About that Gondola

Yesterday, UDOT announced that it is moving forward with the Gondola Alternative B plans for transportation in Little Cottonwood Canyon.  A full summary of their Record of Decision is available at https://littlecottonwoodeis.udot.utah.gov/record-of-decision/. 

The Gondola Alternative B plan involves several components, which UDOT is now planning to implement in phases following the timeline below. 

If my understanding of recent legislative appropriations and UDOT's plans are correct (and you should correct me if I'm wrong), UDOT has a commitment for the process through the Phase 1 Implementation, which is scheduled to be completed in Fall 2025, and would improve and increase bus service, add a mobility hub at the gravel pit near the mouth of Big Cottonwood Canyon, add bus stops at Snowbird and Alta, add tolling above the White Pine Parking lot, and impose parking restrictions along SR-210 near Snowbird and Alta.  

The mobility hub would be accessed by southbound traffic via an underpass much like a highway exchange.  It would hold 1,500 vehicles.  Bus service frequency would be every 10-15 minutes, assuming they get drivers.  I'm curious what will happen with the gravel pit.  Is it being shut down and the land reclaimed?  Will it still be operating? The dust would be a disincentive for using the lot.

A major shortcoming of these plans is that there does not appear to be any bus stops at trailheads like White Pine.  The situation at White Pine, the primary access point for the vast Lone Peak Wilderness and White Pine Canyon, is deplorable.  It is a heavily used trailhead with very limited parking.  A bus stop here would be extremely impactful, although this would require some infrastructure upgrades to provide space for safe bus service.  The UDOT alternatives do include parking lot expansions (White Pine would go to 144 spaces), but a bus stop would make more sense.  Yes, this would increase transit time to the resorts by perhaps a minute or two, but in any sane transit system that I've ridden in Europe, there would be stops at trailheads and these would be prioritized over parking lot expansion.  

It is in Phase 2 that the White Pine (as well as Gate Buttress, Bridge, and Lisa Falls) trailhead lots would be built, expanded, or improved.  There is currently no funding available for this, so the challenges at White Pine look to continue for some time.  Also in Phase 2, snow sheds would be built across the White Pine Chutes, White Pine, and Little Pine avalanche paths.  My view is that properly built and landscaped snow sheds are less of a blight than the current road cut (and far safer), so I am supportive of this.  

For the most part, the above plans seem reasonable, although in Phase 2 there is also expansion of Wasatch Boulevard.  I feel the need to defer to those who live in that area with regards to those plans.  

Finally we have the gondola.  The original gondola plan (alternative A) had a base station starting at the Little Cottonwood Park and Ride Lot.  This one, announced a couple of years ago, begins at La Caille.  Per the fact sheet below, the gondola capital costs appear to be estimated at $370.5 million (the $729 million is for the entire alternative, although who knows where these numbers will end up).  From the gondola base it will take 27 minutes to travel from La Caille to Snowbird and an additional 10 minutes to get to Alta.  A structure with 2500 parking spaces would be built at the base.  

Incredibly, there are no plans for loading or unloading at the angle staton.  If this gondola were built, that strikes me as a major oversight as there would be enormous potential for this angle station to serve as a recreational access point if some trail construction is done to link with the Red Pine Lake trail on the Pink Pine Ridge.  It would also enable point-to-point hikes in the lower canyon and between the angle station and Snowbird.  

Once built, bus service up Little Cottonwood would be terminated.  There would be no public transit options to access anything below Snowbird.  

I didn't see a timeline for Phase 2 or 3 in UDOTs documents, but I could have missed it.  Without funding, it's probably difficult to firm that up anyway.  The Salt Lake Tribune suggested that the Wasatch Front Regional Council estimated that the gondola might not be complete until 2043–2050.  Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson suggested 25 years.  Insert your guess here.  

I am personally opposed to the gondola.  My views on this are complex and multifaceted.  I would say that the majority of my friends are either opposed or skeptical, but there are some who are supportive.  I suspect we are looking at many years of debate and lawsuits.  Built or not built, I don't see this ending well.  More people are moving here and the demand to ski in upper-elevation north-facing terrain is only going to increase as climate change impacts the lower-elevation snow climate more severely.  

Northeast Deluge

Chances are you've seen some of the footage of the remarkable flooding in the northeast the past couple of days.  

We will focus here on the Adirondack Mountains of New York and the Green Mountains of Vermont.  The National Weather Service Burlington Forecast Office produced a map earlier today of the storm total precipitation for their forecast area, which extends across northern New York.  The event featured impressive enhancement over the Green Mountains and portions of the Adirondacks.  In the case of the Greens, a broad area of more than 5" fell including more than 9" in Plymouth just to the south of Killington along Route 100.  In the Adirondacks, more than 5" fell in Newcomb.  

Flooding, mudslides, and washed out roads have occurred in many areas.  Below is drone footage from yesterday in Montpelier, which was posted by The Weather Channel.

