While just a tiny piece of the larger BST puzzle, this land is a lynchpin for completing the trail through Davis County.

(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) After an 1,100-foot climb, the new Parley's Pointe segment of the Bonneville Shoreline Trail provides expansive views of the Salt Lake Valley on Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2022. Deals are in the works to secure land needed to complete the trail in Davis and Utah counties.

The proposed alignment of Utah’s Bonneville Shoreline Trail (BST) crosses hundreds of private parcels where a mighty freshwater lake once lapped against the Wasatch foothills.

Easements or titles to some of this land must be secured to complete the trail’s 280-mile pathway from the Idaho border south to Nephi. This week the vision got an important boost when the Trust for Public Land finalized a deal to buy a 4-acre parcel in Bountiful to secure access to a newly built trail segment through North Canyon.

While just a tiny piece of the larger BST puzzle, this land is a lynchpin for completing the trail through Davis County, according to the trust’s project manager Carrie Kasnicka. The little parcel met many of the criteria for acquisition.

“This parcel is a really neat opportunity. On paper, it might not look like it has a big umph to it,” Kasnicka said. “We’re working closely with the Forest Service, who manages 75% of the BST. And what they’re looking for is being able to improve connectivity, access, wayfinding, fire response, public safety response.”

The Trust for Public Land is a nonprofit that orchestrates deals to transfer private lands with recreational and natural values into public ownership.

The proposed alignment for the Shoreline Trail passes through or beside 1,500 private parcels, creating significant obstacles to completing it, according to the trust’s regional director Jim Petterson.

“For the 80% of Utah’s population that lives on the Wasatch Front, having that proximity to this trail corridor is just a lifeblood artery of getting out and getting active in the outdoors,” Petterson said. “The driver of why we’re so interested is because it creates such an opportunity for recreation, and you can get one day on a trail and go nearly 300 miles. We have high hopes for being able to fill in the corridor.”

Trail organizers have prioritized 200 parcels to acquire outright or secure easements across.

The trust, which pursues deals only with willing sellers, is currently working to buy 30 of those priority parcels, including the four acres the trust acquired this week and two others the group holds an option on.

Margie and Bruce Parker were the owners of the North Fork property.

“There’s all sorts of reasons why a parcel may be important. This one [the Parkers’] really rose to the top pretty quickly,” Kasnicka said. “It is right at the end of where the Bountiful trail comes through [up North Canyon from Bountiful Boulevard]. The municipalities manage lower ends of the BST until they hit Forest Service land. … Right where that Bountiful trail ends, 6 feet away is this parcel. Being able to tie into the BST is really a natural fit, and being able to improve accessibility and continuation of user activities.”

“It was undeveloped lands. They don’t live there and they really wanted a conservation outcome,” Kasnicka said. “Not only did this parcel have all the attributes we need, but it had the type of landowner that understands what we do and why we do it.”

The trust is also about to close a deal on a 133-acre parcel near Provo needed to develop the trail through Utah County. After more than 25 years of development, the BST exists as numerous disconnected fragments. The longest passes through Salt Lake City from Mill Creek Canyon north to Mueller Park, wrapping around the University of Utah and City Creek.

In recent years, the trust closed deals with the Boy Scouts of America to acquire some of its extensive holdings in Mill Creek Canyon. These acquisitions enabled crucial trail development at the mouth of the popular canyon.

Land acquired for the BST is folded into the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest. But with each passing year, land values along the trail alignment and other places where people enjoy outdoor recreation continue to increase, making it harder to complete land acquisitions.

“Some of these are very small, little parcels, and some are larger, but that’s where that punch comes in. It starts with every foot and every acre, and then you’ll get through the miles,” Kasnicka said. “If we can just chip away at this, then we’re going to get to a whole trail.”

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Land deals advance Bonneville Shoreline Trail