The Friends of Ski Mountain Mining History invites the public to take a hike. The committee of the Park City Historical Society and Park City Museum will officially open the Historic Mine Route during the Miners Day Parade on Monday on Main Street. “We have a 16-foot long red ribbon that we ’ll stretch across Main Street, just a few feet up from the museum,” said Marketing Manager Colleen Logan. “Mayor Ryan Dickey will cut the ribbon, and he will be joined by a few other folks who have worked very hard on this project.” The Historic Mine Route, which is also known as the HMR, is a 7-mile loop that starts at the Park City Museum and heads up Treasure Hill to the Park City Mining District at the top of Park City Mountain’s Town and PayDay lifts, just at the base of Bonanza Lift. From there the route descends Empire Canyon, Ontario Ridge and back to Main Street. The idea is a byproduct of the Friends of Ski Mountain Mining History’s efforts to preserve historic structures such as the Silver King Complex, the Alliance Mine and the Alliance Watchman’s Cabin, to name a few, said Donald Roll, who chairs the committee along with Sally Elliott. “We’ve spent the last 10 years saving mining structures in the Park City Mining District,” he said. “These structures are all somewhat isolated. (Sometimes) people ski by them or hike or bike by them and don’t know what they are and what their purposes were back in the mining area, so  we needed a way to make that connection with our mining heritage.” If the route proves to be successful, Friends of Ski Mountain Mining History will do more, according to Roll. “There are other areas that have mining history that could benefit from audio and video interpretation,” he said. The Historic Mine Route also came out of a project Sandy Brumley, the committee’s director of community engagement, had been working with the Park City Chamber of Commerce, Roll said. “(The project) is called Experience Park City History, a free audio guide that utilizes the TravelStorys app,” he said. “They used us as the subject-matter experts for many of the audio narratives that mainly covered Old Town and Main Street.” The committee recruited Wayne McKay, a petroleum engineer with organizational experience, to work with Brumley’s foundational work and turn it into the more complex Historic Mine Route. The restored Silver King Mining Complex is one of the main stops on the Historic Mine Route that will officially open on during the Miners Day parade on Monday. Friends of Ski Mountain Mining History led the complex’s restoration and preservation project. Credit: Photo courtesy of Friends of Ski Mountain Mining History Very early on we had meetings with Park City Municipal’s Trails Open Space group, and they were fully supportive and had some great ideas,” McKay said. “That helped us map out the general route.” McKay and Roll hiked the route several times and came up with an outline of sites they wanted to cover. “We also met with Mountain Trails Foundation many times, and they’ve been super supportive in helping us put up not only 11 interpretive signs, but also 85 wayfinding signs that tell people which way to go,” McKay said. “Mountain Trails Foundation has built and maintained 90% of the trails that are used for this 7-mile loop, and they will continue to be our partner with this.” The trail, which features a 1,200 vertical feet of elevation gain, takes between three-and-a-half to four hours to hike, McKay said. “We realized not all visitors or locals for that matter can commit that amount of time, so we came up with four ways to enjoy the route,” he said. Hiking the full loop Biking the full loop Ride Town Lift or PayDay lift to the the Silver King Complex and walk down through Empire Canyon and Ontario Ridge to Main Street Ride the lifts up and ride the lifts down “If you ride the lifts and walk down, you will pass by many of the sites, even if they don’t hit all of them,” McKay said. Even if people just ride the lifts up and down the hill, they will still be able to experience the Silver King Complex, Logan said. “There is still so much to see,” she said. The Historic Mine Route is a free and self-guided tour that uses the TravelStorys app that is downloadable through the route’s website at parkcityhistory.org, said McKay. “The guide is also GPS activated,” he said. “So if you get close to a structure, it will start playing on your phone, and it will continue if you walk away. This way people don’t have to hire a guide to take them up and around.” The narration includes 12 cameos from Park City Museum volunteers, Roll said. “We have mining expertise in our group, and each of their segments runs about two to three minutes, and you learn quite a bit,” he said. Some of those voices are Roll, Park City Museum Executive Director Morgan Pierce, Friends of Ski Mountain Mining History Restoration Project Manager Brian Buck, local historians Larry Warren and Michael O’Malley, Park City-based geologist and paleontologist Dr. Sherie Harding and mining experts Donovan Symonds, Mark Danninger and Mike Nelson, Roll said.  “Their presentations run between two to three minutes, and when you hear them, you will know who they are,” he said. The self-guided aspect of the route doesn’t mean the Park City Museum and Friends of Ski Mountain Mining History will discontinue guided hikes, according to Roll. “We’ll still do curated ski tours because there’s a value to curation,” he said. “But this expands the opportunities for people to experience these sites 1,000-fold.”  Adding to the audio are downloadable and printable maps, including one created by fine artist Gigi Perkins. “She is the daughter of Dave and Jane Perkins, who founded High West Distillery,” Logan said. “Dave Perkins is on our committee.” Perkins and Logan talked about ways to make accessible maps for the public. “We knew we had technical maps, but we needed something that was more inspirational that would draw people in,” Logan said. “We worked together with Gigi to make sure our facts were right, and I think she nailed it in terms of helping people visualize looking up Treasure Hill from downtown Park City.” The Historic Mine Route is fully funded by local, state and federal grants, according to Roll. “We didn’t want to dig into money from our donors that was going to preservation efforts for creating and marketing the Historic Mine Route,” he said. “We were able to get a total of 14 different grants.”  Some of the grants originated from Utah Outdoor Recreation, Park City Chamber, Park City Rotary, Park City Sunrise Rotary, Central Wasatch Commission, Promontory Foundation, Park City Community Foundation, Utah Office of Tourism and both Summit County RAP and Restaurant taxes. “The first year we applied for a grant from the state of Utah, we were not successful,” Roll said. “So we had another year to plan.”The next year, Friends of Ski Mountain Mining History reapplied and got approved, McKay said. “Then we said, ‘Gee, we have to do this now,’” he said with a laugh. For information about the Friends of Ski Mountain Mining History, visit parkcityhistory.org/mining. For information about the Historic Mine Route, visit hmr.parkcityhistory.org. The post Historic Mine Route opens to celebrate Miners Day and Park City heritage appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less