Over the decades I’ve lived in my house, I’ve driven literally hundreds of thousands of miles going back and forth between home and Park City. Live, drive, work, drive, play, and drive. It’s just how rural life works. 

In all of that mileage over all of those years, I had never hit a deer until last week. And boy howdy, did I hit it. 

I know the typical crossing spots. After a while you get to know the deer by name. Yes, they all look alike, but they are different, too. But they are sort of predictable, crossing at a little swale coming off the farm to the river to drink on a fairly regular schedule. 

There have been some close calls, but no contact. The same with the elk herd that is getting displaced by subdivisions in Francis. There have been some slam-on-the-brakes moments there, but avoidable. Paying attention is key.

But it’s all kind of a lottery no matter how careful you are. Apparently every 750,000 miles or so, your number is up. I was on S.R. 248 climbing the hill toward Kamas. There was a big vehicle in the left lane, so I couldn’t see anything to the side except the slab of SUV next to me. 

The deer decided to run across the highway at about noon. It somehow cleared the westbound lane. The SUV next to me braked just enough to notice, but not enough to give me a clear view. The SUV missed it and the deer stepped right in front of me, and that was that.

I wasn’t hurt, and no other vehicles were involved. It could have been worse. A kind woman in a car behind me stopped to make sure I was OK as I sat on the shoulder, also trying to make sure I was OK. 

I called dispatch, who said they don’t deal with deer unless there is something really messing with traffic. The deer died, which is way better than being critically injured, but alive on the shoulder of the busy road. 

The car was a mess, steam blasting out of the radiator, crumbs scattering about. The car is mostly made of Tupperware as best I can tell. All that plastic crumple zone stuff in fact safely crumpled, and while I was fine, the eviscerated Subaru was worse off than the deer. I drove it home, but it was done. 

The insurance company sent out a tow truck, and a local body shop came up with an estimate. When the running total broke $10,000, they quit working on it. Nobody bothered to pry the hood open to see how bad it was inside. It didn’t matter. It was DOA.

What followed was sort of amazing. The accident was at noon on a Thursday. I called my insurance agent mid-afternoon. The claims process came at me like a firehose, largely AI powered but a few helpful humans in there, too. 

All of three business days later, I had the cash in my account. They made an offer so generous on a 10-year-old car with a lot of miles and duct-taped interior that there was no back and forth. They waived the deductible because I had been a loyal customer for so long. Not at all what I was expecting.

While I’m on the hunt for a new car, I’m driving the farm truck. It’s a 20-year old pickup that cost me $135 to fill up on Monday. And again on Thursday. I don’t understand why anybody will drive one of those as their daily ride. Needless to say, I’m staying close to home for the most part. 

For its day, the truck was pretty tricked out. But it doesn’t Bluetooth to anything, the backup camera is a postage stamp, and the transmission is a relic compared to modern trucks. And did I mention 14 mpg? It feels pretty primitive, but it’s getting me where I need to go for now.

Deer collisions are a big deal. Insurance estimates runs up to about $10 billion in vehicle damage and medical costs each year from wildlife collisions. The average deer claim is north of $5,000. 

A Pew Charitable Trust study puts the combined “societal and repair cost” of a typical deer collision at $20,000, and up to $110,000 for a moose collision (which almost always involves medical costs). 

I don’t know how they are estimating the “societal cost.” It obviously is more than the cost of paying the guy with the worst job in the world to drive around a clean up the carcasses. 

There is the aesthetic loss of seeing the moose happy and healthy in the wild, but since we haven’t figured out how to monetize scenic beauty directly, I don’t know what that value is. 

Societal costs would also include things like the extensive fencing going in along local highways to try to reduce wildlife collisions, and even very expensive solutions like the overpass at Parleys Summit. But while I’m skeptical of the larger and more esoteric cost estimates, the actual cost of demolishing a perfectly functional car are very real and very measurable.

Anyway, take it easy out there.  

Tom Clyde practiced law in Park City for many years. He lives on a working ranch in Woodland and has been writing this column since 1986.

The post More Dogs on Main: Not the lottery I wanted to win appeared first on Park Record.

PARK RECORD: Mr. Niño, they say that you’re strengthening, with a greater than 90% chance of becoming “very strong” this fall and winter, and a 69% chance to become a historic event exceeding previous El Niños going back to 1950. Do you care to comment?

SUPER EL NIÑO: Very strong? Very strong? When I climb that turnbuckle and rip off my shirt, everyone will damn well know I’m not “Very Strong El Niño!!!”

