In Utah gondola fight, officials avoid public input to help developers

The story on ski area growth in North America is simple: It’s slowed way down. Skier numbers are flat, real estate has gone bust, and the only place skiing and snowboarding are seeing participation numbers rise significantly is in the sidecountry and backcountry. And that really doesn’t mean there are more skiers, it just means there are more folks who can’t afford in-bounds or are looking for an experience beyond the pistes.

Into this extremely soft market come two Utah resorts, the Canyons and Solitude, who want to join via a gondola called “SkiLink,” which would cut a line through the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest from the Canyons next to Park City to Big Cottonwood Canyon.

The idea of sewing together the Wasatch’s ski resorts via a network of lifts has been around for ages, but this one has legs: It’s actually been submitted to Congress and has enough steam to get Utahns paying attention.

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