White Pine Gulch in Little Cottonwood Canyon is paradise for the backcountry ski and splitboard crowd.

On one hand, it offers gentle, low-grade slopes leading to open meadows and wind-protected glades. On the other, steep chutes with ample snow can be found on the surrounding 10,500-plus-foot peaks — at least for those willing to spend half a day hiking.

But what if they didn’t have to hike? What if a Snowbird chairlift delivered skiers to this Shangri-La?

Theoretically, that and other ski area expansions could be one step closer to reality if the Trump administration repeals the Roadless Area Conservation Rule as it proposed last month.

According to The Salt Lake Tribune’s analysis of Forest Service roadless-area maps and ski area boundaries, at least half of Utah’s 16 ski areas — including Brighton Resort, Solitude Mountain Resort, Deer Valley Resort and Snowbird — are either adjacent to or overlap with an inventoried roadless area.

At the moment, they face several barriers to expanding onto those public lands, but rescinding the rule would eliminate one of the sturdiest ones.

“Getting rid of things like the Roadless Rule,” said Jack Stauss, the executive director of the nonprofit conservation group Save Our Canyons, “it just creates ambiguity in the protection of our lands in perpetuity.”

Established by the Clinton administration in 2001, the rule curtails the construction of roads and mining and logging operations on more than 44 million acres of National Forest land across the country while still allowing for nonmotorized activities like hiking, biking, fishing, hunting and backcountry skiing. The Trump administration is proposing a rule change, it says, to allow for better wildfire mitigation, increase timber harvests and to give local entities more say in the management of federal public lands.

Most resorts contacted by The Salt Lake Tribune, including Snowbird, Snowbasin and Brighton, said they have no immediate plans of stretching into roadless areas. But Utah ski areas have tested the strength of the Roadless Rule in recent years.

Putting early pieces in place

In 2018, Nordic Valley Resort near Ogden explored an expansion up to Lewis Peak to increase its terrain from 140 skiable acres to 2,800 and raise its peak elevation to roughly 8,100 feet. Stauss said one of the reasons that project ultimately failed was that it was denied right-of-way onto federal lands governed by the Roadless Rule.

Still, the development group responsible for the resort’s base has moved forward with that project, and — according to a Utah Foundation report first reported by KSL in April — Nordic Valley’s owner intends to expand the ski area’s terrain if it can secure federal permits.

“We’re under the thought that these people are probably watching this Roadless Rule dialogue closely,” Stauss said. “And once the Roadless Rule’s rescinded and the new ambiguity comes back into play, there’s one less block for them to be able to build chairlift higher up on the ridge.”

Mountain Capital Partners, which purchased the Nordic Valley ski area in early 2018, declined The Tribune’s request for comment.

Resort skiers might appreciate the additional terrain, but it would come at the expense of their backcountry brethren — not just the skiers, but mountain bikers, hikers and hunters as well.

Opening the door to disturbances?

Nicole Brown calls the Roadless Rule the “Goldilocks of designations” because it permits such a wide variety of outdoor uses.

“At a time where I think individuals are being pitted against each other,” said Brown, the spokesperson for the nonprofit national advocacy group Outdoor Alliance, “these are the places where we can come as we are and also come together and have that kind of recreation experience that you can’t have anywhere else.”

Dani Poirier, director of the Wasatch Backcountry Alliance, said that’s why it’s imperative to protect places like White Pine. It’s one of the busiest backcountry areas in the state, she said. And she worries that many of the aspects that draw people to it will be lost without the Roadless Rule.

One of Poirier’s concerns is that roads will be built to private land parcels, raising the value of those lots and opening the door for more intrusive development. Just the existence of a road in an otherwise landlocked area, she said, can disturb its wildlife and solitude.

The Forest Service’s own draft environmental impact statement agrees. It says roads, even if used only for recreation, “create more opportunities for more human disturbance in areas that were previously less accessible.”

That’s as much a downer for Utah’s economy as it is for outdoor lovers, Poirier said.

“There’s no denying that the ski resorts are super important for our local economy,” she said, “but the human-powered recreation piece is essential.”

A pitch for permanent protection

For now, White Pine doesn’t appear to be in danger. Snowbird has no intention of expanding to White Pine Ridge regardless of what happens to the Roadless Rule, general manager Dave Fields said in a text to The Tribune. It floated that idea in the 1990s and was met by strong resistance from the Forest Service and residents.

In fact, that’s why most Utah ski resorts aren’t salivating over the opportunity for expansion: Even if the Roadless Rule is repealed, it doesn’t automatically give them a green light to grow.

The Forest Service’s own land-management designations may be even more onerous for resorts looking to expand, especially those on the Wasatch Front.

Most of the Forest Service land in the Cottonwood Canyons — except for sections set aside for ski areas and other recreation — carries designations that are even more prohibitive than the Roadless Rule restrictions. That includes a watershed designation that prohibits logging, road construction and the creation of new trails in order to protect the Salt Lake City municipal water supply. It also includes “undeveloped” areas, which are tied to those same prohibitions plus ones on controlled burns and vegetation management.

In addition, ski areas that lease public land must seek Forest Service approval for any changes to their special use permit.

“We are still bound by Forest Service rules which prohibit expansion on federal land,” Brighton General Manager Mike Doyle said in a text. “So, unless those rules are reversed it would not likely allow us to expand.”

But that’s not impossible.

Stauss noted the Forest Service has the authority to change those designations and alter those permits to fit the whims of whoever is in the White House. That’s why Save Our Canyons is working to create what it is calling the Central Wasatch National Conservation and Recreation Area, he said. At its core, it would be a congressionally designated roadless area that would blanket the Cottonwood Canyons and Millcreek Canyon. And, Stauss hopes, it would give those areas stability.

“Flip-flopping every four years between what layers of protection [an area has] and, subsequently, what management policies come along with that,” he said, “just makes it harder for all of us to do our work.”

Public comments on the Roadless Rule proposal are being accepted through Tuesday.