Estimated read time: 6-7 minutes
- Ski resorts in Utah's Cottonwood canyons face transportation challenges, particularly during snowstorms.
- Resort leaders discuss future solutions, including gondolas and increased bus services, amid growing demand.
- Climate change impacts snowmaking, requiring resorts to adapt for consistent skiing experiences.
SALT LAKE CITY — Taming the "red snake" — the often miles-long line of glowing red taillights going up and down the Cottonwood canyons on a powder day or holiday — has proven a vexing problem for the four ski resorts nestled in the snow-covered mountains east of Salt Lake City.
On a sunny day, about 1,200 cars an hour move through Little Cottonwood Canyon, home to Snowbird and Alta Ski Area. But when it snows, the number drops to 300 an hour, causing gridlock for hours, said Mike Maughan, Alta president and general manager.
"Currently, our greatest challenge and the negative I hear from pass holders, visitors and from our employees is transportation," he said Friday. "If this was an easy problem to solve, it would have been solved years ago. It's very complex. There's a lot of moving parts."
Maughan and his counterparts at Snowbird, Brighton and Solitude talked about the challenges the ski industry faces in the Cottonwoods now and in the future during the two-day Central Wasatch Symposium put on by the Central Wasatch Commission. The commission is a governmental entity created through the Mountain Accord, an agreement forged by dozens of public and private entities to address transportation, economic viability, environmental sustainability and recreation stewardship in the Wasatch Front canyons.
Skiing and snowboarding is big business in Utah. A report from the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute shows the state's ski industry contributed $1.94 billion in nonresident visitor spending during the 2022-23 ski/snowboard season, generating $197.9 million in state and local tax revenue.
Facing the future
"I think for me, 10 years out is pretty daunting to think about. I think a lot of us in our world are a little more short-term focused because that's where the immediate pressures are," said Amber Broadaway, Solitude president and general manager. But, she said she feels optimistic about finding thoughtful solutions to the problems. Solitude and Brighton are located in Big Cottonwood Canyon.
In addition to transportation, parking, water resources and snowmaking are among the biggest concerns the resort managers identified during a time when there have never been more Americans gravitating to outdoor recreation, especially in the winter. Winter sports, which include skiing, snowboarding and snowmobiling, were a close second behind cycling as the fastest-growing outdoor recreation activity in 2023, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Economic Analysis.
During the 2022-23 winter season, Utah's resorts saw not only record snowfall but a record 7.1 million skier days, defined as one person skiing or snowboarding for one day. The 2023-24 season brought 6.7 million skier days, second of all time.
"I don't think demand is going to go down. I think it's going to intensify as the population continues to grow and maybe as the places you can go become more scarce," Maughan said, adding Alta might have to consider expanding its terrain.
Mike Doyle, Brighton president and general manager, said "every inch" of the resort nowadays is being skied. "No matter what we do, (skiers and snowboarders) want to come, and they love it," he said. "I would hate to get to the point that we have to use price as how we regulate our crowd."
And the anticipated population growth has resorts not only trying to figure how to manage the crowds on the slopes but how to get skiers and snowboarders there in the first place, even though all say carpooling has increased under new parking rules.
No cars allowed?
Dave Fields, Snowbird president and general manager, sees a time in the next 10 to 20 years where people no longer drive their own cars into Little Cottonwood Canyon.
"It won't surprise anybody in this room that I hope in that time frame we have abandoned this idea that private vehicles are the way to get up into the mountains," he said, noting Utah is projected to have 5 million residents by 2050, and the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest has 9 million visitors annually.
Snowbird is a proponent of the controversial Utah Department of Transportation plan to build a gondola in the canyon to convey skiers and snowboarders to the resorts. Several individuals and groups, including Friends of Alta, International Outdoor Recreation Asset Alliance and Save Our Canyons, sued UDOT to block the estimated billion-dollar project. The parties are currently in litigation.
Save Our Canyons contends Utahns don't want to spend hundreds of millions in tax dollars to build what it says would be a blight on the beauty and environment of the mountain landscape. A gondola also plays no part in the comprehensive and integrated transportation system needed for the canyons and Wasatch Front, according to the group.
In Big Cottonwood Canyon, home to Brighton and Solitude, Doyle said that "increased bus service is a must for us. It's really the only practical way to go about it, unless we want to start talking trains 10-20 years down the road." Brighton and Solitude work together on ride-share vans, and Brighton has bought some of its own to transport employees to work, he said.
UTA runs ski buses to both canyons, and UDOT started an environmental study last fall focused on evaluating tolling and enhanced bus service to address wintertime traffic congestion management in Big Cottonwood Canyon.
Struggle for snow
Once skiers and snowboarders make their way to the mountain, resorts want them to have snow to traverse. Climate change has made it increasingly difficult to open by Thanksgiving, Maughan said.
Resorts have had to rely more on early-season snowmaking, an expensive, water-intensive effort that has proven difficult given much shorter optimum timeframes and temperatures to blow enough snow to even open in December.
"There's not unlimited water in the Cottonwood canyons. It takes a lot of infrastructure to push it out. What you're seeing is narrower windows where it's colder than 28 degrees, which it needs to be to make snow. ... It might be six hours or 12 hours. You're not seeing prolonged 72-hour windows as much to make snow," Fields said.
Doyle said there wouldn't have been skiing without snowmaking this year until Christmas Day.
"I would like to pick Christmas up and drop it at the end of January," Broadaway said.
Maughan said Alta is trying to balance everything to preserve the quality of the skiing experience, while taking into consideration that demand will continue to grow and temperatures are going to continue to change. He said resorts need more water and improved snowmaking systems to provide a consistent experience.
"Being able to have the water to make manmade snow and get the resorts open and to provide that stability for the resorts and the guests is an important part of what we need to do for the future," he said. "We are working on that at Alta in some of the things we're trying to do to increase our capacity there as well as balance the infrastructure and the transportation."
