished or what you feel like the Stakeholders Council has accomplished over the last two years that you feel particularly proud of.

Well, it’s a it is a great question usually, know, John and I I think are very are similar in that we like to we like to get things done right and he is Right that there isn’t a lot that we’ve that is concrete like we can’t necessarily say we’ve done this and this and this but

Speaker 2 (29:52.104)
I have learned that patience with all this stuff that we’re dealing with, national forests, local politics, federal politics, public lands, et cetera, it’s a long game. You really need to be patient. that if you talk and establish relationships where people are willing to discuss

issues and be open to viewpoints that are contradictory to themselves, you’re laying the groundwork for stuff to happen in the future. And I think this Mill Creek deal is a good example of that. They know it was frustrating for me, working on this flap grant thing, because I didn’t feel like the Forest Service was really listening to anybody. They were just forging ahead. But we did get them to make a few changes, them and the county. And that was basically a function.

of us laying that groundwork for a relationship. So, you know, remember Becky Hasee, the district ranger, you know, at one point she gave us a really like a half an hour sort of lecture on outhouses and how they were put in or how their expense, how they were approved and then how they were built and what their expenses were, et cetera, et cetera. And it was all like, oh boy, that, you know, it gave the committee and the stakeholders

group a sense of like, well, it’s not quite as simple as just throwing up a honey bucket. You got it. You know, there’s a lot to it. That said, like, it’s really necessary to do that. And let’s sort of keep that at the forefront and make that happen because there’s, you know, it’s you know, good waste management is an important aspect of popular use of public lands.

But that’s a good example. I would say that I’d love to say that though we’ve done this and that and got this pass and that thing purchased and all that, but we haven’t accomplished much that we can, I think sort of say, support us taking the ground. Yay, we did this. That said, really, personally feel like when I got the email, say looking for public comments on that flap, sorry, on the shuttle.

Speaker 2 (32:19.758)
updated study to me personally that represented a win because I was I thought okay that’s a good example of patience got us to this point where something’s actually gonna happen and there’s probably that’s probably the beginning of seeing a shuttle really happen here after years of talking about it I really think that will now

Now I think it’ll happen. A year ago, was like, that shuttle thing’s dead. These guys are not willing, nobody is willing to step up for this and therefore it’s gonna die. And I’d really give a lot of credit to Lindsay and Sam for those two, if nothing else, and there’s a lot else out there, but those two are persistent.

yeah.

And they’re very professional, and they’re very nice, and they make everybody feel good. But they kind of keep nudging and keep pushing gently. Yeah, it really does. And again, the Central Watchtower Commission is made up of a bunch of mayors who are worried about keeping cops happy and getting the garbage picked up and that kind of thing in their respective towns. So this kind of stuff is not at the forefront.

That’s what it takes.

Speaker 2 (33:48.994)
That said, they make a big deal out of making all the meetings and opining. But I think that sometimes it might be sort of an adjunct kind of thing for them. So they’re trying to balance the needs of their respective constituents with the demands of the central Wasatch and

I think it’s probably easy to kind of go, I don’t really know a lot about that. That’s right. That’s right.

So that’s where the Stakeholders Council comes in. it sounds to me like one of reasons the Stakeholders Council works so well is because it’s comprised of so many different peoples with different viewpoints, different backgrounds. Is that what really makes it work? Yeah. aspect of what?

I think so, yeah. It started out with not only a couple of the resort managers on the stakeholders council, but also Nathan from Ski Utah. UDOT was also part of it. The Forest Service also part of it. And, they, all of those people, and I say people cause they’re the individuals who, you know, they all are still willing to engage and are happy to chat. They don’t have the time.

necessarily devote to say chairing a committee or something, they’re still willing to pick up the phone, willing to talk and listen to what is going on from the stakeholders council and they respect the institution there and I think still see it as a vehicle for the vehicle, honestly, to finding some resolution to the myriad of issues that are happening in the Wasatch.

Speaker 1 (35:40.598)
So other than those groups or people that you just mentioned, are there any groups or people you feel like are missing from the stakeholders council that you wish would be on there?

Those are the big ones. UDOT and the Forest Service are the big ones. You can almost say that without those entities represented, like this is a fool’s errand. But again, I think that there is still enough of a rapport for there to be, you know, continue to be negotiations and agreements struck.

despite the fact that they aren’t part of it. UTA is another one, but I think that Carlton Christensen, he represents UTA, and he’s been with the UTA forever. I think that there’s, if there wasn’t any kind of relationship there, I think it would be a fool’s errand, as it is, the CWC has the respect of those guys. They’ll pick up the phone when they, when.

