Solitude • Free parking will get a lot scarcer in Big Cottonwood Canyon this winter, when Solitude Mountain Resort plans to charge visitors who drive up the canyon by themselves $20 to park, less if they carpool.
It’s a bold experiment aimed at helping to alleviate gridlock in Utah’s crowded ski country. Of course, it could encourage skiers instead to drive farther up the road to Brighton or to Little Cottonwood’s Alta and Snowbird, which, to this point, have not said that they will discontinue free parking.
Either way, there are major implications for Utah’s central Wasatch Mountains.