Look! Up in the Sky. It's a Canopy of Stars!

Summer stargazing in Utah national parks

The clear, dry desert air makes for great astronomical opportunities. Below are three programs you can take part in with National Park Service rangers and volunteers to help you identify and understand what you are seeing through the telescope.

Cedar Breaks National Monument. With some of the nation's darkest night skies, Cedar Breaks National Monument celebrates and shares the beauty of these "ebony skies." Monthly “star parties" (June 10, 12 and 14; July 8, 10 and 12; August 7, 9 and 11; September 6, 8 and 10) are conducted by park staff and astronomy volunteers with a special evening program in the campground amphitheater, followed by star viewing through several large telescopes at Point Supreme. Admission is free. For more information, call 435-586-0787 or 435-586-9451.

Bryce Canyon National Park. Bryce Canyon National Park's Night Sky Team is a national program stationed at Bryce Canyon that has, in the park service's words, "an attitude toward the conservation of one of the last great sanctuaries of darkness." Each night 100 to 300 visitors gather around telescopes to look up at the universe. Viewing programs are offered three times a week and monthly full moon hikes end with stargazing through telescopes. The cost is $10 - $20. The 10th Annual Bryce Canyon Astronomy Festival (July 7-10) is a four-day event packed with activities for all ages. They include the planet walk, model rocket building and launching, presentations by national park rangers, and of course, star-gazing and constellation tours. 435-834-5322.

Natural Bridges National Monument. The National Bridges National Monument spanning southern Utah and northern Arizona is known for three of the world’s largest natural stone bridges, originally formed by stream action in White Canyon. Of course, if the Colorado River had not been dammed to created Lake Powell, there might be more such bridges that are now submerged. In any case, the Monument was designated as the world’s first International Dark Sky Park by the International Dark Sky Association. Each summer the Astronomy Ranger conducts Night Sky Programs at The Lees Ferry Campground in the Glen Canyon Recreation Area. For more information and a full schedule, call 435-692-1234.

New National Monument Designations on the Horizon -- Maybe

Western towns will benefit if sites are federally protected

An internal memo about more than a dozen natural areas considered for possible National Monument designation has surfaced. The areas that the Department of Interior is studying for management and protection by the National Park Service or other federal agency reported are:

• San Rafael Swell, UT
• Montana's Northern Prairie, MT
• Lesser Prairie Chicken Preserve, NM
• Berryessa Snow Mountains, CA
• Heart of the Great Basin, NV
• Otero Mesa, NM
• Northwest Sonoran Desert, AZ
• Owyhee Desert, OR/NV
• Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, CA (expansion)
• Vermillion Basin, CO
• Bodie Hills, CA
• The Modoc Plateau, CA
• Cedar Mesa, UT 
• San Juan Islands, WA

Predictably, two Utah politicians immediately came out in opposition -- just in case the two potential monuments made it even into the official proposal state. Senator Orrin Hatch has already been quoted as threatening do everything in his power to prevent the proposal from moving forward, and Governor Gary Herbert keeps arguing that states should be allowed to manage their own natural resources. Click here for the leaked document that has raised the hackles of these rib-rock Republican aginners.
I suppose Messrs. Hatch and Herbert don't think of the economic benefit that accrue to their state annually from visitors to Utah's magnificent national parks:  nearly 1 million Arches, more than 1 million to Bryce Canyon, nearly half a million to Canyonlands, about 600,000 to Capitol Reef and 2,689,840 who visited Zion. And that doesn't include those who visit Monument Valley Tribal Park at the Arizona border and assorted national monuments, federal wildlife preserves and other public lands under federal jurisdiction. Rather than tourist dollars, I suppose Utah's H-team prefers landmarks like the enormous, open-pit Kennecott Copper Mine, the world's largest, just outside of Salt Lake City or uranium mining, even though a tailings pile from a mill near Moab is still leaching into the Colorado River.

The Grand Staircase-Escanlate National Monument in southern Utah was declared and placed under Bureau of Land Management protection under the Clinton Administration, raised howl of indignant protests from the legions of highly placed Utah aginners, including Senator Hatch who called it a "land grab." It it was, the government grabbed 1.9 million acres, including land eyed for coal mining development Andalex Resources, a Dutch company.

Today, regardless of its stance then, the Kane County Chamber of Commerce now boasts: "Near the National Parks you will also find many State Parks and National Monuments, such as Kodachrome Basin State Park, Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park, Pipe Spring National Monument, Cedar Breaks National Monument, and the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. With ninety-five percent of county lands administered by State and Federal Agencies, you'll never run out of things to do, or places to go. Drive roads less traveled, and find a place to call your own." Unspoken is" and stay, shop, eat and pump gas in Kanab and other nearby towns. And people who never would have heard of the place without national monument status do just that.

