17 September 2009

Literary Skiers 3




But if the tourists ever discover in numbers the back country that lies behind the loop of national parks and monuments, if they ever by any chance get up on Thousand Lake Mountain or the Aquarius Plateau, if they ever make their way into the Colob up from Zion, if they discover the permanent wilderness in the Grand-daddy Lakes Basin in the Uintahs, if the promoters ever succeed in exploiting to the full the skiing at Alta, that old sinful ghost town in Little Cottonwood Canyon where the United States Army trained para-ski troops during the winter of 1941, the valleys of the mountains are no longer going to provide sanctuary.

--Wallace Stegner, from Mormon Country, 1942




Photo Credits:
Alta City
Alta Postcard
$5,900,000 Alta Home
The Cliff "Lodge"




1 comment:

Brother Bub said...

I remember a night when I was tripping off my butt on mushrooms with Joni (remember her, the little elf?), and we explored the empty halls all over the Cliff Lodge - going from room to room, kitchen(s) to dinning hall(s), for hours with no one in sight. Always thought it looked like a huge monster amidst the trees. Now it is even more frightening.