Letters to the Park Record and the Salt Lake Tribune - October 2006

Linking the Park City mountain resorts with those of Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons is an idea whose time has come. Revisiting the connection of seven mountain ski resorts is the opportunity for Utah to leapfrog Colorado and the Canadian Rockies by creating an unmatched skiing and snowboarding experience. I’ve seen that advantage at work right in my home country with “Les Trois Vallées”, the world’s largest interconnect located in the French Alps.

Conceived in the late fifties and early sixties these alpine interconnects have matured in the seventies and eighties. At their inception, fear of letting loyal clients go to the next door competitor was the order of the day. As soon as the experiment began, the success was so overwhelming that it became the new business model and since that time, the formula has been copied all over Europe. It affirms the concept of synergy by delivering a product that was much more than the sums of its parts. Once winter visitors venture boundlessly from valley to valley and village to village, they can no longer be satisfied with a single, self-contained destination resort.

To appreciate the scope of “Les Trois Vallées” just picture about 35,000 acres of connected trails and terrain parks, served by some 200 lifts spanning over 6 ski towns. In comparison, a seven resort interconnect including Alta, Snowbird, Brighton, Solitude, The Canyons, Park City and Deer Valley would offer more than 20,000 skiable acres.
With our resorts so close together, we can easily develop a world-class interconnect almost impossible to replicate anywhere in North America and secure enduring market domination.

Lisa Smith from “Save Our Canyons” is right in saying that boring tunnels and building roads would put pressure on a critical ecology. The last thing our resorts and ski towns want is more traffic and more cars to park during the day. A win-win solution must be found to limit the number of vehicles coming and going on Cottonwood Canyon’s as well as Park City roadways, and yet, at the same time accommodate more practitioners as Utah snow recreation gains in popularity.

There maybe a better way to tap our resources than spending $250 million for a tunnel and up to $150 million in roads. A fraction of that total amount could build the park-an-ride facilities at the base of each canyon (including one at Mt. Dell for Parley’s) and the lifts needed to connect all seven resorts as well as the chairlifts, gondolas or funiculars required to connect the parking lots to the closest slopes. This would drastically cut vehicular traffic in Parley’s and Cottonwood Canyons while park-and-ride facilities would address all access and parking needs for locals and destination visitors staying in the valley.

At each park-and-ride, a UTA spur should be available and, when possible, a light rail extension. Less traffic would relieve the demand for parking at the resorts and enable operators to build accommodations and facilities for destination visitors, including smaller underground parking. Under this plan, everyone, from environmental activists to resort operators, ski towns and visitors would win.

The term “Megaplex” that was picked up by the early press report regarding the State’s initiative probably was a misnomer; and a monster resort doesn’t have to materialize. Every one agrees that each village, each ski town should retain and further develop its own identity. In the Alps, interconnected ski towns did not get homogenized and had no difficulty keeping and nurturing their distinct personalities. Each town continues to address a specific market and develops its own special services and unique traits.

Some offer great on-mountain restaurants, run by families or independent concessionaires, each offering its own specialty, from fondues bistro, crêpe stands, gourmet sandwiches and self-service facility to sit-down restaurants. Other ski towns specialize in family vacations, snowboarding facilities or nature discovery. Each resort has a chance to bring a distinct flavor and be another unique and handsome gem inserted on a same precious ring.

Our choice is clear. We can either continue on a path of raggedy growth by adding infrastructure when we have to catch up to the competition, sometimes at great ecological cost, or we can pro-actively begin this new century by taking a bird eye’s view over the way our resorts can best interact with each other. At the same time, we can create sustainable environmental conditions, maximize the appeal and the development potential of the Wasatch Mountains and secure a formidable lead over the competition. Synergized in an interconnected mosaic, our resorts have the potential to showcase their differences and stand out as a region where visitors enjoy a pristine environment, experience a true adventure on snow and will look forward to returning season after season.

JF Lanvers