Fingers crossed that the government ignores the likes of Hatch Herbert, creates more federally protected areas -- and provides the funding to manage them well

Skiing Utah: Powder Mountain

"Less is more" at this ski area near Ogden (and that's not me blasting through the powder)

Powder Mountain offers more terrain and more snow with less infrastructure than any other area in Utah. It is a ski and snowboard area, pure and simple, and not a resort with lodging. There's 4,700 acres of inbounds terrain -- 2,800 acres directly lift-served, 1,200 more requiring a shuttle ride back to the lifts and 700 requiring a snowcat ride. Add to that 2,500 acres of guided snowcat skiing/riding terrain, and you have a formidable 7,200 acres to explore. In North America, only the combination of Whistler and Blackcomb offers more acreage. There's not a snowgun anywhere, for Powder Mountain receives 500 inches of cloudlight Utah snow every year. What's all the more remarkable is that Powder Mountain has just four chairlifts (only one a high-speed quad) and three surface tows.

The 5 1/2-mile access road ascends through the woods, first passing shuttle pick-up points for off-piste skiers and riders, and then the Sundown beginner/intermediate area served by a double chairlft and a surface tow. Laid out almost like a separate ski hill, it has a parking lot, a base lodge, a teaching hill, ski school, rental shop and lights for night skiing. The Timberline base has another another parking lot, another day lodge, a yurt from which private lessons and powder tours depart and a ski shop including rentals.What you don't see is a lift.

It is necessary to ski down to the loading area for the Timberline triple, and from there, you can access the Hidden Lake Express, a recent replacement for a classic old double chair that accesses the heart of Powder Mountain's lift-served terrain and culminates at the area's highest point. Powder Mountain's topography is a series of ridges and valleys, and long roads between them. Gentle meanderers lace across the complicated terrain, and groomed cruisers entice intermediate and advanced skiers. But Powder Mountain's abundant black-diamond turf really makes it shine. Outstanding tree skiing, rock-rimmed chutes, headwalls and snowy spillways make it a place for advanced and expert skiers and riders to rip. Especially on non-holiday weekdays, you can have the vast terrain practically to yourself. The terrain is complicated and spread-out that the two-dimensional trail map is helpful, but even better for getting a clearer picture of the lay of the land is to take the free guided tour that takes off from the Timberline base at 10:00 a.m. daily.

The limited on-mountain lodging is not operated by Powder Mountain. Lodging options include the condos and townhomes in the rental program of Wolf Creek at the bottom of the Powder Mountain access road, additional accommodations in the small town of Eden and downtown lodging in Ogden, a very cool little city less than an hour's drive.

Powder Mountain, P.O. Box 1119, Eden, Utah 84310; 891-745-3772.

Skiing Utah: Sundance

Sundance: Robert Redford's ski mountain -- slopes amid a super-environmentally aware resort

Why would a Coloradan ski anyplace else?, friends ask when I go out of state (or out of the country) to make some turns. First (and really foremost), I travel so that I can write about ski resorts beyond the Centennial State's rectangle. But beyond that, I find that experiencing skiing and mountains and mountain resorts elsewhere refreshes my perspective on the Colorado Rockies. After all, when a person lives two hours from Vail and there are seven closer ski areas, it's easy to become jaded.

Why Sundance?

To reduce culture when leaving the People's Republic of Boulder, Sundance is a good place to start. In fact, if Boulder could design its own mountain resort, it would create Sundance. Just 450 acres of 6,000 that Robert Redford owns have been lightly developed for skiing. Sound environmental practices have gone into infrastructure and operations of the resort (an anti-resort, really). Smart building, conservation and recycling efforts have a high profile in the lodging and dining operations -- and it's Redford's founding philosophy, not just for show. For instance, the reusable shopping bag, right, contains a statistical reminder that unnecessary plastic bags are a major waste. The small print reads: "Use this bag twice a week for 2 years and each bag will SAVE 11 pounds of garbage, 832 plastic bags, enough petroleum to drive a car 60 miles."

Culture Under the Sundance Umbrella

Other Sundance efforts that are umbrella-ed under several intertwined entities. The Sundance Preserve, Utah's answer to the older Aspen Institute but with a lower-key public presence. The Sundance Preserve has hosted world leaders, Pulitzer Prize-winning authors, Academy Award-winning actors and directors, innovative scientists and accomplished corporate leaders to discuss public policy, social issues, art and the environment. The non-profit Sundance Institute is dedicated to the discovering and nurturing independent artists and audiences. It supports and inspires independent film and theater word introduces American and global audiences to their new works. The Sundance Channel provides further outreach. This cable television network airs independent feature films, world cinema, documentaries, short film, and original programs, all are shown uncut and without commercials. It is interrelated with the Sundance Film Festival (January 21-31 this year), which is now so big that it has spread to Park City and even to Ogden for enough venues. Then there's Sundance Cinemas, the commercial and educational arm of the Sundance film presence.

