Construction begins on 3.5-mile paved pathway that ties Vivian Park with Deer Creek as landowner heads to court

(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Hundreds of trees have been removed from along the Provo River, pictured on Thursday, where UDOT is building a 3.5 mile trail through Provo Canyon.

Construction has begun on a long-awaited trail through Provo Canyon, connecting existing trail networks at either end, but a prominent property owner is now crying foul over the removal of hundreds of trees to make way for the path along the Provo River.

“It looks like a bomb went off,” fumed rancher Steve Ault, who has owned about 1,500 acres on either side of the river since 1984. “I drove up there and just could not believe the destruction. They brought two big excavators in the day before and had pretty much destroyed a stretch there between what we call Horseshoe Bend and the double bridges.”

The stretch of river in question is in the narrowest part of Provo Canyon, the busy recreational corridor between Provo and Heber City. This is where the Utah Department of Transportation, or UDOT, in partnership with the Mountainland Association of Governments, is building a 10-foot-wide paved multi-use trail to close a gap between the Provo Canyon Parkway at Vivian Park and the Deer Creek Reservoir trailhead. The project will tie together two vast trail networks in Utah and Heber valleys.

Much of this 3.5-mile stretch crosses Ault’s property and is to be built within the rail right of way used by the Heber Valley Railroad, which provides scenic train rides through the area.

(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Trees were removed from this stretch of the Provo River, pictured on Thursday, to clear space for a trial to built through the canyon between the Utah and Heber valleys

UDOT contends it owns the ground under these tracks, while Ault lawyers say the agency owns just the rail right of way.

“Even beyond the ownership issue is the absolute destruction of a swath of trees that didn’t need to be destroyed to put a 10-foot trail in,” Ault said. “The real tragedy is the destruction of that stretch we call the ‘National Treasure.’”

Driving Ault’s frustration is his property dispute with UDOT. The agency contends it acquired the old railroad and land under it back in 1971, a few years after the rail line was abandoned. Formerly, it served as the Heber branch of the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad built in 1899 to connect a then-isolated Heber Valley with the outside world.

He was so upset with the loss of the trees he hired a lawyer to file a temporary restraining order in court to put a stop to the tree cutting.

Citing Ault’s lawsuit, UDOT declined to comment.

“According to our ownership records, we believe UDOT owns the property in question, but we will work with Mr. Ault and the courts to resolve the situation,” said agency spokesman John Gleason.

But there may be no more trees left along the trail alignment to save, rendering the court action moot.

By last week, the UDOT contractor had already finished cutting trees, a component of the work that needed to be completed before April 15 to avoid disrupting nesting birds, according to Ault.

“With no trees, there is no impact to birds,” said Brent Bohman, one of Ault’s lawyers. “It’s a sleight of hand.”

Costing $44.7 million, the project includes relocating the Vivian Park playground, replacing a historic railroad trestle with a modern bridge and building a pedestrian bridge across the river, adding parking areas and various access points. The path parallels U.S. Highway 189 between mile markers 13 and 17.

In places where the canyon is extremely narrow, the trail will be built on concrete slabs cantilevered over the river.

Ault said up to 1,000 trees, including many century-old box elders, have been cut down and hastily hauled off along a half-mile stretch. Few if any trees were left standing between the river and the highway. He was not notified in advance of the tree cutting and only heard about it from neighbors after it had already started.

Ault got the Wasatch County Sheriff’s Office to stop the work, but UDOT was allowed to resume after a temporary shut down, prompting Ault to go to court. He retained attorney Brady Brammer, a Republican lawmaker from Pleasant Grove who has been supportive of state funding for the project.

“They had no environmental mitigation at all,” Ault said. “If you look at their own [environmental study], they said there’s no impact to the environment, no impact to adjoining landowners.”

Without the trees, however, the highway’s retaining wall is completely exposed and the road noise is far more apparent on the river.

“I’m just throwing money at this. I pulled out the stops because somebody’s got to become accountable for this,” Ault said. “It’s just been swept under the rug.”

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UDOT contractor razes trees for Provo Canyon trail