CWC calls I’ll pick up the phone and that to me is worth a lot. Okay and then on top of that there is also the relationships of the CWC and the commissioners themselves and the state legislature which of course is super important and our representatives meaning Curtis, John Curtis in particular.

Yeah, we can pause here just because you mentioned skiing up in upper Porter Fork. Yes, we can kind of see some of that.

Speaker 2 (37:18.67)
That’s Mount Raymond up there. The slabs of Mount Raymond. Yep, Raymond Glade is illuminated there well. I love that run. The skiing in Porter Fork is, once you get past the end of the road, is kind of not quite for the faint of heart. There was a fatal, an avalanche fatality up there on what I think a lot of people consider to be sort of the gentle terrain up to the pass. So there’s a lot of avalanche activity up here, but it is great skiing. not that I would ever admit that.

Actually, it’s terrible skiing. should all stay away. Yeah. Yeah, terrible.

Alexander Basin also bad. Did you look at that map that I made? No, sorry. There was a, you know, I downloaded that layer, the 2001 roadless inventory layer, and I superimposed it over the proposed CWN CRA. Yep. And it’s virtually the same land. Wow. So with a few exceptions and much of Mill Creek. Yep.

be impacted by that. And I was just wondering if you have any thoughts.

I do have some thoughts. The roadless plan was established in 2001 and that was not long after I moved here and I was sort of just all kind of a gog at all the recreation opportunities here. I didn’t really realize that that went that that happened and it went in and how much it affected us here. That said over time I realized that a good example is that the Big Water trails, much beloved Big Water trails up in the upper canyon of Mill Creek

Speaker 2 (38:54.658)
Those used to be motor trails and Jeep trails actually. that’s how they were developed. they’ve now become exclusively mountain bike and hiker trails. theoretically, taking away the roadlessness of this area could lead to that happening again. That said, I think that the…

the local forest leadership and the forest is the alpha dog here. the leadership of the last few years would not have approved of that, of anything approaching another road, roads going in up here. And I think, I don’t think they would have done timber harvesting. And I think that the recent change in leadership is going to maintain that, the integrity of that. So,

That’s great. But that is only by chance. And for sure, you know, the way things are going now, it could be that those people are replaced. And that’s, we all know that’s what’s been happening around the country in other aspects where if you’re not on board, then you’re looking for a new job. it’s a big deal for here.

Right.

Speaker 2 (40:20.366)
Again, it seems hard to imagine because this is so small and so steep here that you’re to put roads in. like I said, it was done in the past.

Yeah, mean the Forest Service has put roads everywhere throughout the entire country historically.

You know, the one thing I don’t know if we’re here, I know up over here, I know there are some stacks. there’s one right behind you, a brush stack just past that tree. And the Forest Service had been going in and doing some brush clearing for fire mitigation. And it’s great because it might be clearing out a little bit of extra skiing. Not that I would ever know that or admit that, but.

yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:03.884)
You know, fire is a big deal. On the Mill Creek Canyon Committee is Ed Marshall and he’s the owner and proprietor of the log haven down here. He’s terrified of fire and he should be. And the homeowners up in Mill Creek who have forest service leases and up in Porterfork, those guys are terrified of fire. We all should be worried about it and that’s why they’re doing this. But the roadless thing, actually, I mean, I think everybody knows except for perhaps the people who are actually establishing the policies that like 70 % of forest fires are caused by people.

So you get more people accessing it and you know a very common thing are people dragging their chains you know and sparking along along roads and you know just about a month ago I was at a campsite that some guys drove up to with their with their side by side and such and they left and it was a hot windy day and you know I went and they I realized that their fire was still going and I had to I felt compelled to you know go douse it.

So there’s the argument that rescinding the roadless rule allows easier fire management, but then there’s an irony in the fact that, for example, the Yellow Lake fire in the Uintas last year was sparked by a lumber operation. Yeah. Yeah.

I didn’t know that. Yeah, I mean the the brinehead fire was sparked by a guy who was, you know, I think he was trying to clear some brush out by his house. It was, yeah.

Yeah. So yeah, started by people. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:30.574)
It’s actually started by people. So this rule, rule, recension thing, if recension is the right word, it’s a really big deal. it’s among the many things that are happening these days to public lands, the threats to public lands, that’s the worst one. It really is. And it’s been going on for 25 years and there hasn’t been any problems with it, except for the fact that there are a few people who aren’t making enough money off of timber.

