Now, a new U.S. Forest Service rule, intended to boost skier safety at Alta Ski Area, means most of the residents cannot drive so-called over-snow vehicles (OSVs) to and from their homes after 8 a.m. or before 5 p.m. during the ski season, adding a new complication to shuttling kids to school, commuting to work or hiring someone for home repairs.

"We're landlocked," says Diane Bledsoe, who splits her time between her Grizzly Gulch cabin and her Sandy home.

Bledsoe's home was granted 24-hour motorized access by the Forest Service, but she and her husband, Doug, fear their OSV route could be slapped with the same time restrictions now placed on the route to 21 homes in nearby Albion Basin.

"If they do it to your neighbor, why can't they do it to you?" worries Doug Bledsoe, who plans to file an appeal.

The Bledsoes and other property owners have until May 21 to challenge the decision. If the Forest Service's regional office in Ogden upholds the rule, then homeowners could sue in federal court.

In 2005, Alta Ski Area asked the Forest Service to review its travel-management plan for the resort's leased federal ground, which includes 36 privately held homes in Grizzly Gulch and Albion Basin. The ski resort worried that OSV use on trails used by downhill skiers posed a safety hazard.

"We're trying to stay ahead of the curve instead of waiting until there's a bad situation," says Onno Wieringa, general manager of Alta Ski Area. "We're representing hundreds of thousands of skiers that come here every year."

No collisions between OSV drivers and skiers have been reported in the Wasatch Mountains, says Salt Lake District Ranger Loren Kroenke, but there have been a handful in Colorado in recent years, including one fatality in 2004.

"Our hope is that [this rule] improves the safety situation for skiers at Alta Ski Area and yet still provides some access in a pretty unusual situation for homeowners," says Kroenke, who helped prepare the OSV decision.

Alta (population 400), where ski resort and home development have occurred independently for decades without planning for access, is unlike any other U.S. ski town, Kroenke says. In Park City, for instance, Deer Valley residents can travel paved roads - separated from the ski runs - to their doorsteps year-round.

In its ruling this month, the Forest Service concluded that OSV travel through Alta Ski Area - besides travel done by employees to maintain the resort - had not been allowed since at least 1982, but that the ban had been ignored and unenforced.

Homeowners, who submitted more than 120 written comments to the Forest Service in advance of the ruling, point to a 1981 promise made by Alta Ski Area and the agency that a resort expansion, which included the addition of the Cecret and Supreme lifts, would not impede motorized access to homes.

A few property owners in Grizzly Gulch have submitted a title claim to the Forest Service, asserting they control a right of way through federal land to their property.

That claim is under review, Kroenke says.

Meanwhile, Albion Basin homeowners would like to see responsible use of their OSV route without the time restriction.

"There are things we can do and have done already to minimize the risk of an accident - and there hasn't been an accident," says Peter Waldo, whose wife's family has owned an Albion Basin cabin since 1970. "Our rights have been ignored."

Waldo and his wife, Stephanie, live in Salt Lake City but visit the cabin frequently. Hiring a plumber or an electrician to fix a problem in the winter could prove difficult, if not impossible, under the new restrictions, Peter Waldo says.

"To get them to wait until after 5 p.m. isn't going to work," says Waldo, who expects to file an appeal with his neighbors in Albion Basin. "Restricting access [this] radically is overkill."

rwinters@sltrib.com