“We are not at all dissuaded,” said Rick Alden about yesterday’s ruling in U.S. District Court. The legal war summoned against Alta Ski Area last season for refusing to allow snowboarders on its lifts came to a head when Wasatch Equality (Alden, Drew Hicken, Bjorn Leines, Richard Varga) had their day in court.

 Judge Dee Benson not only decried that snowboarders are not a protected class but said that they had a “misplaced and mistaken” view of the 14^th amendment. The Equal Protection Clause is not a general fairness clause he said and concluded that the plaintiffs failed to show the Forest Service had anything to do with the Little Cottonwood Canyon resort’s policy prohibiting snowboards.

“They didn’t really go after the public lands issue but instead claimed animus [towards boarders] and whether we questioned their ability [to ride safely],” said Alta’s Ono Wieringa. “That doesn’t have anything to do with public lands.” Alta’s permit with the Forest Service allows it to make its own policies. “It’s a business decision (to ban snowboards) and skiing works really well there,” he added. “Public lands are riddled with separating users for the betterment of other users.”

‘Bifftacular’ commented on the Deseret News site, “Why should a bowling alley be allowed to restrict their lanes only to the usage of bowling balls? I’d kind of like to roll a pumpkin. “No shirt, no shoes, no service”? Not anymore. Those restaurants should have to serve us even if all we are wearing is a diaper. Why only golf carts allowed on a golf course? That seems rather discriminatory to real cars. I’d like to drive my Honda hole to hole. Only ice skates on the community skating rink? How backwards. Where are the rights for toboggans, sleds, and snowmobiles?”

 Alta has maintained that they have never discriminated against snowboarders only snowboards. And the court affirmed this choice. Benson wrote in his ruling that there’s “a common-sense recognition that all laws discriminate in one way or another, which is the very nature of laws and regulations.  All that is required for (USFS) to be found in compliance with the Constitution is that the government has a rational basis for its actions. There are many forums Plaintiffs can resort to in an attempt to accomplish their goal of snowboarding down the Baldy Chutes at Alta. Seeking an injunction from this court is not one of them.”

But Alden doesn’t see it that way. “Alta is just plain wrong and unfortunately they are wrong on public lands. Let the snowboarders decide what public lands they want to ride,” he said. “We are 100 percent committed to the appeal process.”

Unfortunately for those who commented that they were glad the fight is over, it doesn’t look like it is. “They probably have some legal recourse to appeal or reshape the case so I doubt that it’s over,” said Wieringa. “[Alden’s] not happy with our stance. We’re not worried. I would like to spend the money on the ski area instead of lawyers but life goes on.”

As to whether Alta will have to allow snowboarding in the future to be part of One Wasatch Wieringa said those decisions are far enough away that they don’t have to think about that. “I’d say it’s just like always; it’s part of a business decision that we always make about our market. If we’re going to do things differently we’d have to look at all the parts and see what makes sense.”

Park City Mountain Resort (PCMR) announced today it’s going to pay up. Judge Ryan Harris imposed a $17.5 million bond amount last week if the resort planned to operate for 2014/15. Well, get ready folks. the scheduled season opener is November 22, 2014; maybe even sooner if all of the epic snowfall forecasts ring true.

“Our goal has always been to keep PCMR open for the upcoming 2014/15 season and beyond,” said Jenni Smith, President and General Manager of PCMR. “Paying the bond ordered by the judge will provide our employees, the Park City community and our many guests the certainty they’ve been waiting for about our upcoming ski season.”

Under Powdr’s 20+ years of ownership, PCMR has grown into a world-class resort that continuously ranks among the top five resorts in North America. “I am very happy that the resort will be open this year,” Smith continued. “While the most important outcome today is that PCMR will be open for business, the bond payment is only a short term solution for the 2014/15 season. As such, we will continue working with Vail toward a reasonable and fair long-term solution.”

Powdr is one of the largest, privately owned and operated, lifestyle and mountain sports companies in North America with a portfolio of nine mountain resorts, four Woodward facilities and Outside Television. Locals had no doubts that they would post the bond.

Oh Joy! We get to wait…again. It wouldn’t be a telenovela without a cliffhanger and the lawsuit between Park City Mountain Resort and Talisker Landholding LLC. wouldn’t be the biggest eviction case in the history of Utah without yet another delay.

Judge Ryan Harris ruled in 3^rd District Court of Summit County this afternoon that PCMR will need to post a $17.5 million dollar bond if they wanted to operate this 2014/15 ski season. Instead of writing a check, paying, or filing for a surety bond right then and there, PCMR has a week to decide what they will do. “We need to post or advise the court [that they won’t be posting a bond],” said PCMR attorney Alan Sullivan. “We’re hopeful that there will be a ski season. That’s our objective. I will confer with my clients and comply with the court’s deadline.” Sullivan tap-danced around the questions of whether they would put up the bond and what he thinks of the judge’s decision.

The bond amount was tied to an estimate of PCMR’s annual rent but the two sides have been feuding (and mediating) over what that figure should be. Harris stipulated that none of his math is factual and that ultimate figures would be determined by factfinders such as an appellate judge, the jury or the parties themselves.

“The plaintiffs don’t have a right to remain on the land for free,” said Harris. The stay on his eviction is conditioned on the bond- an amount that should cover actual damages over the next ski season. He stated that the bond amount would include treble the damages as common in other landlord/tenant cases. “The amount is not punitive,” he said. “It exists to encourage a recalcitrant holdover tenant to vacate.”

As to the actual bond amount that PCMR needs to pay, it fell closer to what PCMR had proposed at last week’s hearing; an amount significantly less than Talisker’s $124 million request. The Judge said determining a value for the bond was “a difficult thing to do in this case.” He had to make a guesstimate as to the value of the PCMR land that Talisker owns then calculate what the rent would be based on that figure.

“Ski property doesn’t grow on trees,” said Harris. “[PCMR] is unique in and of itself.” He said you would need to determine what the property would lease for on the open market and factor in that the base and ski hill are divided. “The bond doesn’t need to be big enough so that the defendant can collect on the entire judgment. It only needs to cover damages that occur in the future as result of the plaintiff remaining on the property,” explained Harris.

With that said, he started with the $57.8 million value Vail proposed in their federal filings for the fair market value of the land then multiplied it by a capitalization rate of 10 percent to arrive at a rental price of $5.2 million per year. He then tripled that and included prejudgment interest and attorneys fee and ruled that PCMR needs to pay $17.5 million by next Friday or vacate.

He included a provision to extend the bond for another year to “make sure we don’t wind up back here. This is a ski town and folks need to know what’s going to happen.” The bond will remain in effect until April 30, 2015, and PCMR may extend the stay on the eviction to April 2016, if they pay an additional $19 million bond by March 2, 2015. “At some point the case will become final and we’ll need to discuss the posting of an appellate bond and that would be a much bigger amount than I am requiring now,” said Harris. “We’ll take this on a season by season basis until the case becomes final.”

The Judge also scheduled a telephone conference for 10:30 a.m. on September 30 to discuss a date for the appeal and whether PCMR still wants a jury trial. Let’s just hope that PCMR marked those dates in their calendar with a Sharpie this time.