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website: http://deseretnews.c...0197323,00.html


Brian Head seeking bridge over highway

Associated Press

BRIAN HEAD — Community leaders will decide Tuesday whether to spend $900,000 to help Brian Head Ski Resort link two mountains with a bridge over a state highway.
The resort is pledging to spend $8 million in new lifts, snowmaking machines and other improvements in southwestern Utah, northeast of Cedar City.
The investment is projected to draw more skiers and snowboarders to the mountain for the first time in 10 years.
"(If) you're not moving forward in a ski community, you're essentially moving backwards," said Brian Head Resort general manager Henry Hornberger. "You can't just keep offering the same product to people year in and year out and expect them to show up."
The resort wants to build a bridge and a chairlift across U-143 to transport skiers from the Giant Steps ski area to the smaller Navajo ski area. Skiers now ride a shuttle.
Another chairlift would be built to take skiers and snowboarders from the bottom of Giant Steps to the top of the mountain. Both lifts and the bridge would be constructed near Georg's Ski Shop.
The owner, Georg Hartlmaier, has suggested the town should build a tunnel that would be in the same area as the proposed bridge.
He said high winds could be a problem for skiers who would cross the highway on the chairlift.
Without the interconnect project, resort officials are concerned that business will remain stagnant.
If the project flops, the resort would work on developing new runs in the Alpine Creek area.
"Other than that, we have no other expansion plans," Hornberger said.
However, if the interconnect project is completed, Brian Head Resort would add about 33 percent more terrain and "about six new runs," Hornberger said.
Those trails, the chairs, the snow-making infrastructure and the bridge could all be complete by next ski season.