And you know, if you go to places where there’s a lot of timber, you see lots of trucks ripping along with lots of trees. it’s just an act by this administration to have a big impact on the wildness of our public lands. Because they want, they see all public land as being economic.

economically based and it’s unfortunate because they can always generate a lot of statistics about how much money is being made or whatever made or lost or not not realized but you know stuff like this like going out and having a picnic here at the terraces or walking around you know going for a hike going for a mountain bike ride like the you can’t quantify that and the

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:58.06)
the pleas that people have of like, want to get out in nature. I want to enjoy myself. I want to breathe some fresh air. want to get my kids to appreciate recreation, safety, adventure, et cetera. Those aren’t quantifiable and they don’t really necessarily hold up in front of a hearing or whatever. So it’s in a capitalist society that kind of stuff doesn’t fly as well.

Even though it should, it doesn’t. And unfortunately, it doesn’t really resonate with the forest service either. As we talked about on our way up, those public comment periods when people say, don’t widen the road because I like it narrow and cool and shady and scenic and quiet. And they just pretty much are like, yeah, whatever. They just chucked it out because it doesn’t fulfill sort of the categories that they have.

Right. So if you can only fight the quantifiable with the quantifiable, then let’s talk about the CWNCRA really briefly because I’m looking over here and I can see, I think that the upper part of that would actually be part of the new and like dropping down on the other side would be part of that new wilderness. Yep. Yeah. The Grandeur Peak Mount Air wilderness, all of which

is included in the roadless rule. And so that entire thing all the way down to parley’s. So I mean, if we’re talking about like, I just made up that phrase, don’t know if it’s a good phrase, fighting the quantifiable with the quantifiable. You know, if, is that a good way forward? Getting that designation to protect.

You know the irony of this wilderness area is it’s sort of a small to medium-sized wilderness area. the irony about it is that it’s already de facto wilderness. Like if you go up on that ridge line and you try and go anywhere there isn’t, basically even on the ridge where you might see game trails, it is really thick scrub oak. Yeah, and mountain mahogany and stuff. I you can’t, I have…

Speaker 1 (46:10.496)
Yeah, it’s so hard to move to…

Speaker 2 (46:16.042)
I’ve never actually tried to do the whole ridge line, but I have friends who have and then bailed off in tears and dropped a thousand feet through more of the same back down to the shoreline trail. So it’s kind of de facto wilderness. And I swear, if Mike Lee was here, and Mike, you’re listening to this and looking at it, like you could be a hero by protecting what’s already wilderness. And you could say like, this is wilderness because nobody’s ever going to be able to use that. And taking it, making it like,

Right.

Speaker 2 (46:45.708)
you know, taking it out of the roadless thing and you, it, there won’t ever be any development up there. They may be on the, on the parley side, cause that’s mellower terrain. This is quite steep here. the, on the parley side, they could put, there are houses up in those little canyons a little bit and they can push development up a little bit, which honestly, I think people will probably be, people like me would probably be okay with, but not all wilderness

is bad. you’re one those people that thinks wilderness is bad, that’s a good wilderness because nobody goes there anyway. It already is wilderness. And if you are anti-wilderness guy and you’re like, hmm, that could be pretty, that’s a good, that would be a good negotiating piece. Like, hey, I made this Mike Lee, I made this wilderness happen here. Now I got to get these other accommodations to what I want. It would be, it’s a no brainer. anyway.

That was a good answer. Yeah.

Yeah, it’s a good example. I have had the good fortune of, took John Curtis out for a walk on the new shoreline trail above on the flanks of Olympus down there. And I pointed that out to him and he gave me a very sort of political answer. I’m an environmentalist at heart, but like, it becomes it’s a tit for tat sort of negotiating thing and that’s too much.

Uh-huh.

Speaker 2 (48:09.918)
And I was like, it’s maybe like in terms of acreage, it’s too much, it was hard to make him understand that. And I think because a lot of it is a lot of the politics surrounding public lands is about like acre for acre, you know, that kind of thing. So it’s not, it’s not about sort of a bit more of a holistic look at the lands in question.

If it’s not developable by anybody, then why don’t you make it wilderness? And that hike with John Curtis was so ironic because on the flanks of Olympus, and we’re having to talk loudly to each other because the freeway is right below us. And so that was wilderness. And up there is not wilderness. Right, other than their accessibility.

Right.

Speaker 1 (49:01.486)
It’s in there no different. Right.

Speaker 1 (49:06.83)
Great.

And honestly, the vision that happened 50 years ago when the Mount Olympus wilderness and the Lone Peak wilderness and the Twin Peaks wilderness were established. You those guys did as much as they could. They had the opportunity to create a wilderness and they created with Congress and they created as much as they could. And ironically, the closer in to the Wasatch Front, go, the more rugged and wilderness-y the terrain is.

Yeah, super steep. hello.

