De-evolution. For Polly.

   

    While riding the ridge above Round Valley near the 5-way bench on a colorful, clear and cool autumn day under cerulean bright skies smelling of sage and success, I looked fondly at the back of the Wasatch and thought of how beautiful it was and what a great place to live, work and play it was.  Then I looked closer and saw that it was wall to wall houses and condos, roads and ski runs from Mayflower to Murdock, without much public access to our public lands.  “My God, what have we done,” I thought.  I began to try to imagine what this place looked like 50 years ago.

    There was an empty two-lane highway stretching from town to Kimball’s Junction with twice daily cow crossings and a frost-heave roller coaster near McLeod creek in the spring.  The Junction was just a Chevron station with stale donuts and Texaco station across the street with disgusting bathrooms.  If you sat in you car long enough a guy would come out and pump your gas, maybe wash your windows and check your oil.  There was no diamond interchange or flyover but just a freeway overpass full of potholes. The freeway was an improvement from the old two-lane Lincoln highway, but the lines were painted only once a year and indistinguishable in the winter.

    Park West ski resort was just everything North of the Lookout house and Tombstone was backcountry called Tuna Ville, Dream Catcher was Old Lady and Square topped was skied once a year in the spring, probably by a guy in a cowboy hat.  A few condos were being built at the base below the muddy parking lot, with electric heat and single pane windows.    The bar at the base, Smokey’s, was rocking from 3-6 in the winter but was dead otherwise.  The Snyderville meadow was all flood-irrigated hay and was still the true mountain Parley's 'Park’ that this city was named for. 

    Park City Resort stopped at the Thayne’s lift while Jupiter Bowl and Peak were just a dream away.   The Gondola ride was a long, slow and round 4-man cabin that took 25 minutes and two one-hits to get to the top.  The Mid-Mountain Lodge was at the angle station and served 25 cents mini beers from 3-4 for the last run down.  The Bars or at the bottom always had a band and sometimes raucous skier debauchery with wet tee shirt or ski throwing contests.  Deer Valley was called Frog Valley and Silver Lake was Lake Flat at the time and the road from town turned to dirt at the small Cat Houses on Deer Valley Drive that had been the site of raucous miner debauchery until 1953.  The magnificent red  Mayflower Maples were in another county, high up off of the two lane highway to Heber

    Main Street was gentrifying but still some places were boarded up from the ghost town days.  Properties could be bought for back-taxes, but nobody wanted them.  The EE, with its Hungry Miner potato and egg pie and the Coke and Number, with its Muckers Special Enchiladas with Pineapples, were the best places in to eat in town and The Other End, across the street had huge cable spools for tables out front for large loud parties.  Art still had the hardware store where you could have your self-esteem assaulted, by Art, while you picked through the mixed nuts and bolts.  Old Miners begrudgingly shared their favorite bars with the skiers but there was a tense hierarchy, with the hippies always at the bottom.  “Ski when its good, work when you should,” was our motto.

    I think I remember diagonal parking on Main Street, but that might have been a dream.  Poison Creek near current Lo-Main was just a sandy flood plain with a bunch of hippies living in sepia brown vans or avocado green station wagons and dilapidated miner shacks.  Someone threw the first shoes up in a tree there starting a tradition that continues today.  Every house in Old-town was falling down and included crooked floors, frozen pipes and flow through ventilation but could be rented for $100 a month.

    The golf course had only nine holes but they ran out of money building the greens so there were elephants buried under some of them. Thayne’s Canyon and Park Meadows were underway with some custom homes and a lot of Enoch Smith specials, with or without porches.  Prospector was a toxic waste dump and the kids went to school at Marsac and the High School on Park Avenue.  Jim Santy was the music teacher, not the Auditorium.  The City had purchased more snowplows so they didn’t depend on the county, SLC or National Guard to help plow the roads after big dumps.  Even with lethal flows from the mines, the water tanks would routinely drain, and we would have to cut back our use for a few days to fill them in case fire flows were needed.

    “Those were the days” I thought as I rode away down the custom flow-trail with super-elevated turns and rock paved wetlands.  “These are the days”, I countered when I considered how we had all grown up together into the town and the people we have become.  No matter where we go, there we are, with the choices we have made and the people we have chosen to share them with.  We have matured and some have moved on, but in the end it’s still a pretty great place to live, work and play.  Let’s keep it that way.