Finally, a solution for Little Cottonwood Canyon?

In recent years, accessing Snowbird and Alta, in Little Cottonwood Canyon, near Salt Lake City has become a huge traffic nightmare, with a narrow road without any avalanche protection, like what is common in the Alps, and with limited parking at the ski areas. 

The avalanche protection should have been put in place in the early 70s when Snowbird opened, but the State of Utah was too cheap to bite the bullet, and too ignorant to understand anything about avalanche mitigation. 

Today, two solutions are considered. An expanded bus service with road widening, or a 3S-type, 32 passenger gondola.

The bus option would be the fastest, getting people up the mountain in about 37 minutes, including parking and walking to the bus stop. Buses would pick riders up every five minutes, but could be slowed by variable winter weather conditions. 

The option also requires widening the road the entire way up the canyon, building snow sheds to help control avalanches and requiring cars to pay a toll during busy time. 

On the other hand, the gondola provides the most consistent travel times — just under an hour from parking to reaching the top — and would leave the base station every two minutes. 

While it would have a greater visual impact on the mountains, it would be less invasive to the nearby watershed, wildlife, and climbing. 

Both options would cost roughly the same over a 30-year period, that is over $500 million. They would also come with additional measures like building two park-and-ride lots close by, to handle visitors coming by car. 

My preference would go to the gondola in spite of its visibility defacing the Canyon’s natural beauty.