Alta general manager, Onno Wieringa weighs in on community news, our new parking experiment with the University of Utah and Mountain Accord.
Within the last month we have lost a couple of fine gentlemen from the ranks of the Alf Engen Ski School. After 54 years of being an instructor, Bob Grant took his last run on Gunsight. More recently, Sid Jensen passed away having taught for 52 years. Both men made fine contributions to humanity, our skiing and the Alta community.
In other news, early Sunday morning Christy Spotts had a fine, full moon baby girl. Congrats to Christy and Spence from the Alta family.
This week we started a preferred parking experimentation in collaboration with the University of Utah. The objective of giving preferred parking to carpoolers would be to try and get a higher person-per-car number and do it in a way that is easy and consistent for us to operate and isn’t a penalty for those, that for whatever reason, only have one or two in their vehicles. In our Master Development Plan with the Forest Service we hope to rearrange our parking and better address mass transit and carpooling.
All of this is happening while UDOT and Mountain Accord look at short-term things we can do with traffic and avalanche safety on Highway 210 as well as looking for long-term solutions to deal with avalanche hazard and growth. A highway that runs through the run-outs of a dozen avalanche paths stays the same no matter how many folks ride in a car or in a bus.
And did I mention the wind we got last Thursday? Up to 300 trees in Alta met their match during that frontal passage.