By the way, regular El Niño is a disaster. Small. Very small. He makes three inches overnight and everybody loses their minds. No energy. Very little energy.

I am the greatest Niño. Nobody understands Niño better than me.

You think you know precipitation? You don’t know precipitation. Beautiful, magnificent precipitation. The whitest precipitation. Very deep. Very fluffy. The greatest of its kind anywhere that’s ever been precipitated and believe me, this is a Niño they’ve been trying to precipitate for over 75 years. And I will bring it in under budget and ahead of schedule.

In fact, nobody’s ever seen precipitation like this. Tremendous precipitation. Unprecedented. People are saying possibly the greatest precipitation in history. Very respected meteorologists. They come up to me with tears in their eyes.

Sixty-nine percent chance of historic. Sea-surface anomalies above 2 degrees Celsius. Nobody builds anomalies like me. By the way I’m changing that to Fahrenheit. Celsius is for punks.

La Niña? Weak, very weak, very unattractive. Nobody’s bigger or better at Niño than I am.

When I get in here, it will be Super El Niño versus the universe!

Jimmy Superfly Snuka? He’s a chump. Horrible.

Super Tuesday? That’s one day. I’m here all winter. They tried to get me out. But I stayed.

Super Bowl? You need a bowl? I am the entire American Ocean! We changed that, by the way. That was my idea.

Superman? Look at the muscles on this guy. Very hot, very handsome. Put some pants on.

Super moon? Lemme bend over, I got your super moon right here. Unbelievable moon. The biggest moon. It’s so big, it’s so enormous, it’s so amazing.

I’m the world’s greatest weather system. Nobody’s bigger or better at weather than me.

Tremendous weather. Huge.

PARK RECORD: But Mr. Niño, if I may, what about the atmospheric river?

SUPER EL NIÑO: You call that a river? It’s a creek. A sad, little creek. I’ve seen bigger rivers coming off a snowbank in April.

Bomb cyclone? Terrible name. Ridiculous.

Polar vortex? Spins around. Total loser.

And don’t come at me with lake effect snow. You need a lake to make snow? Pathetic. Everyone knows I have an ocean. A big, beautiful ocean.

PARK RECORD: What about the Farmer’s Almanac?

SUPER EL NIÑO: Fake weather. They’ve been very unfair to me. Very wrong.

PARK RECORD: OpenSnow?

SUPER EL NIÑO: Great people. Love OpenSnow. Very smart people. Unless they say I’m going south. In which case, they’re morons.

PARK RECORD: What do you say about the historic snowmaking expansion at Deer Valley?

SUPER EL NIÑO. Those little snow guns? Cute, very cute. I don’t even wait. I grab them by the nozzles. Tiny little nozzles. Very cute. I don’t make snow. I make history.

I am the most powerful climate phenom on the planet.

I will shift the jet stream.

I will alter global weather patterns.

I wi—

PARK RECORD (interrupting): But Mr. Niño, will you snow in Park City?

SUPER EL NIÑO: Quiet, powder piggy.

The post Betty Diaries: Super El Niño at the World Weather Federation Press Conference appeared first on Park Record.

“What Came West” is easily the strangest of five books I’m reading with the early to mid-1800s as backdrop, and the best.

But then I know and admire the author, so maybe I can’t be taken for the definitive voice. The other four stories are acclaimed: A.B. Guthrie’s “The Big Sky” and the Pulitzer-winning “The Way West”; “Fools Crow,” by Blackfeet author James Welch, writing from the tribe’s viewpoint; and “The Indifferent Stars Above,” by Daniel James Brown, the lone nonfiction in this pack about the Donner Party trek that got stuck on the wrong side of the Sierra at just the wrong time.

“What Came West” author Josh Weil will speak next Tuesday, Sept. 15, at Dolly’s on Main Street and Wednesday at The King’s English in Salt Lake City.

In the spring, I got to read an advance copy of the novel published in June. The story shows the West in a fraught period through a hermit trapper, Silas Hall, stretching from his childhood near Pittsburgh, when passenger pigeons still darkened day into dusk in swarms across vast woodland only freckled with farms, to the northern Sierra foothills during the deadly earliest part of the California Gold Rush. 

This story, like all of Weil’s work, is no simple tale. Here’s a writer who discards first, second, sixth, 11th ideas to get to just the right one. He’s a patient miner, with research as well as story nuggets, and it shows in the deep seams of his work.

This plays out most in Silas, a protagonist impossible to like and yet, I suspect, one every reader will wind up loving quite against their will, full up with the tragedy of his murderous soul, understanding why and perhaps even agreeing, if very uncomfortably.

