Utah Windriders Association

I was at the far north end of Richardson Flats owned by Talisker last Sunday, right off Hwy 238, the road to Kamas. They have put up No Trespassing signs and actually added a "No Kiteboarding" Sign, see photo below. We have kited on these fields for at least 5 years, now this? Is there any way we can work together to get access to these kiting fields? Are there signs now over at the South Richardson launch also? Look at all that untracked powder!!!!

One would have thought the 'No Trespassing' sign would have been enough. That really is a shame.

Looks like a great spot!

Maybe he'll change his mind eventually.

That sign could easily be fixed with a S and a W on each side of the NO.

Maybe a group of UWA could offer to help with restoration efforts this summer on that property. That may go along way to changing the already tainted view on kiteboarders and establishing rules if snowkiting is ever allowed there again.

A friend from out of town shared some info. He is friends with the guy that KG works for/with. Thought he could pull some strings to get them to lease the land to kiters last week and he met up with them. Apparently the dinner he went to with them did not go as planned with those new signs up so quick.

Maybe Best has deep enough pockets, and they could buy the expensive tract of land... and they could have a Pow Mow 2. I'm sure lift tickets will be cheap at the flats.

Park City is an example of most growing mountain towns... property values go up, riding spots go down. At least there were several years of good riding there. Chasta first learned to spot land after gliding off the big hill and having to find a patch of snow amongst all the shrubbery. He even tried to teach me a few tricks there, but I'm a bad student.

I think the bigger picture might be looking at what is next... every other field we ride along the I-40 corridor is also private property and mostly fenced... just a matter of time till all the goods are gone. We turned to Richardson's after Swaner shut us out. The club rallied its best efforts and gave speeches to the new land owners, but to no avail.

Windzup,
Brian Schenck
BTW - Can someone steal me that sign?!? How cool, that is literally a sign showing that Kiteboarding has made it... The man knows about us!!
BTW - The mountains will always be free!!

That's not cool. I hope no one is disrepectful enough to steal that sign. They already don't like kiters, don't make it worse. Maybe someone should go down to Skyline at the next event and steal the flags and windsocks during the night.

Windsock was stolen this summer... and I usually lose a couple ozone or dakine flags at every event. Karma I guess. People like cool sh*t.

I wouldn't seriously think anyone would steal a sign tho, I was joking on that... but it would look good on the wall at the Yacht Club.

Maybe kiters should stop trespassing on private property and there would be no signs?

Just like punk kids tho, kiters have that skate or die mentality, so we ride where we can, disregarding the man.

Windzup,
Brian Schenck

We drove by the feild Sunday to check out the signs. He has the east part of the field well posted. The west part of it only haas one old sign. I am wondering if this is someone elses property. If so it would givegood access to the area. Just wondering if anyone knows the exact ownership bounderies of Tallywacker or whatever there name is.

Maybe Best has deep enough pockets, and they could buy the expensive tract of land... and they could have a Pow Mow 2.

LOL, that property is probably worth more than Best Kite's total annual revenue even with the bad economy and declining property values.

It is too bad that we were not able to work things out with Tallisker. It is not like snowkiters are doing anything to harm the land. We just ticked them off by not respecting their property rights. We can stick it to the MAN, but the Man can stick it right back to us. This year hasn't been a great snow year for that property, but a couple years ago it was soooo sweet. I love the terrain features there - big gliding hill, natural half-pipe, small gliding hill with the swing out over the aspens. I will always have great memories of riding there. I would pay $100 per session to ride there again, but I doubt they would raise an eyebrow over that amount. Oh well, at least we have Strawberry.

Kenny wrote:

Maybe Best has deep enough pockets, and they could buy the expensive tract of land... and they could have a Pow Mow 2.

LOL, that property is probably worth more than Best Kite's total annual revenue even with the bad economy and declining property values.

It is too bad that we were not able to work things out with Tallisker. It is not like snowkiters are doing anything to harm the land. We just ticked them off by not respecting their property rights. We can stick it to the MAN, but the Man can stick it right back to us. This year hasn't been a great snow year for that property, but a couple years ago it was soooo sweet. I love the terrain features there - big gliding hill, natural half-pipe, small gliding hill with the swing out over the aspens. I will always have great memories of riding there. I would pay $100 per session to ride there again, but I doubt they would raise an eyebrow over that amount. Oh well, at least we have Strawberry.

No one ticked anyone off, they closed the area while it is being revegitated, no hiking, no snowshoing, no dog walking, it is not just us, it is everyone...

Rumor has it, from a good source, that an out of state kite shop owner has an "in" somewhere with Tallywacker. Supposedly they were going to let him put up a yurt and teach on the property this winter. Haven't heard why it didn't happen but maybe in the future it could work out.

i understand it's their land and they can do what they want, but am i the only one who thinks their stance on this very hypocritical? They don't want us to "damage" the land by kiting (i won't go into the argument that kiters can't damage a snow covered field), but the gross over-developement of land they are perpetrating in PC doesn't damage the land? Have you seen that monstrocity up at empire peak? I'd argue that even the parking lot they made at richardson's to accommodate the empire peak workers alone has caused more damage there than we could ever do.

Does Tallisker own the Canyons ski resort?

yes, though there is still a lawsuit in the works from Vail resorts, but i don't think that will come to anything.

United PC Mines doesn't care about damaging land. They were forced to spend 1 million dollars capping the contaminated soil and I'm sure their concern is that when the EPA comes back to inspect the work that was done, they want to make sure that they don't have to do it again because somebody ripped it up.

When I was negotiating with Kerry Gee, I did my best to portray us as a responsible group that would take care of his land. One of those things was staying off the newly capped area. When you guys went over and kited on the capped area you not only drove the final nail in the coffin of ever making a deal with these guys, you trashed my personal credibility with Kerry.

Right now there is a real possibility of getting in on the planning stages of what is going to happen with the City/County property (Home Depot/Udot field).We have an opportunity to voice our desire for open space to be included in the development of the property. After the Richardson incident I'm not sure I want my name on the line again.