Hi dog, how’s it going? Good. Good dog. yeah, good boy. Are you lost? Where’s your human? Something tells me you got a human nearby. There she is, another dog. Hi.

So.

Speaker 1 (49:55.892)
Thanks for being buddies with everyone.

Yeah, yeah, especially since. Yep, that’s because I have a little bit of water too. Alright.

Speaker 1 (50:08.686)
So we’ve got an hour and 15 minutes. We can walk a little bit further and then maybe we should go back.

Speaker 2 (50:19.342)
So here’s a good example, like those piles haven’t been burned yet. They do it, yeah, like after the first snow. When there’s a few inches of snow, gonna, right up here, excuse me, there is one that was burned. Bob, you can see it from up higher.

They do it when it’s colder,

Speaker 1 (50:35.182)
Yeah, because there’s like nothing left. Yeah. So point being, you can still do fire mitigation. Sure. Whether it’s roadless area or not. Yeah.

That’s right. That’s right. And I know that the Forest Service employees, they are kind of the way you think they would be. The more opportunity they have to spend out in the backcountry, the better.

That’s how I was when I was a forest service employee.

Yeah, like you know, you got to go hike four miles up this trail and then start chopping like sweet that’s why we’re here

I mean that’s why I took a job. Yeah. I was in the Uintas. Okay, good.

Speaker 2 (51:14.936)
Yeah, I mean so you don’t need you don’t need a To bring you know a backhoe in to create fire mitigation. This is a good example this used to be a lot thicker and they That’s right instead of being terrified on the trail here

come down. We can ski down through here.

Speaker 1 (51:38.166)
I asked Lindsay what to ask you and she came up with kind of a big question. Maybe it’s a little bit too big. I asked John the same question. Well the question is how do we fix the central wasatch? When I asked John that he said I don’t think it’s broken. But what’s your answer to that?

It’s a good question. I mean, of course, it depends on who you are. If you have a sweet cabin in Cardiff Fork, you know, you don’t fix it. They have a really good gig. I think that a lot of people are really tired of the traffic in the canyons. And that has been

I don’t have to tell anybody here who’s listening to this that that is the single biggest problem for the people. It may not necessarily be the single biggest problem according to

A moose. According to a moose. Trying to finish your sentence for you. Yeah, transportation’s not the biggest problem for a northern flicker or a moose, but it’s the biggest problem for

I saw three moose

Speaker 2 (52:47.566)
You

Speaker 2 (52:57.678)
That’s right. That’s right. Yeah. So and I think that the traffic has there’s always been traffic problems. You know, the powder fever has been long afflicted Utahans and visitors here. Ski Utah has done a good job of promoting this place. So now they’re attracting more and more people from Colorado, from from Dallas, Chicago, New York, etc.

It’s the cool place to go. We’re stealing market share from Colorado because it’s actually obvious because nationwide, there’s been this year 61 million skier visits in the U.S. and in 1979 there was 50 million. So 10 million more in basically 50 years, almost 50 years. Which is not much, but like I said, SkiUtah’s been stealing them. there’s that. There’s also the Epic Pass.

The icon pass, the icon pass, which is getting more people particularly a big cottonwood because Solitude went big on the icon pass and So solitude is now no longer it used to live up to its name now. It’s now it’s really not So it’s just really busy and then also I think that Snowbird has been running the the Oktoberfest deal now for probably 20 years

past.

So people follow the snow.

Speaker 2 (54:23.84)
And people love getting in the mountains. And there’s more people in the Salt Lake Valley. It’s had some of the biggest growth in the country because people are being lured here for these mountains. so now, like I gave up road riding up the canyons because it was just too much. But UTA and UDOT seem to sort of put their heads in the sand and sort of go, whoa, we got to work on public transportation in the winter.

If they’re only going to put in a gondola, for example, if someone was to propose a gondola up one of the Cottonwood canyons, basically all that is is a subsidized ski lift to get people up to the resorts for four months of the year between, say, 7.30 and 5.30. But it’s not a transportation solution because a transportation solution would run earlier, go later, and year round. Because I can guarantee you that today, are, was it September?

year round.

Speaker 2 (55:23.17)
the day after Labor Day, I can guarantee you that even a day like this, there are probably 10,000 cars going up and down, both big and little. and it’s unfortunate that UDOT sort of found themselves sort of wrapped around this concept of the gondola. And now there’s lawsuits that sort of keep that from anything from happening up there. Like UDOT kind of refused, UDOT and other entities kind of refused to budge their

even though they identified stuff like expanded buses and snow sheds and more bus service more often. then also the thing that is moving ahead, which is going to be great, think, is the transit hub at the mouth of Big Cottonwood that used to be the unsightly gravel pit. Which is one of the great things about Mill Creek is that there’s

I feel that cool air as soon as we came into this canyon.

water and these cool little drainages that are amazing. I don’t think this little drainage here has ever gotten above about 70 degrees. This is why I always run up here.