WATCH: Drone footage captures the extent of yesterday's significant flooding in Montpelier, Vermont after the overflowing Winooski River inundated the capital city: pic.twitter.com/4hQsRVUeo1

— The Weather Channel (@weatherchannel) July 11, 2023

Extensive damage is also being reported in the Long Lake, Blue Mountain Lake, and Newcomb area of the Adirondacks.  I've traveled through this area hundreds of times (that's not an exaggeration).  So hard to see.  

Downtown Long Lake got hit hard, with major washouts. Here's a picture from the Town of Long Lake Facebook page of reconstruction. Right now, there's no travel north, east or west. pic.twitter.com/tpjCTFczQO

— Protect the Adirondacks! (@ProtectAdkPark) July 11, 2023

July Is a Four-Letter Word

July.  I'm not a fan.  At least in Utah.  

I hear a lot of people saying it hasn't been too bad so far.  I think that perspective is strongly skewed by the intense heat of last summer.  

For the first 9 days of this July had an average temperature of 81.8˚F at the Salt Lake City International Airport.  That's an incredible 5.9˚F cooler than the first 9 days of last July.  However, let's put it into context.  

Temperatures in Salt Lake City have climbed markedly in recent decades.  Prior to 1973, there were no years in which the average temperature for July 1–9 was above 80˚F.  

Since then, there have been 20.  This year's 81.8˚F ranks as 11th all time.  The average maximum temperature (95.1˚F) rates as 16th all time and the average minimum temperature (68.4˚F) rates as 10th all time. 

I see lots of comments about how this is urban heat island as if this changes anything.  Yes, the warming trend in Salt Lake City reflects both global warming and urbanization, but this is still the climate those of us who live here experience. 

Forecasts for the next 10 days show a very typical July pattern with a weak storm track to our north, broad upper-level ridging over the southwest, and showers and thunderstorms most active over northwest Mexico and southern Arizona and New Mexico with a few spits and spurts at times over Utah.  An example is the GFS forecast valid 0600 UTC Monday 17 July.  

Here's a look at the monotony that is the 10-day forecast generated for Salt Lake City by the National Blend of Models (NBM).  Yawn.  

At least the humidity is low, making swamp coolers effective sunrise rides tolerable.

 

This morning's sunrise from the 19th Avenue Flow Trail

Status of the Great Salt Lake

Several media outlets are reporting this week that the Great Salt Lake appears to have crested for the summer.  For example, the Salt Lake Tribune reported today that the lake entered the week at 4,193.8 feet elevation at the Great Salt Lake State Park Marina, which is 3.5 feet higher than last year at this time and 5 feet above the record low in November.  

That is of course good news.  However, it is somewhat misleading.  A rock-fill causeway has divided the lake for decades.  Essentially, the Great Salt Lake is two lakes, and that is especially true today because the berm in the causeway between the north and south arms of the lake was raised in February.  Most of the freshwater inflow to the lake enters the south half, so this has helped to lower the salinity in the south arm (important for brine shrimp), but it has also enabled the south arm to rise more rapidly since the flow to the north arm has been reduced.  

We can see this in lake-elevation data collected by the USGS.  At Saltair in the south arm, the lake elevation currently sits at 4193.9 feet, which is more than 5 feet higher than last November.

Source: USGS

However, at Saline in the north arm, the lake elevation currently sits at 4189.4 feet, 4.5 feet lower than in the south arm.  Lake levels have only climbed about a foot over where they were last fall and winter (note scale change).  

This contrast can be seen in Landsat imagery from last week.  Note how coverage of water to the south of the causeway, which extends westward from the southern tip of Promontory Point, is greater than to the north side.  This is especially noticeable on the west shore.  Note also that the coverage of water has improved quite a bit, although there is still considerable lake-bed exposed in the Farmington Bay area immediately north of Salt Lake City.  

Source: https://glovis.usgs.gov/app

From an ecosystem management perspective and perhaps local dust sources, there are good reasons to have captured most of the water in the south arm.  It is possible that if the lake continues to remain low, that a decision may eventually be made to let the north arm whither and focus on saving the south arm (there are also disadvantages to doing this).  

That said, I'm not a fan of using the Saltair elevation in isolation as a measure of lake changes.  It only tells half the story (perhaps a bit more than half since the south arm is larger than the north arm).  We are very fortunate to have had a big snowpack this year, but my view is that the lake is still in critical condition and the elevation of the south arm paints a picture that is rosier than reality.  

Blogging Returns

After a one month hiatus, I returned to Utah over the weekend and am back in the office this morning.

The past month I was in Europe for a trip that was about 1/3 work and 2/3 vacation, although even the former was enjoyable and involved spending a week in St. Gallen, Switzerland for the International Conference on Alpine Meteorology and a couple of days at the University of Innsbruck.  

Our trip began in Normandy, France, which was much prettier than expected, especially along the English Channel.

A popular spot to visit is Mont Saint Michel, which you may recognize from the picture below.  Places like this are overwhelmed with tourists, so we tend to visit early or late in the day.  This summer marks 1,000 years since construction at this site began.  1,000 years!  Despite the crowds, I always find touring through places like this very interesting.  

We also spent an afternoon in Saint Malo just a bit down the road.  The so-called "walled city" was known for it's pirates.  It was heavily bombed by the Allies during World War II and 80% destroyed.  It has been rebuilt in spectacular fashion.  