Skiing at Sundance

But what about the skiing, you ask? Sundance Resort's lodgings and public buildings tucked among the trees lie at the foot of a mid-size ski area with 41 runs, three chairlifts and a respectable 2,150-foot vertical. that, from the bottom, looks smaller than it skis. The only visible lift, a quad named Ray's after the pre-Redford owner, ferries riders to a midway unload for those who want to ski or snowboard the lower mountain, continues to the front-mountain summit and another unloading area and then drops into a low spot from which the Arrowhead triple reaches the area's highest lift-served point. Looking south beyond the signs and the safety fence is a long view past the mountains to the flat and across to the next mountains.

Skier's right leads to Sundance's most challenging terrain -- a landscape of ridges, gulleys and glades. Skier's left features some short, steep shots, a bit of gladed terrain and wonderful cruising runs. It is possible to yo-yo on Arrowhead all day long, mixing and matching blue and black runs. Back to the lower mountain, its tamest beginner terrain is served by a short handle tow, but beyond that, novices and intermediates can get a lot of mileage on the long green and blue runs measuring to 1,325 vertical feet. Most of these runs are again lit for night skiing  after many dark years. A handful of terrain features built  into one short blue trail (Montoya, I think) attract boarders. Up the road is the Sundance Cross-Country Center, with 26 kilometers of daily groomed trails for skating and classic track skiing and also 10 kilometers of dedicated trails through the woods.

Skiing Better at Sundance

I'm going out on a limb when I write that if you want to learn to ski or overcome a plateau on which you've been stuck, there's no better place to do so than Sundance. It is the home hill of Jerry Warren. His titles are director of mountain operations and director of skiing, but his real renown comes in ski instructor circles. Jerry, one of the country's top ski technique gurus,  used to coach the Professional Ski Instructors of America elite demo team. Last June, he received PSIA's Lifetime Achievement Award, only the sixth person so honored in half a century. There's simply no one better to identify and fix skiing problems -- and I'm betting that he clinics his ski instructors to do so too. My pals and I spent a few very productive hours skiing with him and taking his counsel.We didn't go through Warren's entire three-day Ski Performance Lab program (including videoanalysis and seminars), but those few hours were enough to fine-tune my turns.

I just wonder why I didn't get around to taking a picture of Jerry too. I guess I was too busy concentrating on my technique and practicing what he preached -- gently and with humor, of course.

Sundance Info

Sundance Resort is up in Timpanogas Canyon above Provo at 8841 North Alpine Loop Road, Sundance, Utah 84604. Phones: 866-259-7468 (main number), 800-892-1600 (lodging reservations), 801-223-4110(snow report), 801-223-4140 (ski/snowboard school and Ski Performance Labs), 801-223-6000 (activities and events), 801-223-4170 (cross-country center). Click here to sign up for Sundance's newsletter.

Arches National Park's Wall Arch Collapses

Park's 12th largest arch collapsed in the middle of the night with no witnesses and no injuries

On August 3, Wall Arch was one of the more prominent and accessible sandstone arches in Utah's Arches National Park. At 71 feet high and and 33 1/2 feet wide, it was the 12th largest of the 2,000-plus arches known in the park, according to the National Park Service. Sometime on the night of August 4, Wall Arch came tumbling down, blocking a section of the Devil's Garden Trail beyond Landscape Arch. Fortunately, the collapse did not occur during the day, when visitors frequent the trail. (The park service's before and after photos appear below.)



"Not being a geologist, I can't get very technical but it just went kaboom," chief ranger Denny Ziemann told reporter Tom Wharton of the Salt Lake City Tribune. "The middle of the arch just collapsed under its own weight. It just happens."

Wharton also wrote, "Ziemann said the trail closure extends from Double 0 Arch to Wall Arch. If the rest of Wall Arch falls soon, the Park Service will clear off the trail to make it passable. If it continues to teeter over the trail, it may be a while before the trail reopens."

The park service itself reported that "On August 7, 2008, representatives from both the National Park Service Geologic Resources Division and the Utah Geological Survey visited the site and noted obvious stress fractures in the remaining formation." The trail is currently closed because debris has not yet been removed -- a tricky operation under any circumstances, but even more so in an area where motorized vehicles are generally not used.

Recognizing that natural phenomena are attractions in their own right, park service and the Moab Area Travel Council officials put a positive spin on the loss of one the park's most iconic arches, describing the event as a rare opportunity to see "geology in action."