AF canyon Snowbird expanding?

[goforbroke]

Rode Friday, went up mineral basin to play in the trees just south of Snowbirds fence line. Was shocked to see a snowcat and skiers. They have several cat tracks to get up to the ridge now. An employee stopped us and asked us not to ride as they had some skiers coming down. We had a 'discussion'. His claim is they will be doing snowcat skiing there and in Mary Ellens from now on and for now there is nothing to legally stop the snowmobiliers. He claimed that they own most of the private land up there and hopefully sledders will be respectfull so they don't have to shut us out.

I pulled out the gps and showed that all the tree area we where in was National forest and most of the other land, and he pointed out that the trail up the canyon crosses their land several times and in the future they could deny access.

Just a heads up. I spoke with a national forest officer in the parking lot and he knew of no planned snowbird expansion. but in my experience 3 years from now we won't be able to ride there.

If anyone has any info, let me know. Please be involved to keep access open.

 

[snengineer]

Our only hope is to get the Utah county council to deny the permits they are asking for to build and expand. It is a mixture of public and private land, the FS has already given them there permission to close the public land to the public so pray the Utah county doesn't give in to the big money I'm sure they will be shown to concede this area of Utah county to salt lake county type management.....Ride it while you can I guess. FYI nobody can deny you access to the area that is public until all the permits are legalized, in fact most of the roads crossing private are public access easements so its not legal to shut people out no matter what they say....for now.

We need to get the OHV people involved, this place is very poplular in the summer for these groups.

 

[sled_guy]

The right of way issue is the only hope in keeping it open. As snengineer says, getting the OHV group involved is a good idea. I've delt with Snowbird up there from day one. When they originally started moving over into Mineral Basin they came to the Utah County snowmobile club meeting and were all "We'll give you access, we'll share the mountain, we want to have everyone enjoy it". 2 years later, CLOSED.

sled_guy

 

[FurryCURT]

x2 on the access issue. A few years ago the property owner at Point of the Mountain tried to fence off the access road on the south side and keep the hang gliders and RC guys out. After a few weeks, he had to open it up. Courts said he could not deny access even though the road crossed his property. There exists the same situation on the Moenchs property at Thousand peaks Ranch. The gully up into Moffit is a jeep trail in the summer and it can't legally be closed by the property owner since its the access route to forest land.

 

[boondocker163]

on a seperate note... How is the snow up in af canyon? i have been wanting to head up there and havent yet..