Westerns play out against our knowledge of what happens after the story, and this one ends at the cusp of a gold-fevered horde about to scour the northern Sierra foothills and in a relative instant decimate a surprisingly dense native population that had prospered there for millennia.

Weil wrote the novel in an old camper at the epicenter of the Gold Rush, largely in solitude himself. Silas Hall is only the latest of leading characters in Weil’s work who live much of their lives alone, apart. Silas must, which is part of the tragedy. He cannot withstand the company of other people. He was born this way.

He seems happiest, if never fully happy, by himself in the wild. But his distress at not being able to stand the proximity of other people causes him to seek cures that can’t work, including nearly drowning himself at the bottom of the Ohio River and burning his scalp in desperation. Laudanum makes it all worse.

He finds a measure of solace in sketching, his mastery eventually drawing him west to the Sierra largely through a string of misadventures. A sole romantic encounter with a servant attracted to his illustrations results in a toddler he leaves but can never forget. Half the novel is a long, long letter to his son, now 15 if alive. Parts of this letter alternate with chapters in third-person narrative of a manhunt closing in on him.

The novel offers no diagnosis, but The New York Times goes right there in its book review: “New novel follows an autistic trapper on an odyssey during the California gold rush.” And Weil in the acknowledgments names “Diary of a Young Naturalist,” by Dara McNulty, as helping him the most in his approach to Silas’ neurodivergence.

Death is commonplace in all these books, and most of the killing feels almost nonchalant. Certainly there is grief, too. A.B. Guthrie devotes a chapter in “The Way West” to a boy killed by a rattlesnake bite, which shakes up a whole wagon train. Outside family and closest friends, though, this is just the way of things, especially between Indigenous people and whites. Characters joke laconically about killing and even in several of these books talk about distaste for “man meat” in times of starvation well short of abject horror at the very idea.

“What Came West” has plenty of what I view as casual violence steeped in its times, but also Silas’ horror at killing his food and trapping animals he feels more kinship toward than humans. There’s a schism in his soul here, even in regard to killing people. Though he certainly does. Kill people, that is, and in the end intends to kill as many miners as he possibly can as they come for him.

I’ve read the novel twice, so far. This is my way with all of Weil’s stories. The first read is rapid, to see what happens next. This tale surprised me at every turn, the effect of using the 11th idea rather than the first or second in every instance. And I just had to know — now! — all the way through.

I found the second read at least as worthwhile for sinking into the scenes and better understanding Silas and his way of understanding (and not understanding) his world. Knowing what happens next opened me way more to the why of it all, freed from plot mania.

Weil’s weird take on a Western thrills in the genre’s way and also challenges the classic trope of the lone antihero in strange, occasionally wonderful and ultimately awful ways. This is the hardest of reckonings, not a glimmer of a happy ending here, which inevitably means the story will haunt you long after finishing the last page, however many times you read this book. Beware.

Don Rogers is the editor and publisher of The Park Record. He can be reached at don@swiftcharge.net or 970-376-0745.

The post Journalism Matters: One weird, compelling Western appeared first on Park Record.

At 8:46 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001, I was sitting in my office in midtown Manhattan, talking on the phone with my dear friend Morty Frank. He was at Cantor Fitzgerald, on the 101st floor of the World Trade Center’s North Tower.

Then the first plane struck.

In the minute that followed, I could hear Morty spring into action, trying to calm the panic around him. Twenty-five years later, that memory remains indelible: my friend, confronted with something terrifying, trying to help the people beside him.

I believe I may have been the last person outside that building to speak with Morty. I cannot know that for certain, but the possibility has stayed with me ever since.

I had attended his wedding the year before. I had met his parents, his sisters and, of course, his wife. Having shared in their happiness, I have carried a small, persistent sense of guilt about being on the other end of that final conversation. It is a difficult feeling to explain, even now.

Five years ago, I wrote in these pages about losing Morty. On this 25th anniversary, I return to his memory with a growing conviction that remembrance carries an obligation.

Living in Park City, I sometimes feel farther removed from that morning by geography than by the years that have passed. The beauty of this place can make the horror of that day seem unimaginable. An entire generation, including my daughter, now knows 9/11 only through photographs, classroom lessons and the recollections of others.

Those of us who remember have a responsibility to help them understand.

Like Pearl Harbor, Sept. 11 deserves an enduring place in our national memory. Each name belongs to a person whose life mattered, whose absence changed a family forever. When we speak of thousands lost, we must still make room for one friend, one marriage, one unfinished life.

We must also remember what that morning revealed about the struggle between freedom and tyranny.