Yeah, same here. It’s a good grade too until it kicks up a little bit.

Speaker 2 (56:37.71)
Yeah, it’s runnable, but barely.

So I think that how to fix the Wasatch, I think my wife likes to say just turn it back about 30 or 30 years. That’s the best way to fix it. But the truth is, know, it’s busy. People love it. And you know, people who are coming here to backcountry ski today, they don’t necessarily know what it used to be like. you know, it used to be like you’d only see a couple of parties a day when you’re out backcountry skiing. Now you see whatever, six, seven, eight, 10, whatever.

Yeah, that’s time machine.

Speaker 1 (57:13.996)
Yeah, your expectations only match your frame of reference.

That’s right. That’s right. And you know, it’s fine. Even if you do see a lot of lot of people out there, it’s OK. Well, I should say it’s OK. I mean, people love to talk about sort of the solitude that you get out of a wilderness experience. And, you know, there are a lot of places in the country where you can do that and lot of places here where you can do that, too, just a matter of how much effort you need to put in. You know, Wasatch itself, it hasn’t really changed very much. The mountains, the creeks.

are still here. Another way to make it better, actually to fix it, would be to have better snow years with less persistent weak layers. I think if we could make sure that happens.

Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 1 (58:01.08)
So fix climate change too.

There is a lot to be said for that. mean, everybody, you one of the characteristics of climate change, the way it affects that area like this is according to say, Jim Steenberg, who’s the Wasatch Weather Weenie, is that the storms are to get less frequent with higher intensity. And that really is hard for skiing.

It’s hard for skiing. It’s when you get like a whole bunch of six inch stuff.

That’s right. That’s right. The 2021 whatever season, we got so much, so many of those eight inch storms that it just kind of stacked up. It’s like Hokkaido. That’s why Hokkaido is one of the great places because it keeps snowing and snowing and snowing. Yeah. And it doesn’t dump and then sit for a long time and then dump. Yeah. Like dumping and sitting is sort of the domain of Colorado.

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (58:50.178)
Yeah, everyone was properly scared during the winter of 23. Yep.

And this winter, the persistent week layer plagued us all the way until through March. And again, maybe we have to get used to that. And even though overall it was a half-decent winter with…

It up being okay. It was kind of late, huh?

Yeah, it was kind of late. But another thing too is a bummer and we’re sort of in an area where this has played out is that there’s less low elevation snow. And when there’s less low elevation snow, it pushes all the skiers up higher. And when it’s higher danger, it pushes them into the mellower terrain. So when it snows good and down low, people start hitting the, you know, the foothills and the lower elevation stuff that

doesn’t typically get hit very hard. So it spreads people out and that’s something that I’ve been trying to talk to the Forest Service about and the old District Ranger, I don’t think she really appreciated or cared much about that, but the new District Ranger, he’s a great guy, he’s a backcountry skier, he grew up here, he gets it.

Speaker 1 (01:00:09.08)
So you mean, so you’re talking about just trying to spread people out more? Yeah.

Yeah. And there are, you know, you can say like, well, there are probably two different management styles. One is to, is to disperse the you so you don’t hammer one resource. The other one is to like, just take people to the resources they naturally were going to go to. Let those places get hammered, manage them as best you can. And then the rest of the place, the rest of the area, you know, that hillside is never going to get hammered. It’s steep and super brushy and 40, 43 degrees.

Right.

Speaker 1 (01:00:42.606)
Yeah, one thing that I’ve found to be interesting about there being more people skiing out here is there’s definitely at times tension between people. was going up George’s bowl, skinning up and and some guy passed me and he’s like, this is like the traffic in New Jersey where you’re from. I was like, oh, I’m from Utah, but whatever, you know, like maybe he’s been here a while and he’s upset.

Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:01:11.532)
You know, that there’s more, but the problem is a lot bigger than just pointing fingers at people, as you’re saying.

And if you choose to go to a spot that’s popular, like, you might as well say hello to people, get along, because odds are pretty good you’re gonna see that person. I’ve learned after being here for 25 years, I’ve learned that the odds are actually fairly decent that somebody in our group is gonna know somebody in that group. Best to be nice to them.

So totally. Yeah, maybe I’ll see that guy again someday. That’s right. Offer my sandwich.

and maybe in a couple of years he’s going to appreciate that this stuff doesn’t come naturally and that he’s going to need to help fight for it.

