Mountain Meadows Massacre

I went out into the Snyderville Meadow the other day from my billion dollar house is Silver Springs, just to look up at the mountains and remember why we live here.  The day was unbelievably blue and the green and white mountain playground filled the foreground.  I walked on the perfectly groomed ski trail to the new ski track on the Osguthorpe farm and up to the County hockey pond at the Willow Creek Lake.  The only thing missing was outdoor yoga, soccer, frisbee, kids and Pickle Ball but that will start soon.  It was pretty nice.

It reminded me of 33 years ago when I built my little house here, on a song and a prayer, and had the entire meadow to myself.  I would go classic cross-country skiing in the meadow often, in untracked snow and sometime on a smooth tabletop of unbreakable crust that I could skate-ski on.   I would hike around in the summer in grass as tall as a bison’s belly.  It was a great place to be alone.  I had the place to myself. 

Over the years the meadow became choked with Russian Thistle and other foreign-exotic species during the summer but there were also indigenous turkey vultures drying their wings in the morning and foxes howling their ungodly mating screams at night.  Occasionally there would be a moose out there chasing the cows around or a heard of Elk or Deer browsing lazily on my landscape.  Those days are gone.  

Now there are hoards of Goats-for-Hire out there every August eating everything in sight and turning the meadow into a dust bowl or a goat-poop-soup quagmire when it rains, all in the name of weed control or fire suppression.  They spray the weeds adequately annually and this is a groundwater recharge zone where the grasses are green and have not burned in the 40 years I have been watching.  The meadow is a moist green sponge that slowly drains every summer to this groundwater discharge area.   If they must do this can't they move the goats faster or do it in September or October before the first snows.  

The Goat denuded landscape raises the local temperature of the meadow, the Sand Hill Cranes move north and the hummingbirds, crickets and lightning bugs are gone, not to mention other unintended consequences.  My dog doesn't even want to go out there.  I'm sure the County has looked into this Goat plan and there is some good intentions, science and economics involved, but it seems the cure is worse than the sickness, at least for those of us who live on the meadow.  

I lamented the slow entropy of the meadow experience over the years as Ranch Place and then Willow Creek were developed and my unending, wide open spaces became cloistered and confined.   Once an unsavory developer planned 400 units on 100 acres in the meadow and when we asked him about open space, he replied that every ¼ acre lot would have a front AND a back yard.  When asked about Wetland preservation he said they would build a pool and a pond.  The pond would be good for me. 

But the new developments graciously provided trails, open space and connectivity between the undeveloped areas, after a little arm twisting by the county.  Now there is a County maintained trail system that carries more than1000 people and dogs a day around the meadow and connects to trails from Park City to Round Valley, UOP, Kimball Junction and the rest of the 500 miles of trails around here.  Kids and dogs, horses and bikes, skis and sleds, the place is super busy and a great place to meet new and old friends.  Tourists zoom buy on rental electric bikes without helmets, skills, or a care in the world.   The trails are groomed in the winter and graded in the summer, the wetlands are preserved, the old farm is protected and there is the Willow Creek Park on the corner.  We have a win-win situation where everyone gets what they wanted, and the public welfare is promoted.  Well done.

I thought to myself about the private mountain meadow that I lost and the public playground that replaced it.  While bittersweet, I think in the end I would choose to share the meadow with those who enjoy it so much.  In the big picture, it is something we are all asked to do; share the great place where we live and the good fortune that we have realized by living here.  Maybe the roads are a bit congested, and the slopes are more crowded, and the trails are full of riders from out-of-town but there is still room for everyone, and things are usually better when shared.  It is still pretty nice.