SAM Magazine-Salt Lake City, Oct. 9, 2007-Utah may have another major ski resort soon. The proposed resort, 18 miles from the Salt Lake City Airport, would be a first for the Oquirrh Mountains to the west of the city. The resort would be developed by Kennecott Land, part of the Kennecott Utah Copper Company.

The proposed ski area would have a base elevation of 6,200 feet, with lifts reaching up to just over 9,000 feet. The terrain in the Oquirrh is mellow, akin to much of the intermediate skiing found at Utah resorts Deer Valley and Park City.

The ski resort is envisioned as being part of a larger development that could include more than 10,000 homes in a mountain community near the proposed resort. Currently, Kennecott is involved in preliminary snow depth studies on the company's property.

According to reports in the Salt Lake Tribune, Jim Schulte, Kennecott's vice president of long-range planning, says that a ski area is "not a matter of if, but when." Schulte, quoted in the Tribune, adds that, "It's certainly skiable terrain, and a lot of it."

"They could easily do it," Nathan Rafferty, president and chief executive officer of Ski Utah, told the Tribune. "I don't know that it's the kind of resort that would compete with the Snowbirds, Altas and Deer Valleys of the world, but it would be something that would benefit Salt Lake."

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