The terrorists who carried out 9/11 served an extremist ideology that claimed religious authority to justify mass murder. That ideology stands in direct opposition to the conviction that every person possesses inherent dignity and the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These ideals must endure.

The conflict is fundamental. A free society recognizes our right to worship according to conscience, speak without fear, question authority and choose our leaders. Authoritarian theocracy demands submission to rulers who claim the power to dictate belief and punish dissent. Where such power prevails, individual rights exist only at the pleasure of those who rule.

We should be clear about that distinction. We should be equally clear that no religion or population bears collective guilt for the crimes of terrorists. Freedom of religion belongs among the liberties we are defending, and it belongs to everyone.

Diplomacy requires precision and judgment. It also requires the moral confidence to condemn deliberate cruelty without qualification. The intentional murder of innocent people is evil. Understanding the forces that result in such violence does not diminish the responsibility of those who choose it.

But 9/11 also revealed extraordinary goodness.

First responders entered buildings others were fleeing. People helped injured strangers. The passengers and crew of Flight 93 fought back, preventing their hijackers from reaching their intended target. And on the 101st floor of the North Tower, my friend tried to calm those around him.

Their actions give substance to words such as courage, duty and humanity. They remind us what is worth defending, and what that defense can demand. The words “Let’s roll” still carry the weight of that sacrifice.

Twenty-five years without another attack of the same scale must never persuade us that the ideology behind 9/11 no longer poses a threat. Protecting a free society requires vigilance, capable institutions, cooperation with allies that value freedom and the resolve to confront those who would destroy it.

It also requires fidelity to our own principles. Our Constitution, religious liberty, due process and the right to dissent are essential to the country we are protecting. We must preserve them even when fear makes doing so difficult.

Here in Park City, remembrance can take practical form. We can pause in our schools and public gatherings. We can tell our children about the people whose lives were taken and the choices others made to help. We can honor first responders, service members and families who continue to carry the consequences of that day.

We can also approach our disagreements with a greater sense of proportion. Democracy depends on vigorous debate. It depends, too, on recognizing that our neighbors share a stake in the freedoms that allow us to disagree.

As a council member, I believe communities help sustain that understanding. As Morty’s friend, I feel a more personal duty: to keep his name, his life and his courage from fading into an anniversary.

When I think of 9/11, I return to that phone call. I remember a man whose wedding I had attended, whose family I had met, and whose instinct in a moment of terror was to help.

That is the memory I carry forward.

We owe Morty and everyone taken that day our remembrance. We owe the generations that follow our determination to preserve the freedom and human dignity that were so violently attacked.

Bill Ciraco is a member of the Park City Council.

The post 25 years later, remembrance is a responsibility appeared first on Park Record.

Wandering past the Snowbasin moose, we were drawn in by the familiar strains of “In Heaven There Is No Beer,” an American polka classic adapted from the 1956 German song “Im Himmel gibt’s kein Bier.” The Park City Polka Players commanded the Bavarian Stage as families, baby strollers and dogs filled the green grass lawn at the base of the ski resort.

It’s Oktoberfest at Snowbasin, or as they say, SnowWiesn!

As the leaves begin to turn ever so slightly, and as days get just a little crisper in late summer, minds turn to fall festivals. I think Oktoberfest.

Since the 19th century wedding of Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria and Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen at Theresienwiese (Therese’s Meadow) in Munich, the annual gathering has been known simply as die Wiesn. Now it’s come to Snowbasin.

For me, it was a bit of a training exercise. In just a few weeks, I’ll be at the original Wiesn in Munich, gathering with the big boys to hoist steins of helles in the Bavarian capital.

Things were decidedly calmer at Snowbasin as we grabbed a shaded picnic table seat near the stage to listen to German music. Parading in front of us was an English setter in lederhosen and his border collie partner in a dirndl. 

Dogs totally rule at SnowViesn. And so do babies.

Knowing that this was a training run for me, I wandered through the nine beer purveyors. Kudos to local breweries for rising above the world of IPAs to make some classic German brews. I gravitated to Utah’s mothership of Bavarian brewing with a traditional Helles from Templin.

Halfway through the beer, I was tearing up as the band played “Edelweiss,” my mind wandering to Julie Andrews twirling around in the flowers amidst a mountain meadow high up in the Alps.

For me, it was about building knowledge. In just a few weeks, I’ll be at the original Wiesn in Munich, gathering with the big boys to hoist steins of helles in the Bavarian capital.

Finishing up my Helles, we waltzed over to the Needles Express to check out the view high atop the mountain. It’s still so impressive to see the huge log lodges Earl Holding built for the 2002 Winter Games. None is more breathtaking than Needles Lodge.

