After two tense years, this popular Big Cottonwood Canyon trail has reopened — at least temporarily

BIG COTTONWOOD CANYON • More than a mile up Cardiff Canyon Road, above the trail to Donut Falls, the hum of traffic through Big Cottonwood Canyon is replaced with the whisper of the wind through the pine trees. The tall peaks and open glades glimpsed between those trees reveal why this is one of the most popular playgrounds for backcountry skiers in the Wasatch Mountains.

The trek up the snowpacked road, grated butter smooth by the compaction of thousands of skis, starts peacefully. For the past two years, though, conflict has been right around the bend. About halfway up the road, local property owners have stationed hundreds of intimidating signs, bright orange fences and, at times, themselves, to prevent people from continuing onward.

That drama, however, now appears to be nearing its end — to the relief and surprise of many in the backcountry ski community.

Last month, the Wasatch Backcountry Alliance, which has been advocating for public access to the road and the National Forest Service lands surrounding it, received an email from the lawyer representing the Cardiff Canyon Owners Association. The email said CCOA members had voted to allow backcountry skiers access to the road this winter. It was a gesture of thanks, lawyer Robert Tee Spjute wrote in an email to The Salt Lake Tribune, for the WBA’s support as the landowners tangled with the National Forest Service over a special use permit that would allow them motorized access to their properties.

“Although the CCOA does not have motorized access this winter,” Spjute wrote, “they recognized that their friends in the backcountry community would miss out on this season’s skiing if the closure remained in place.”

Given the tension skiers have encountered on the trail the last two winters, the reversal in attitude and access caught many in the backcountry skiing community off guard.

“We were very surprised,” said backcountry skier and WBA member George Vargyas. “Came as a bit of a shock, actually. It was a big surprise. Unexpected.”

Confrontations between recreationists and some of the private owners of about a thousand acres of mostly old mining claims on the mountainside above Donut Falls first came to a head in 2012. For more than a hundred years prior, the two groups had a tacit agreement to share access to Cardiff Fork Road, an old mining trail that leads to some of the best backcountry touring in the country. The road was built in the 1870s — before the creation of the National Forest Service, which would come to manage much of the land under and alongside it. That includes about a mile stretch starting at the metal gate just above the Donut Falls winter trail, which serves as the only improved access to CCOA lands.

When that agreement became untenable, the National Forest Service collaborated with both parties to issue a special use permit. Under the permit, the public had the right to travel on the road, including over portions of private lands. In exchange, the federal entity granted CCOA members and documented guests limited motorized access along the road to their properties (Motorized vehicles are typically prohibited on National Forest Service lands). It also waived the annual permit fee.

That permit lasted a decade. But by the time it was due for renewal in the spring 2022, CCOA members had grown frustrated with the National Forest Service’s management of the road and, as they saw it, a lack of communication and recourse for issues they experienced. So, they let the permit lapse.

As a result, the National Forest Service locked the metal gate above the Donut Falls picnic area — about a mile in from the winter gate along State Route 190 — cutting off the landowners’ motorized access. In turn, the landowners waged an intimidation campaign against anyone using sections of the road or touring routes that cross through private property. That included nailing “No trespassing” signs numbering, as one skier put it, “too many to count” — more than 700 by one landowner’s own estimate — onto trees bordering the road. It also included stretching thick chains and orange plastic fences across the road.

“I think it gave a lot of people pause when those fences were up,” Vargyas said. “They’re not sure what to do. They already walked for quite a while (when they would reach the fences). There was a lot of uncertainty.”

Among those targeted early on was a crew from the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining (DOGM). The workers had been sent into the area in September 2022 to seal an abandoned mine that was potentially contaminating Salt Lake City’s drinking water. When they arrived, though, a spokesperson for the agency said the workers were chased away by an “angry mob” of landowners. Police were called in to diffuse the situation.

WBA Director Dani Poirier wrote in an email to the Tribune that the group’s trail counting program “shows a decline in use starting in 2022 when the SUP expired and public access was restricted.” Poirier noted, however, that the program’s infrared counters produce some limitations in assessing how many people used the trail. In addition, statistics for this season will not be available until after the counting ends May 1.

Through all the flux, though, the WBA has supported the National Forest Service issuing the CCOA another special use permit — preferably identical to the old one.

“Supporting terms of their previous special use permit,” Poirier said, “would be the best way to ensure that any new permit didn’t allow for any new leeway for them to do developments.”

Because the properties are in Salt Lake City’s watershed and have no water rights attached, CCOA property owners are not allowed to build any permanent structures or ones that would facilitate overnight stays. Spjute, the association’s lawyer, said in an email that the permit application the group submitted to the National Forest Service in January is “very similar” to the permit that expired in 2022. The main difference, he said, is that the new one establishes a channel for better communication. It requires a National Forest Service representative to meet with CCOA members and, optionally, members of the WBA and other access advocates at least once a year to “discuss upcoming projects, complaints, and issues.”

Spjute shared a copy of the permit application with The Tribune. It does not provide details such as what kind of motorized access is being sought or any requests for restrictions on that access.

Adam Shaw, a ranger for the Salt Lake district of the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest, said in an email to The Tribune that applications “are between the proponent and the Forest Service” and that he could not disclose details of the CCOA’s request.

However, Shaw wrote that “The Forest Service is willing to work in good faith with CCOA to issue a new permit for motorized access for private landowners that is reasonable and necessary for landowners on the Cardiff Fork Road.”

The permitting process consists of several steps, and Shaw said that makes it difficult to estimate how long it will take for the agency to issue a new special use permit — if it issues one at all.

The letter Spjute sent to the WBA specified that skiers could have undisturbed access to Cardiff Canyon Road this winter. What happens if negotiations extend beyond that is unclear.

Spjute sounded confident that a resolution could be reached.

“We are very happy with the progress being made in Cardiff and with the special use permit,” he wrote. “It is a win-win for everyone.”

The reinstatement of the permit and access to Cardiff Fork Road seems too good to be true to some in the backcountry community. For the moment, though, they’re enjoying the peace.

“We,” Poirier said, “are optimistic to see how this plays out in the long run.”

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