Snowbird, UT (Wednesday, July 24, 2002) - The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals here yesterday ruled against a consortium of environmentalists in their attempt to block a proposed expansion at Snowbird Ski & Summer Resort in Utah’s Wasatch Mountains. The decision appears to give the green light to Snowbird to proceed with plans to build a new facility at the tram summit atop Hidden Peak.

The unanimous decision by the three-judge panel upheld a 1999 approval of the project by the U.S. Forest Service. The judges held that the Forest Service acted within the law in permitting a Hidden Peak structure of up to 50,000 square feet in which Snowbird proposes to house a restaurant, retail shop, and operational facilities including the Ski Patrol. The USFS decision also permitted the transfer of several acres in the resort’s Mineral Basin drainage to construct the Baldy Express lift, which ironically already opened last winter linking Snowbird with neighboring Alta Ski Area for the first time.

“As an initial matter, we observed that the Forest Service devoted a significant amount of energy to debating the appropriateness of the Hidden Peak structure and its potential visual impacts,” the justices wrote in their decision.

Like many ski resorts in the Western U.S., Snowbird operates on an amalgam of private and Forest Service land. Plaintiffs Save Our Canyons and the Wasatch Mountain Club filed their litigation in 2000 in an attempt to overturn the Forest Service decision. The two environmental groups contended that the Forest Service improperly amended an existing forest plan and failed to consider an adequate number of alternative proposals in granting permission to construct the new facility. They further alleged that the USFS granted the land exchange without providing sufficient public notice and without obtaining land of equal value in return.

The view from Snowbird's Hidden Peak, looking into Mineral Basin. (photo: Marc Guido/First Tracks!! Online)

In order to proceed with construction of the Baldy Express lift, Snowbird implemented a 3-degree bend in the lift line to build around the contested land parcel.

“This process has been ongoing for five years,” explained Dave Fields, Snowbird’s director of public relations. “Our ski patrol has been in a construction trailer up there for 30 years. Hidden Peak is the hub of all activity at Snowbird. This will give them a place to get out of the elements. We want to give visitors something more to do there than get out of the tram, walk around in a circle, and head back down.”

Some residents of the Salt Lake Valley have complained that the new structure would be visible from many parts of the valley due to its size and also its construction methods and materials. They lamented that the large glass panels in the design will reflect sunlight back toward the valley, highlighting the building’s visibility. Fields explained that they are, in essence, starting from scratch in working with the designers to come up with a different footprint for the structure and will take the use of different materials into account. He further doubted that the resort would build a structure at the full 50,000 square foot permitted size. Snowbird still needs to obtain additional permits from the Forest Service and from Salt Lake County, and design efforts will keep in mind any potential avenues for debate in securing these final permits.