Chris Santacroce writes:

It's been a wild week for lovers of free flight - nationwide. One
of the crown jewels of US free flying is under attack by bulldozers. When it
comes to bad news and bad situations, I am pretty solid. Basically, it takes a
few days for anything heavy to sink in. It's been a few days and I am now, I am
down right creeped out. This reminds me of having my car broken into over and
over again.

The first thing I want to say about the gravel company - taking a huge chunk out
of my favorite hill is: I get it. There is absolutely no doubt that they bought
the land, arranged the permits and paid the bonds. No doubt that it is 100%
theirs for the taking. We knew this. As a club and as a community, we knew.

Their business is gravel - they feel good about what they do because they build
roads and infrastructure for the future of our state. Our business is flying -
we share the aerial perspective - we help people to improve their lives by
getting in the air. We both do good things and it's nothing personal. I have no
contempt for the company or it's employees. This is just a situation.

It turns out that the chunk of gravel that they are taking is worth a couple
dozen million by the time it's delivered to construction sites as concrete. As
luck would have it, it's prime gravel. The kind that whips into concrete a half
a mile away with very little effort. The kind that, as we could have guessed, is
already sold. We should have done something a long time ago.

We needed to have done something a long time ago and back then it was still a
multi million dollar prospect. We didn't have it, we don't have it now, and we
probably won't have it anytime soon. The dozers eat at a flyable aspect of the
North Side of the Point of the Mountain - 24 hours a day. Literally.

All this begs the question: Why? Why weren't we worried about this? Why didn't
we do something? I have literally lived at the Point of the Mountain for 22
years. In the early days, I lived in a motorhome. All year round. So far, I have
raised three dogs and two kids out there. I went from a baby-faced teenager to a
grey-haired, forty-something on this very gravel pit. It has always been a
gravel pit next to the freeway.

I remember one time about ten years ago, the gravel company brought a dozer to
the bottom of the South Side, rigged up a conveyor belt and started loading
trucks. The part of the South Side that the speed flyers love because the hill
drops off at the end. Some calls were made and they moved the rig within a day
or so. They didn't realize we cared so much - they could get gravel from lots of
places and they did. That was our experience with the gravel company knocking
down flyable portions of the Point of the Mountain.

There are several companies that own property and mining rights. They have
always surrounded the flying activity, they have always been there - beneath us
- as we fly around. A while back the County and State Parks were established. We
gave up our access from the North Side to the South Side in the process. A small
price to pay and it gave them a way to push gravel downhill from the area in
between the two sides. We were helping.

We noticed that they were taking lots and lots of gravel. Of course they were.
If it wasn't the number of trucks ( they keep more than 100 concrete trucks at
their pit ) - the view from above told the whole story. Still, we are positive
people - dumps, gravel pits, freeways ---> everything looks beautiful from the
air.

In early March, 2013, everything changed. The biggest dozer we have ever seen
was "taking out" the North Side of the Point of the Mountain. A few things about
this totally blew our minds. One, this was the first time any mining had taken
place above bench level on the Salt Lake County side of the hill. Two, this was
the very first time that they knocked down a portion of the hill that we fly.
This was the first time they took out the skyline that has long defined not only
the Point of the Mountain, but also Salt Lake County. How could their progress
have been so slow and so subtle for so many decades and then all-of-the-sudden…
People were in tears. My heart skipped a few beats when I saw the machine taking
off the top of the hill. A few days later, I am down right sad.

As they are quick to point out, it’s their land, they have the permits and they
paid the bond. To be fair, we shouldn't be mad and some people would have us
believe that we are misguided or off base for even stating a goal of "stopping
this excavation." Maybe we are. For some of us, this may end up being the fight
of our lives.

As we started shooting a short video about our situation, we weren't really sure
what our position actually was. In fifteen minutes, the words came to us;
"we-thought-we-had-a-deal." We thought we had a deal. We thought they would and
could - take gravel from all but the places that we actually fly. Many had
already embraced the idea that the only hills left standing in the end would be
the ones that we fly.

In our simple minds, we had a deal, and it was a good deal. We don't so much as
utter a disparaging word about the gravel company and they let us do our thing.
If we thought they had any intention of harvesting gravel from the hills we fly,
we would have been there for every permit, for every public comment etc. We
never dreamed that they would, well played gravel company.

I even thought that it might have been a mistake. Did a wayward D9 operator take
a wrong turn?

A gravel company representative was even rumored to have said: "we had never
seen anyone fly that part of the hill before" ... "we didn't think you'd mind."
There are no mistakes when big gravel companies navigate D10's - the gravel was
already sold, they didn't think we'd mind and it doesn't really matter that we
do.

We have all but resolved ourselves to losing that chunk of the hill. So far, we
have new websites, logos, consistent branding, Facebook pages, YouTube videos,
Twitter, Instagram. I think we are even on Pinterest. We have poured over maps,
called meetings, and met with the media. There are lots of worthy goals - teams
- initiatives. We have some passionate, well connected and even savvy people on
our team. The mission statement is being massaged.

Here is the deal. There is a triangular shaped piece of the North Side of the
Point of the Mountain that goes uphill from where the bathrooms are. The gravel
company owns it. They can do what they do with it - if and when they want.
Thankfully, it's supremely impractical for them to mine that spot. It's 700
vertical in a half mile to get to the top of it and any gravel they push is
going to fall onto the county park. That's a no - no. Reckless poker players
that we are, we might just kick back and wait. The odds that they are going to
take that triangle are crap. They are going to take everything else - be very
sure of that.

Still, we have learned our lesson. We can't rest until we own that triangle. If
we had it our way, we would give them some other piece of dirt, have them sell
us the triangle for a dollar and we would name it the gravel company flight
park. Problem solved, warm fuzzies and high fives. Things aren't usually that
easy and that's why our all-star team won't rest until it's done.

Meanwhile there are a few elephants in the room. One, it would seem that there
are few, if any, programs whereby defunct gravel pits and mines are re-vegetated
and returned to some sort of natural appearance. All we have to do is look
across the valley at Kennecott to know that.

The bigger elephant is that if you enter the valley from the West you see some
mammoth tailings piles and a smelter to beat all. Ugly. From the north, you see
two or three refineries. Stinky. The largest open pit copper mine sits on the
west side and it's visible from space. WTH? If you come from Park City. Well,
let's just say you ought to come from Park City. Provo kicked all sorts of ass
getting rid of the steel plant. That was cool.

There is a really good chance that with the right kind of pressure we could
clean up the Point of the Mountain. The gravel company cares, a little - they
have a fence around their property. They keep the really ugly stuff behind it.
At some point they will move on. In Colorado, they dig down to get their gravel
- make a water ski pond and build houses around it. We need to work on that. All
of Utah needs to work on that.

Finally, people take notice. Literally - every community should have someone in
charge of watching public notices for public comment about future gravel pits
etc. - any development. It's often your only chance to say something, to do
something.

From a flying site standpoint - do what you can to buy launches and landing
areas. Buy a scrap of dirt that you can kite on, tow on, motor on. The writing
is on the wall. This is how we preserve flying spots.

I am sorry that I wasn't a better caretaker of the Point of the Mountain.
Sometimes we lose sight of what is important. I took her for granted. My bad.

A few words ring in my head over the last week. None so loud as: "PROTECT THE
MOUNTAINS FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS."

I talked to my six year old son Zane about the subject - he was at a recent
meeting of concerned parties. At the end of meeting, he handed me this: