Carolyn, for info and distribution as you wish, last Thursday, 3.12.20, night, myself, Jim Brown, Bill & Christa Hansen, Elbert Dansie, and a representative for another affected neighbor met with the Forest Service people at their offices to talk about some of our concerns regarding the BST as it may affect our homes, all of which border on the Forest Service property across which the trail will run.
We met with:
Bekee Hotze – Salt Lake District Ranger (she oversees the Wasatch Front)
Marshall Alford, SLRO Recreation
Zinnia Wilson – SLRO Trails & Wilderness
Renee Flanagan – Unita-Wasatch-Cache National Forest Recreation and Lands Staff Officer
Zinnia is the person in charge of the BST design and implementation and her cell for future reference is – 385.377.2107
Most of our concerns have been previously addressed in the main document regarding the BST and can be accessed at www.fs.usda.gov/project/?project=15372. Go to the website, click on Analysis and click on BST_EA_Final and that should give you anything you want to know about the BST.
Not really too much that we can do to impact what has already been approved by the Forest Service.
To update the project on our hillside, the FS has begun a portion of the BST just south of Big Cottonwood Canyon road (UT 190) beginning about 1-2 miles up the canyon from the water treatment plant. Access to this section from UT 190 is currently not completed to minimize people traffic wanting to see what’s going on and to secure whatever equipment the FS is using. A small section of the trail has been completed. This spring the FS will begin to construct the section of the trail from the small completed section by UT 190, up through the scrub oak, and end at the proposed portion that begins to cross the open hillside. Since several of us wanted a clearer visual understanding of the exact location of the trail, Zinnia said she would be more than happy to lead anyone interested in a tour of the proposed route to be completed this year and that proposed for next year. It might be a bit of a rough climb through the scrub oak and it might be more comfortable if she just showed us visually from someone’s back yard where the trail will be across the open hillside. That portion won’t start until next year. She suggested I call her mid/early April to try and schedule such a “walk-around.” I’ll do that and notify the neighborhood when this might occur.
We talked about mountain biking on the BST and it is the stated direction of the FS to allow biking along the entire length of the BST. However, although biking is allowed on FS land, it is not allowed in wilderness. This is creating a bit of a problem with this particular portion of the BST as a small part of the trail is currently routed through a small section of land that is designated as wilderness. Therefore, currently if the status quo is maintained, mountain biking would not be allowed across the hill behind Prospector Hills down to Ferguson Canyon because even though the majority of the trail is on FS land the small portion that is on wilderness would not allow a complete thoroughfare for this section of the BST.
I have not researched the following but we were told that our Congressional Representative John Curtis (3rd District), has introduced a bill to declare or reclassify certain sections of land from wilderness to FS. If passed, this would allow mountain bikers to traverse the hillside above us. I understand that the bill is currently on hold.
Anyway, this is a short summary of our get together with the FS last week.
Ken Paulson