On a cool mountain afternoon, the mellow sounds of alphorns filled the air, echoing off the rocky escarpments of the Needles. In front of the lodge, an entire six-piece ensemble of handcrafted Swiss and German alphorns serenaded us in the sunshine.

Eric, from Utah Alphorns, was our guide, telling us that the 12-foot-long instruments are traditionally carved from mountain spruce aged for nine years, usually outside the woodworkers’ barn high in the Swiss Alps. And did you know that an alphorn can play only 14 notes? And it’s all highly dependent on the lips of the musician.

Carole always has probing questions — like, how do you get them on an airplane? Eric explained how they come apart in sections.

Then it was back to the music.

Down at the Snowbasin base area, it was time for the 3 p.m. competitions. First up was the costume contest. I wonder if that’s what they call it in Munich? I was getting a photograph of the contestants when I suddenly realized I had a chance to win myself. I hopped in.

“Everything from the waist up is from Bavaria,” I exclaimed to the crowd. “And I’m wearing Fjallraven pants only because my wife won’t let me wear lederhosen.”

I think I finished second.

Next came the Masskrugstemmen. This is where you hold a liter stein of beer with your arm extended out in front of you. My money was on Ryan. He just seemed to have the right focus, plus a cool Bavarian hat with a badge that said: “I’m the reason the beer is always gone.” Alas, after three or four minutes, Ryan’s arm gave out.

Hunger was setting in with the excitement of the day. It came down to the Rippchenstrang, Hähnchenbrötchen, or a Bratwurst. The brat won out. And the kind tapkeeper from Prodigy Brewing in Logan poured me a tasty Oktoberfest Märzen.

As the music played on, I contemplated. As many as 7 million people will come to the Wiesn in Munich this month and next. It’s decidedly quieter at Snowbasin. In fact, it was downright civil.

It was a true family affair, with dogs and babies reigning supreme. Bring a blanket. Pack the kids in a wagon. Dress up the family pooch. And enjoy an afternoon in the autumn sun, while thinking about carving some turns in just a few months.

Prosit!

DETAILS

When

Every Saturday and Sunday from noon to 6 p.m. through Oct. 18. Check out details at snowbasin.com.

The post Sunday Drive: In heaven, there is no beer appeared first on Park Record.

Before the advent of modern city infrastructure, people in old Park City deployed bucket brigades to fight fires. In a nod to the past, the Park City Library used a similar all-together-now approach to move 2,000 books in 1982.

For many years, the Park City Library was based on Main Street in a small location that’s now the Park City Museum gift shop. In 1980, the Library Board received approval from the City Council to move the library to the recently renovated Miners’ Hospital in City Park. The move would allow the library to better meet state and national standards. The new space, at 5,000 square feet, would provide ample room for expansion.

The move was set for Sept. 4, 1982. At the time, the collection was approximately 5,000 books and periodicals.

Community leader Tina Lewis, Library Director Judy MacMahon, project chairperson Madeline Smith, and others led the planning. The organizers came up with the idea of a book brigade to move a good portion of the collection three-quarters of a mile by hand. “Brand-spanking new books” and reference books would not by moved by the brigade process.

The plan was for volunteers to take the applicable volumes from shelves in the Main Street facility, move them down the line, and put them back into similar shelves in the new facility, roughly in Dewey Decimal System order. In a newspaper interview prior to the event, Smith cautioned volunteers to keep the books moving: “Any pause to peruse a volume will cause a terrific backlog somewhere up the line.”

MacMahon acknowledged that boxing up and transporting books by vehicle would be more efficient, but the intent of the event was to honor the town’s rough-and-ready past and to exercise some community spirit.

A question arose: How many people would need to line the 3,900-foot distance between Main Street and the Miners Hospital? MacMahon said she divided the distance by six, “about the number of feet comfortable between two people.”

MacMahon figured 700 volunteers working an hour and a half would do the trick. Some 690 ultimately showed up. Summit Engineering staked out the path, and library staff and volunteers worked long hours cleaning and organizing the Main Street and Miners Hospital spaces. Park City Police directed traffic. Staff from the city Public Works and Recreation Departments provided general support. Big Four Distributing donated Budweiser beer for the after party in City Park.

The event did experience some hitches. At 10 a.m., the line was formed and several books were sent down the line in test runs. Volunteers had to repeatedly spread out and fill a gap in the middle section of the route before the hand-off process got up to speed.

Observers noted that some fumbles occurred and that a number of volumes were scuffed or damaged during the cross-town journey. And Tina Lewis was known to say that one volume went missing that day: The best-selling “Joy of Sex.”