For sure. Yeah, that’s a good point.

Speaker 2 (01:01:52.44)
You know, I think one of the weaknesses of the Stakeholders Council is that it’s filled with sort of middle-aged fuddy-duddies and people who have been here a long time and are been sort of, they want to sort of contribute to it after they’ve been here, recreating here for long time.

Well, they have the time because they’re retired. Perhaps. another aspect of that. But I asked you the question earlier, who might be missing on the Stakeholders Council? And this seems like a partial answer to it is younger people.

because of

Speaker 2 (01:02:21.09)
That’s right, that’s right, younger people. And of course, know, minorities at the same time, younger people, know, I think that the stake, the young persons, whatever it’s called, the youth youth council, you know, whether those guys actually accomplish very much is less important than getting a group of young people who are fired up and getting them knowledgeable and give them the confidence so that when they are able to, they’re able to step into a leadership role at 32.

Suddenly they realized they have this body of knowledge that maybe they didn’t even realize they were absorbing and then they’re able to utilize it.

Yeah, and be able to report trends, you know, you know, telling the likes of me who I’ve been doing the sort of the same thing for 25 years and they’re like, yeah, people aren’t really doing that shit anymore. Like, oh, really? Okay, well, do tell, you know, let’s bring it on.

Yeah. Should we start moving back down?

And then I’ll ask you the I Guess it’s sort of my last question and you’ve already been touching on it though So didn’t you didn’t need that much prompting some other people need a lot of prompting with the unquantifiable yeah, but it seems like you don’t need as much poking and prodding, but I’m gonna I’m gonna ask you

Speaker 1 (01:03:43.412)
answer that explicitly. Sure. And it takes take a few moments if you need but like what does the central wasatch mean to you and and do your best to like to try to refrain from using quantifiable language. Sure. If it feels like you’re measuring things. Right. You’re probably using the wrong kind of language. Okay. That’s the question. Okay.

Basically, I think that there is no place in the United States that has the quality and proximity of outdoor recreation that Salt Lake City does. There are places that are very close

But those are resort towns and they’re not, know, there’s a lot of talk these days about how expensive Salt Lake has gotten for sure. you know, it’s, we’re not Jackson and we’re not Ketchum. And I’ve spent actually a fair bit of time in both those places the last few years. And you know, the median home price in those places is like $2 million. $3 million, whatever. It’s not, that’s not the way it is here. And you can’t really have a real job up there. Like, yeah, you’re,

Do own something or you’re in the service industry? Yeah.

Yeah, you’re, you’re, you’re recreating a lot, but you’re waiting tables and you’re scratching living and you’re probably commuting a ways. So to have the quality and proximity of the recreation here, across many activities. mean, the trail running on this, as we were talking about the trail running on these trails right here is extraordinary. And, the, the, backcountry skiing here, like I’ve had the good fortune of skiing a lot of different places and

Speaker 2 (01:05:31.758)
between the quality of the terrain and the quality of the snow and the access. Like there’s no place like it. And we’ve been, my wife and I have been talking about moving for last 20 years and we finally kind of gave up the conversation and this winter we decided we’re going to Europe and to go to a place that’s probably even more popular than this, but at least we’re gonna have worse snow. But I don’t know, it’s a good adventure, whatever. It’ll be fun.

So, and I, when I moved here, I was pretty determined not to have a very normal job. So I’ve never really had a very normal job. I did a lot of contract work and consulting and that kind of thing because I wanted to be able to use my mornings, especially sometimes evenings, but mostly mornings to be able to come and recreate. And I don’t think that, I don’t think that people really understand that you can wake up

and go out and have what other people would consider to be like the best day ever. And for you, it’s another morning. You know, you get up early, you go meet your pals at 5.15, you go out and you skin up by headlamp, you rip your skins at first light, you do another run and you back down and you’re at your desk downtown at like 9.30 and you’ve gotten 3000 feet of blower powder skiing. and I’m not, this isn’t.

Right.

Speaker 2 (01:07:00.78)
My friends might say, yeah, you’re giving away the secret, but it’s no secret. Everybody knows that. So I have chosen to be here and chosen to stay here despite the problems of Salt Lake and Utah. there are, it has its problems for sure. But the quality of the recreation and the quality, I think too, of just the mountain environment is so high that it’s really, that’s what has driven me to be.

an activist here. And I don’t have any kids. So I don’t know, I’m not necessarily like, save this for the future generations. I’m not really like that as much. I just sort of think it’s the right thing to do.

Why is it the right thing to do?

because it’s so fun. It is. mean it makes, it’s made me who I am.

So what is it about fun?

