By Jim Stanford on March 26, 2007
It looks ugly, but by summer no one
will notice.
So says Snow King Ski Area Manager Jim Sullivan, speaking of the S-shaped gashes left on the hillside by the “World Championship” Snowmobile Hill Climb this weekend.
Any damage inflicted on the mountain by snowmobiles will be remedied, Sullivan said Monday morning, preparing to head up and begin reseeding by hand.
Officials from Snow King and the U.S. Forest Service will meet this afternoon with the Jackson Hole Snow Devils, which organizes the event, to assess the damage, Sullivan said.
“I am not saying it looks good,” Sullivan said. “We are going to fix it, and it will be just fine.”
Although the Hill Climb, in which racers ride souped-up snowmobiles straight up the King’s steep Exhibition run, typically leaves a mark on the slope, this year the tracks were particularly glaring because of thin snow cover and unusually warm temperatures.
Sullivan said the stain looks worse than it is, as the ground remained frozen and the snowmobiles dug up less than an inch of earth. Any cutting of dormant shrubs such as mountain ash is akin to pruning and will not affect the plants’ growth, he said.
The ski area manager will seed and fertilize the ground and lay mulch. The resort utilizes a special seed mixture, called Mountain Brome, produced by Wind River Seed, a company based in the Bighorn Basin.
“Let me reassure you: We will fix it, and we will do the same thing next year,” Sullivan said, adding that all the reseeding over the years probably has left the Exhibition slope healthier. He pointed out that hikers who shortcut the mountain in summer tend to leave deeper ruts.
•
Now that the four-day orgy of petroleum consumption is over, the invasion of monster trucks has returned to Utah and the buzzing in our ears has subsided, east Jackson residents are beginning to pick up the trash and recyclables left in their yards by Hill Climb attendees.
Although it seemed to me that there were more hooligans in town this year, shooting off fireworks (guns?) and heckling from motel balconies, I was told by someone close to the event that it was “no worse than any other year.”
I am not one to begrudge the Sled Heads their fun. I just hope the town affords the Spread Heads the same courtesy for the summer concerts at Snow King.
•
The appellation “World Championship” Snowmobile Hill Climb always amuses me.
I leafed through a program discarded in one of my neighbors’ yards, and nearly every competitor was from Utah, Idaho and Wyoming, with only a handful from Minnesota and Canada. More than half were from Utah.
At least the “International” Stage Stop Sled Dog Race usually has Frenchman Jacques Philip in the field.
I know, baseball calls its championship the World Series even though all but one team are American. But at least the players hail from all over Latin America and the Far East, as well as the States.
Posted under environment, snow king, snowmobiles, sports
I wonder if Snow King or FS would consider building a summer trail straight uphill, since that’s obviously the preferred route for so many of us. I mean, they’ve let the mountain biking faction build bermed-up downhill courses on the King, they let the Snow Devils dig out a 2-stroke slalom course, so why not the Snow King Organic Stairmaster?
A summer trail straight the F* up Snow King would be great if your intentions were to create a completely unstable and unsustainable trail, or if you wanted to see just how deep the torrent of water would be come once it found this lovely little drain. Now that would be quite the permanent scar! You might not like the berms on the top of Ferrin trail (built by the non-motorized community, not just DH MTBers), but the trail does indeed shed water along the whole 3+mile length. Still I ask that everyone KEEP OFF the Snow King Trail System during and after rainstorms!!! Even those slacker trail runners need to stay away from a wet trail.