We then abandoned the automobile and raced across France on the TGV (Train à Grand Vitesse) at speeds reaching almost 200 miles per hour.  We covered much of the distance from Paris to Chamonix in about 2 hours before switching to a slower regional train.   It's a shame that the US can't seem to figure out how to make such a system work.  

This was our first trip to Chamonix.  I debated for a while whether to cancel this part of the trip and opt for something else as the weather forecast looked quite unsettled.  Indeed, we dealt with a decent amount of clouds, but there were enough breaks to make the trip enjoyable.  

No visit to Chamonix is complete without a trip up the Aiguille du Midi.  This peak on the side of Mt. Blanc is 12,605 ft high and is served by a series of two cable cars that rise 9,209 feet above Chamonix.  

The weather wasn't ideal, but Mont Blanc was visible, as well as the upper Mer de Glace, an enormous glacier that is skied during the Vallée Blanche ski descent.  

It's nearly impossible to have any sense of scale in Chamonix based strictly on your eyes.  Everywhere you look there's thousands of feet of relief (in some cases more than 10,000 feet of relief) that looks like a short ski tour.  

It's a good thing we were hiking. One of the things I love about the Alps is the ability to use public transit and cable cars to do point-to-point hikes.  One day we hiked the Grand Balcon Sud from the top of the Flégere cable car above Les Praz to the Plan Praz cable car above Chamonix.  Much of the hike, we were mesmerized by the Mont Blanc massif.  

We also visited Montenvers which is accessed by train and where you can hike down to the lower Mer de Glace.  Here, the tremendous glacier change over recent decades is very apparent.  

Some people online commented that in part the glacier retreat is due to the emergence from the Little Ice Age.  If one is looking at longer time periods, that's true, but since 1990, a majority of the glacier loss, which is accelerating, is due to human factors.  

We then skipped over to Zermatt, which was another first for us.  This may be sacrilege to say, but I confess that I wasn't a fan of Zermatt the village.  However, the Matterhorn is definitely mesmerizing and I couldn't take my eyes off it either in town or when we were hiking.  I could watch the development and evolution of the famed banner cloud, which forms on the downstream or lee side, all day.  

The trip up the railroad to Gornergrat is expensive, but the views of the Monte Rosa massif are truly spectacular.  

You can use the railroad to enable some great hiking above 2000 meters with incredible views in all directions (this can also save some Swiss Francs).  

We then moved to St. Gallen for my meeting, but arrived a day early to hike in the Appenzeller Alps, which like on the northern Alpine Rim.  A train and bus ride take you to EbenAlp where you can opt for valley and ridge hikes, including along the Alpstein Massif pictured below.  

The highest peak of the Alpstein Massif is Säntis, which is just center right on the horizon in the picture above.  Although "only" about 2500 meters high, Säntis has more than 2000 meters of topographic prominence, which is #13 in the Alps.  It is a famous location meteorologically as a weather station began operating there in 1882, it is a magnet for lightning, and is known for heavy snowfall.  I don't know how they measure at the summit (we visited as part of my conference), but the 1991–2020 average snowfall was 1003 cm (395 inches).  

Our trip concluded in Innsbruck.  The Austrian Alps remain my favorite. I love the hiking and the culture.  We did three great hikes.  The first was on the ridge immediately south of Innsbruck and the Inn Valley from the Patscherkofel cable car to the summit of Glungezer.  

The second, was along the Goetheweg on the Nordkette ridge south of Innsbruck.  

I think the Goetheweg hike is my all-time favorite.  We've done it three times and I would do it tomorrow if I could. 

Finally, we spent a day hiking on the Rofan Massif east of Innsbruck, summiting the Rofanspitze (pictured below) and the Spieljoch.  

This was a dream trip for us and we recognize how lucky we are.  We were in Normandy on June 6, the anniversary of D-Day, and visited the landing beaches and monuments.  On D-Day, Company of the 116th regiment was the first ashore at Omaha Beach and took 90% casualties.  The US spearheaded invasions at Omaha and Utah beach that day and the Normandy American Cemetery is the resting place for more than 9,000 heroes who gave their lives to defeat Nazism and Fascism.  Others rest closer to home in the United States.

The British and Canadian militaries invaded three other beaches, with contributions for the D-Day landings from 18 other countries.  We can all be grateful that Hitler's "Atlantic Wall" fell that day, marking the beginning of the end of an awful period in human history that resulted in tens of millions of military and civilian casualties.  Thanks to the sacrifices of the Greatest Generation we enjoy our freedom today. 

Blog Break

I'm taking a break so blogging will be light for a while.  For what it's worth, I leave you with seasonal outlook for summer from the Climate Prediction Center.

Yeah, the seasonal forecasts for winter were colossal failures, but loaded dice for above average summer temperatures has been a pretty good bet for our in recent years, especially in Salt Lake City.  In Salt Lake City, the last summer with an average temperature below the 20th century average was 1998.  

And the last summer that wasn't at least 4˚F above that average was 2014.