The Earl of Utah
Celebrated outdoor writer Rick Bass takes some shots at Utah's favorite ski-oil-and hotel magnate in his review of a new book on the economic development of Utah's natural beauty.Self-made millionaire Earl Holding, in Utah, very much a product of his Mormon heritage, set out to develop a hidden little valley, high in the pastoral glacier-carved cirques of the Wasatch Range, known as Snowbasin.Recently profiled in the Tribune, Stephen Trimble's Bargaining for Eden: The Fight for the Last Open Spaces in America chronicles Holding's manipulation of the U.S. Forest Service, Congress, and the 2002 Winter Olmpics to grab the remaining open space in Snowbasin.
It is country with which I am familiar, having had the good fortune to explore it, as a young man attending college in northern Utah, for the primary purpose of skiing. It is country I have not been able to return to, unwilling to witness any longer the diminishment, the eradication of character. . . .
The doggedness with which Holding pursues his goal - spanning parts of three decades - of constructing a massive ski resort where once only a few locals skied is neither a new story nor, to my thinking, an admirable one; it reveals simply the unimaginative relentlessness of the commercial mind.
1 Comments:
The article seemed pointless to me.
A ski resort in Utah? Imagine that. And one that is beautiful, has gourmet food at reasonable prices, and leaves most of the surrounding scenery in tact and breathtaking. Why would anyone want to make a great place for people to ski?
Then the author wants to ask Holding why he wants to own so much land and what his legacy will be. I don't know the guy but he seems like a straightforward American businessman and investor that enjoys working hard, building wealth, and constructing the most stunning and beautiful buildings in Utah.
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