Wasatch MemoryBRIANA PERRY

The Wasatch mountains are

where I go to find my peace and quiet, my adventure, my

happy place.

About two years ago I started ski touring almost every morning for sunrise, which ended up becoming an addiction. There is nothing like it, not a soul in sight, the sun rising over the snowy peaks, and I had all of the snow to myself!

On one morning in particular, I met one of my friends at the bottom of Little Cottonwood Canyon at 4 AM, and we drove up to our trailhead. We got all of our gear ready, and by 4:30, in negative 14 degrees, we started skinning up the mountain. It was really dark and quiet, and we were the only people for miles around. We hiked up in silence, just so happy to be there. The only noise was the relaxing sound of snow crunching under our skis.

By the time we reached the peak, the sun had just barely peaked over the mountain. We both stood there quiet on the top of this peak in complete awe. That is the most at peace feeling in the world to me and I was immediately hooked. These Wasatch mountains have been my home for 24 years and have a very special place in my heart.

I have grown up and lived in Salt Lake City my whole life. I’ve travelled other places quite a bit but I can’t seem to peel myself away from here. Our access to beautiful mountains and alpine terrain is incredible. There aren’t many places that you can drive five minutes and be enveloped in a mountainous wonderland so easily.

Right after that first sunrise backcountry experience, I decided I wanted to do more with it than just experience it firsthand. I wanted to be a part of the community of skiers that had the same feeling I had, so I joined on with Wasatch Backcountry Alliance, who focuses on protecting our wildlands and backcountry so that it can be safe and preserved for many years to come. For years, representatives of Ski Utah and ski resorts have been trying to link our seven major ski resorts together so that you could access them all from one resort. As a member of WBA, I of course wanted to stop this from happening.

One Wasatch is the newly proposed idea to link the resorts, connecting 18,000 skiable acres of land on just one pass http://onewasatch.com/

This will take away that quiet, beautiful backcountry and will give anyone and everyone access to this land. This, in my opinion, puts people with no experience at a high risk, takes away the “backcountry experience”, and disrupts the environment as a whole. This plan to me sounds like it is only for the marketers who will benefit from the money, and not for the local skiers who this land matters to most and I want to do everything in my power to stop it.