Speaker 2 (01:08:00.396)
It’s a good question. I mean, it makes you happy. makes and happiness, of course, is transcends other aspects of your life. These days, you know, I hear so much about people who are struggling with depression and having anxiety and all that stuff. And you come out here and I don’t know. I say I clear my head, but I guess it’s such a part of my lifestyle. My lifestyle is this that

I’ve had my head cleared a lot and it gives me opportunities to have great conversations like the one I’m having with you today, with my ski partners, with my running partners. know, hiking is the best way to communicate with another person for sure.

That’s part of the reason that I want to do these podcasts this way. I just think it’s going to result in a lot more interesting conversation than sitting behind a screen or at a desk. Totally different.

Right, yeah, I mean, you get more honesty and integrity out of a conversation out here than you do in sort of a sterile office environment with, know, perforated ceiling tile. So, yeah, I love it out here. And I like aerobic activities, so I mountain bike and I run and I do a lot of hiking. And, you know, here, like…

The trail running is another example. The trail running here is as good as the skiing is. Because you can rip around on trails that are really fast and fun. There are good mountain bike trails as well. Or there’s plenty of places where you can go. We’re on one here. This is wilderness area. But I like to run usually on trails that I can’t necessarily ride on. And we’re just polluted with areas here. You can go super steep if you want.

Speaker 2 (01:09:53.653)
A vertical, you know, we get our own little vertical K right there on Grandeur in just a couple of miles. thousand meters in less than a couple of miles, 3,000 feet. And then really fast trail running. it’s no surprise that some of the best trail runners in the country come out of here. And if you want, you can put together just gigantic loops here on trails, either running or riding.

Totally.

Speaker 2 (01:10:23.202)
So, yeah, yeah. And it’s so easy to go Canyon to Canyon. I we do that a lot from Big Cottonwood to Mill Creek. And even now with the trails, the upper Mill Creek Canyon being closed, can go, you have fairly quick access from Big Cottonwood. Ironically, you have better access from Big now into Upper Mill Creek than you do from Mill Creek. Yeah, and so you go up there and run it you’re running it on, you know, 6 % grade.

connecting canyon to canyon even

Speaker 1 (01:10:46.857)
Thanks.

Speaker 2 (01:10:53.1)
really buffed trails all over the place. And then there are also plenty of game trails and sort of user created trails that are really steep and technical. And it’s just, it’s, it’s incredible array and the mountain biking, you know, between Mill Creek and then going over the backside into Park City, you know, Park City said that they had 400 miles of trails and they’ve been saying that for about 15 years. And I think it’s more like 600 now. And, and, and then also with the, for Salt Lake now,

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:11:23.082)
the Forest Service put in those trails right down on both sides of the mouth of Partley’s Canyon that accesses, so they can access Mill Creek and over there. And like this morning, for example, we rode from Kimbell Junction to within four miles of my house on really good single track and the entire thing. And the only pavement that I was on was a protected bike path. like, it’s a great way to maintain

Fitness, I just turned 60 this year and I’m still raging. And I wouldn’t be if I lived in Seattle. Seattle’s a great place. Portland’s a great place. Those are great places, but it’s harder to get out and do these things there, especially skiing.

That’s harder.

Speaker 1 (01:12:10.253)
Yeah.

Totally. I really appreciate that you said fun. I don’t know why I didn’t think that you were gonna say that, it really sort of, a lot of it kind of boils down to that. And it sounds like you’re saying fun or like everything you’re describing is basically playing. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And humans just, not even just humans, animals, everybody plays. Yeah. And there’s something about playing that’s an antidote to what? Like, what is it an antidote to?

Totally.

Speaker 2 (01:12:42.648)
Life. Or it is life. And then the other stuff is not fun. Well, as a complete aside, this is an example of how good the recreation is here. In 2002, I decided to create a little Excel spreadsheet to kind of keep track of the stuff that I did. And it was partly for conditions and flows, for information that I wanted to use for later.

That’s not really life.

Speaker 2 (01:13:09.72)
But I kind of got a little bit, I wouldn’t say obsessed with it, I just got in the habit of tracking it all. And I’ve tracked pretty much every activity I’ve done for the last 23 years. And on this spreadsheet. And my spreadsheet is called fun.

wow.

Speaker 1 (01:13:23.885)
That’s perfect.

