US Hawks Hang Gliding Association

Location: Point of the Mountain, Draper, UT
Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2013 10:37 pm Post subject: #21

jimmygoat wrote:
IMO signing petitions to stop the company from mining their own land may shut the pilots down from flying POM. From the picture posted it looks like mining operations there have been going on for quite some time. It has been said that the company gives pilots free access to the launches and LZ's. That is great. The pilots should instead concentrate on giving input on the future reclamation of the project - the reshaping and recontouring of the land once the operations are finished. If you cause an uproar you may be shut out of the place you love to fly. Mining can be a good thing if done properly a responsibly. IF IT ISN'T GROWN IT HAS TO BE MINED.

Warning: I'm going to blow up on you here. This isn't aimed at you personally, but at this forum community as a whole.

Why do people with half the information feel the need to 'try' to help by posting BS?! The amount of bad, dangerous, idiotic advice that I have seen daily on this forum is sickening. It's the blind leading the blind. I don't know what's worse, the people that know they're inexperienced and then give advice anyway, or the ones that have been flying (poorly) for many years and don't even realize their advice is bad. Or how about the people that haven't flown since the 80's, and now fly the training hill once a year, giving advice to people with more airtime and experience on modern equipment.

Holy s***.

On topic, the North Side Flight Park is a county flight park... IE owned by Salt Lake County (not Geneva Rock). The bottom LZ is owned by South Mountain Water District (it's a water treatment facility). Geneva Rock does not own the actual site, and can not shut us out. They couldn't if they wanted to (which they don't).

They DO however own- and have permits for- almost ALL of the North Side "back bench" ridge. The 300 ft front ridge is safe, but the 1200 ft rear ridge that makes the North Side what it is... Well it's disappearing.

Right now it's just the end of the mountain... But in the years to come it will be most of that ridge, gone forever.

Oh, and there is no reclamation plan. They plan to leave it in that terraced, raw state. The value of the material we're talking about is upwards of 30 million dollars (yes you read that right). Buying the land is not feasible. The demolition on the end, that's already started, we've been told WILL NOT BE STOPPED. They will be taking that area down to the valley floor (lower than the bench).

Geneva principles are amiable to a land swap for the remaining ridge... However the material they get from the North Side is very rare, and the location is prime, so finding a suitable area to swap is extremely difficult. If it existed somewhere else locally, Geneva would be mining there instead (or in addition?)

I appreciate everyone's concerns, but we don't need speculation conjecture or false rumors. And we don't need un-knowledgable advice. If you know about this kind of thing, we're all ears. If not, just say it sucks without potentially leading us down a poor path or wild goose chase.

This will be my last post on this forum, at least for a long while. I've come here for a long time trying to help people and share what I know, and what it's become is a place where I read the advice given and cringe, then I feel the NEED to post the factual info. Then who knows which side readers take. Who even knows who's reading. Maybe no one. Maybe everyone.

I'm just kind of over it. Moving on...

I will continue to post updates about the Save the Point initiative on FB. If someone wants to share them here that's just fine by me...
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Ryan Voight