Overall, the event was highly successful and garnered national press attention, including the “Today Show” and Paul Harvey’s radio program.

The library stayed in the Miners’ Hospital for 11 years and grew to 25,000 books and periodicals. In late May and early June 1993, it moved again, from Miners Hospital to its current location at the old Park City High School at 1255 Park Ave.. The need to move furniture and shelving as well as the increased number of volumes counseled against repeating the book brigade. The risk of dropped books and traffic on Park Avenue may have been further arguments for professional moving services.

When the library did a $9.6 million renovation in 2014, the library was again based in the Miners Hospital for a year.

In June 2015, organizers did hold a ceremonial book brigade from the Miners Hospital to celebrate the reopening. A line of 500 volunteers moved 127 books, to mark 127 years of library service in Park City. Today the Park City Library encompasses 54,000 square feet and offers (as of this writing) 62,173 physical print items.

In just a few weeks, the Summit County Library Kimball Junction branch is moving to a new facility at the former Skullcandy building. The short route is not as daunting as the 1982 Park City move, but it does cross a busy road. The county library plans a grand opening and ceremonial book brigade on Oct. 3 but will move the bulk of its collection — 42,372 volumes — prior to that date by more conventional means. More information is here: summitcountylibrary.beehiiv.com/p/check-out-the-move

Though it was a large outdoor public gathering, the book brigade was not a parade, so it didn’t neatly fit into the Park City Museum’s new exhibit, “Park City Loves A Parade,” on display through March 2027.

Michael O’Malley is a volunteer researcher at the Park City Museum. His book “Attitude at Altitude: The People’s Guide to Park City and Summit County” is available for check-out at the Park City and Summit County libraries and for purchase at local establishments.

The post Way We Were: The 1982 library book brigade appeared first on Park Record.

The drying of the Great Salt Lake has been a hot-button issue for Utahns in recent years, with a major concern being the health risks associated with dust inhalation from the drying lakebed.

The Great Salt Lake lakebed contains heavy metals, including arsenic, lead, antimony, mercury and cadmium, which are becoming increasingly exposed as water levels drop.

This metal-laden dust can be lifted by the wind, travel thousands of miles and stay suspended for weeks at a time, depending on the dust particle size and weather conditions. These airborne toxins can easily be inhaled and even ingested through produce.

Leafy greens exposed to Great Salt Lake dust have been found to retain these metals even after thorough washing. Some metals from Great Salt Lake dust are soluble in stomach acid, meaning that metals on these leafy greens can be absorbed into the body when consumed. In fact, some metals, including cadmium and lead, can have a three- or four-times higher absorption rate when dissolved by stomach fluids than when inhaled.

This poses a concern for those growing food in the area, as even small backyard gardens can be affected by windblown dust. It is essential to limit exposure and ingestion of these toxic metals. One way to do so is by implementing windbreaks around crops. 

For example, greenhouses and cloth covers can act as a barrier between dust and plants. Alternatively, planting taller, non-edible plants around sensitive crops can provide a more natural option with the same effect. It is also a good idea to avoid using overhead irrigation systems during dust events, as these can push dust particles onto plants.

Recycle Utah, your community nonprofit drop-off recycling center, provides these weekly tips. Visit their website for more information — recycleutah.org.

The post Green Tips: Great Salt Lake Dust … more than just a concern for our lungs appeared first on Park Record.

Sept. 11, 2001.

The day sent shockwaves across the United States. It will be remembered as one of those “where were you?” moments, along with the Space Shuttle Challenger tragedy, JFK’s assassination, the Pearl Harbor attack.

The event held different meanings for various generations. It will be learned about in the classrooms for Gen Zers. Many Millennials may distantly remember the tragedy. The Sept. 11 attacks compelled many Gen Xers into military service. For Baby Boomers, Silent Generation and the Greatest Generation, it echoed previous chapters in American history.

The attacks reverberated around the globe. The fatalities weren’t Americans alone — 40 countries lost citizens in the attack. 

9/11 reshaped U.S. counterterrorism and transformed the relationship between law enforcement and intelligence communities. Both were prohibited from sharing information and/or collaborating via a legal and procedural mechanism called “The Wall” prior to the event. The post-9/11 USA Patriot Act removed the data sharing-cooperation barriers.

The tragedy also resulted in the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, further refining America’s counterterrorism approach. A strong possibility exists the scale of the 9/11 attacks might have been significantly reduced if the FBI, NSA, CIA and other agencies with knowledge of the various attackers had been allowed to freely exchange information.

We will never know if a hypothetical sharing would have identified the entire plot. It will not surprise me if the country doesn’t learn of various disrupted Al Qaeda and other militant Islamist groups operations directed at U.S. territory at some point in the next several decades.

The attack had additional domestic effects. It unified Americans in a manner not seen in decades. It also witnessed the emergence of the country’s Islamic community onto America’s political scene.

The tragedy unified the country for a brief period. There is a not a single time within the past several decades, except World War II, when Americans set aside their differences and focused on the country’s betterment. 

A sadness permeated the period, a sadness emanating from the realization that many of the country’s socio-economic-political issues could easily be resolved if we exercised the same type of unity toward those various controversies as what followed the 9/11. 

Instead? We are now a nation beset by polarization. It’s as if the post 9/11 unity is but an echo, and that’s a shame.

A third effect is the emergence of the American Islamic community as a political force.  The country’s Muslims came under intense scrutiny following the attack. The event brought to light key aspects of the Islamic faith into the U.S. political lexicon — such as “jihad” and “Sharia law,” for instance.  These terms’ true meanings were distorted by a tiny fraction of Islamist zealots.   

Muslims are gradually starting to have a similar experience as other ethnic-religious groups that have immigrated to the United States over the decades. Their beliefs are misunderstood and ridiculed at first, but accepted over time. 

Those same groups ascend into the American political, economic, and social ranks over time. We are witnessing the pattern now. Several key policymakers have surfaced within the group’s ranks, including Zohran Mamdani, Rashida Tlaib, Illhan Omar.

The 9/11 attacks instigated several key international events. The most notable entailed the activation of NATO’s Article 5, the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, along with a global dragnet against Al Qaeda, its affiliates and other militant Islamist groups. The event resulted in the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. 

The Afghanistan conflict’s immediate objective was the elimination of Al Qaeda’s training camps and the Taliban’s removal as the country’s caretakers. The conflict ended after a hasty American/NATO withdrawal left the same government Washington had overthrown the Taliban. 

The Iraq War was based on false claims of a connection between the 9/11 attacks and Iraq’s leader, Saddam Hussein, plus the existence of an alleged weapons of mass destruction program. American forces withdrew years after toppling the Hussein regime. The operation resulted in the deaths of over 4,000 solders, Marines, and other servicemen. It also witnessed an insurgency emerging from the collapse of the Iraqi government. The same insurgency led to the creation of ISIS and a Syrian-based Al Qaeda offshoot still in existence.

Sept. 11 is now a day most Americans moatly carry on as usual. A meeting will happen, lunches planned, a vacation squeezed in someplace. For those who remember the occasion — especially the relatives of nearly 3,000 Americans and others across the globe who lost a loved one — 9/11 will remain a day of pause, reflection and remembrance for the remainder of their lives.

Matthew Kennedy is a doctoral candidate in politics and international studies at the University of Warwick in Great Britain.

The post How 9/11 will linger through the generations appeared first on Park Record.

“Forward Together” was the theme of our annual meeting at The Pendry last week, which I feel perfectly describes how Park City responded as circumstances tested us this past year, and how our unity and resilience will help us build a strong, balanced future.

This was not an easy year. We faced national economic headwinds, declining international travel, wavering consumer confidence and a winter when Mother Nature did not cooperate.

Yet we held together. Businesses adapted, supported one another, and kept moving, reminding us that Mountainkind really does describe our community. We pick each other up and cheer each other on, always with warmth and good humor.

More than 115 businesses participated in our Mountainkind Card program, generating over $100,000 in local spending. Our Locl listing-management pilot helped 70 partners generate more than 350,000 website clicks and 230,000 requests for directions. Our Group Sales team helped book meetings that had $24 million in economic impact, much of it during midweek and shoulder-seasons, when it matters most.

And we bounced back. This summer brought exciting progress toward a balanced four-season economy, highlighted by developments like August Chef’s Table event and the news that Park City restaurateurs earned a spot in the new Michelin Southwest Guide. Handle, Matilda and The Nelson Cottage by High West are the first, but certainly not the last, Park City restaurants to earn Michelin recognition.

And it’s not over. After another great Miners Day, the energy continues with the Fox US Open of Moutain Biking at Deer Valley this weekend attracting an estimated 10,000 visitors. Next weekend, elite mountain bike racers will gather at Soldier Hollow for the WHOOP UCI Mountain Bike World Series.

There is no question about it: Park City’s tourism base is diversifying.