And I usually am able to get out. mean again, this is an example of the convenience of this and partly my own selfish way of keeping a good schedule. But for the last 23 years, I’ve averaged over one outing Every day for that whole time. And always in the mountains. And like one time I met up with these guys down in like the Einstein’s down there at Olympus for a run and

We were trying to figure out where to go and they were like, well, we used to run the road over to the trails. And I was like, run on the road? Like, I don’t really run on the road. So, I don’t know, why would I run on the road? Cause I can always run the trails. mean, it’s just so, it’s so quick and convenient. And you know, between the trail running, the mountain biking, the skiing, the hiking, again, the picnicking I used to do with my mom. I, you can’t find a place. I mean, turn that camera around and just show them that.

I mean, that’s pretty burly terrain there, but it’s also pretty indicative of the fact that there’s so much terrain here to explore. there’s enough that you don’t do the same things all the time. Like I find myself going to Porterfork to go skiing, but there’s so many different, once you go up the road, there’s so many different places to go. you know, there’s so much variety that…

you’re not just going the same place over and over, which to me is important. I like kind of keeping it different and changing it up all the time. Like seasons, the seasonality of it.

Speaker 1 (01:15:00.43)
Yeah, it pushes you to different places. You’re like, well, it’s shoreline season or it’s, you know, no creek season.

Right. And actually the shoreline is a good example that I, you know, I used to ride the shoreline behind the U over to City Creek and such. I used to do that all the time. And now the trails have gotten so good and so convenient that I don’t hardly ever ride the shoreline anymore.

Yeah.

Because all this other stuff is so good and so convenient. But I agree, and I think I agree about your concept of fun and the sort of antidote to what. And I think that, as I said, it seems like we are experiencing, from what I read and hear, experiencing sort of an epidemic of anxiety. And it’s hard to come out here and sort of maintain your level of anxiety.

I it for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:15:52.726)
Especially if you like come out here and you know and hammer a little bit get your heart rate up and you know Get get fit and stay consistent with it. And like I said, enjoy your friends have have good quality chats with them and get to know people quickly like if you moved here and some if you were lucky enough to sort of Get somebody to go out for a hike with you You become you go out for one hike with them and you become friends with them. So I want ski tour Sure, sure

Yeah, that’s a good point, the social aspect.

And that’s another great thing is that this community, like every community, it can be a little clickish at insular, but for the most part, there’s a lot of people moving here and it’s every reason kind of the same boat. I think most people are, seem to be able to find their, find their posse here, even if they just moved here last year from Jersey, you know, or whatever. It, for me, it’s not as much of like, I got to come up here and get a release because it’s just what I do for a lot of people though. It is kind of that release.

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:16:50.926)
But here, you’re so able to do that.

Totally.

And again, I’ll emphasize that Mill Creek is so important because of its proximity. Like you don’t have to drive, you know, 13 miles up Big Cottonwood to get this. You drive five miles up Mill Creek or even sometimes if you want to go to Rousenake, which is perfectly fine and perfectly good and they’ve improved that trail a lot, that’s only a mile up the canyon.

It’s also pretty centrally located. If you live in the avenues, it’s closer than going to Little.

Yep, for sure. And you know, the avenues is like they have better access to the shoreline type trails. But it’s you know, it’s blistering hot there in the summer. They get they get their trails there if you want to go over there. They’re not really their trails, but you know, and that dries out quickly. That’s the other thing, too, about the Wasatch that I didn’t mention is that we don’t have shoulder seasons. You know, Jackson, even Park City, like mud season is a thing and we don’t have that here. I mean, about the time this, you know,

Speaker 1 (01:17:34.296)
City Creek and stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:17:58.028)
The shoreline dries out and like sometimes in March and it dries out really quickly. Like it’ll be snow one week and the next week you’re able to mountain bike on it. That’s right, it freezes and then dries super fast. It like sublimates or something.

Frozen and then dry.

Speaker 1 (01:18:12.222)
Yeah, so I’ve theorized about that but I’m not a scientist.

So it that is that’s in a really important aspect because most of the recreation hubs that are either north of here or higher elevation in here like Park City they have mud seasons you know October November and April May and Salt Lake City does not have it and you know like I’ve said we’re we’re talking about we’re leaving soon for Europe but we

I think maybe back in the spring, even though spring is great in Europe, my wife is pretty much like, spring in Salt Lake is the…

It’s so nice. There’s something about when all the trees in the city are blooming and the backdrop is totally snow covered. yeah. There’s nothing like it.

For sure, for sure. This is a great example. mean, these guys, they’re not big rec creators, they’re just out for a little walk.

Speaker 1 (01:19:12.524)
Yeah, and this is what Mill Creek’s about.

That’s right. That’s right. Hi. Good. Hi.

Speaker 2 (01:19:22.702)
you

Thanks for going walking with me and Tom Diegel in Mill Creek Canyon. 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 CWNCRA across the finish line. We can’t thank you enough.

Speaker 2 (01:21:06.881)
you