I was proud to tell our partners that diversification is happening hand in hand with advances in environmental care. Three years into our 10-year Sustainable Tourism Plan, our community has delivered on 61 percent of its initiatives. Accomplishments like sustainable-tourism grants, expanded accessibility (through the amazing people at Wheel the World), actions to minimize visitor impact and investments in arts and culture all strengthen our quality of life.

That momentum continues this winter. Shaun White’s Snow League will debut at Park City Mountain during the February weekend Sundance formerly occupied, followed the next weekend by the Freestyle International presented by Stifel at Deer Valley. These events will bring new energy while leaning into our authentic winter-sports legacy. While we will miss Sundance in 2027, our ski season outlook gives us real reason for optimism.

This year’s Myles Rademan Spirit of Hospitality Award recipient, Randy Barton, embodies another Park City hallmark: the desire to make the community better. His founding of Mountaintown Music, his decades behind the microphone at KPCW, and his leadership at the Egyptian Theatre are lasting contributions to our cultural life. He richly deserves recognition.

We also continue to mourn Colin Hilton. Colin’s leadership preserved Utah’s Olympic legacy and helped prepare us for 2034. In honor of Colin and in recognition of National Suicide Prevention Month, we will host a workplace mental-health and suicide-prevention webinar with the Utah Chamber and Utah Rising tomorrow. His family’s courageous reminder — that no one is alone and it is always all right to seek help — is one we should all keep close to our hearts.  

The challenges ahead are real, but this past year showed that Park City can adapt and care for one another through adversity. That defines Mountainkind,and the assurance that we will always move forward together.

Jennifer Wesselhoff is the president and CEO of the Park City Chamber of Commerce & Visitors Bureau.

The post Park City Pulse: Moving forward together through ups and downs appeared first on Park Record.

When Wendell Berry, 92, died Aug. 31, the West lost a writer who focused on the importance of rural land. He studied under the writer Wallace Stegner at Stanford University and wrote nine novels about characters — some like himself — who farmed and cared about the land.

What also stood out about him was his public leadership — his readiness to march and commit civil disobedience, protesting against national, state and local government when he found their policies harmful and short-sighted. His targets included both a coal-fired and nuclear power plant, our war in Vietnam and the death penalty. He said he also opposed abortion.

A Christian, Berry was a critic of organized religion for what he saw as its abstract notion of compassion.

He believed in staying rooted, living a simple life. He wrote, for example, in longhand with a pencil. His wife, Tanya, then used a manual typewriter to edit and complete his writing.

Berry leaves a sizable body of essays and poems, and 16 poems feature a “mad farmer” who rails against agriculture dominated by corporations that push rampant consumerism.

“To be sane in a mad time is bad for the brain,” declares the mad farmer, stand-in for the author.

He also wrote a poem often quoted for its moving simplicity, “The Peace of Wild Things.” It was written in 1968 when the country was roiled by resistance to the Vietnam War; in particular, the draft.

“The Peace of Wild Things”

By Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Gary Nabhan, one of Berry’s admirers and a fellow writer, reacted quickly to Berry’s death. An ethnobotanist, Nabhan himself is a towering moral authority, speaking out from the Southwest against our government’s 30-foot-tall metal wall that blocks wildlife trying to migrate from both Mexico and the United States:

“Oh, we lost a saint today as Wendell Berry passed from standing on and standing up for this land to dwell within it. Since the first Earth Day in 1970, no single individual did more to broaden the environmental movement by including working landscapes than did Wendell,” Nabhan wrote.

“But for all his influence and contributions, it was simply his eloquence, humor and goodwill that won most of us over. My first year in college I carried a copy of his little set of poems, “Farming, a Handbook,” in my back pocket as if it was a complement to The Bible. “So here’s to the mad farmer who changed American letters, farming and earth care for the better!”

Another admirer and friend is Taylor Brorby, an assistant professor of English at Montana State University in Bozeman, who is also an author and environmentalist. Brorby said he had a complicated relationship with Berry.

“I don’t know what there is to say about a man who has so consistently frustrated me and who shaped my own thinking beginning 20 years ago, who’s taken me seriously, who has been my pen pal for a decade, and who has now died.

“The last time I saw Wendell, he took me out to the barn to call in the sheep. We stood, overlooking the Kentucky River, and he asked me, both of us staring ahead, if I ever had writer’s block. I was too young to know better and said no. He said for the first time in his life he had it, had been working on essays for years about a book others told him not to publish. And then he turned and asked me, ‘Are you happy?’

“I’ve been thinking about that question ever since. I miss him more than I can say.”

Betsy Marston is the editor of Writers on the Range, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. She lives and writes in western Colorado. 

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