Utah cabin owners still struggle with massive snowfall
By Amy Nay
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SANPETE COUNTY, Utah (KSTU) — Unprecedented amounts of snow have stacked up in so many areas across Utah, including dozens of cabins in Fairview Canyon, leaving many property owners concerned about the damage.
“It’s really crazy! A lot of deep snow!” said Craig Harvey, who’s owned a cabin for five years in the Fairview Lakes Association, a group of about 115 cabins near Electric Lake in the Manti-La Sal National Forest.
This is the most snow Harvey says he’s ever seen in the area.
“The first year we got it, only about 3-4 feet at the most, and the next year was about 8-9 feet of snow,” he said.
Now it’s past the 13-foot mark where the cabins stand and is almost completely burying some structures.
Harvey and his wife have been going up to the area regularly through the winter months monitoring the conditions there thanks to his snowcat.
massive snowfall
By: Amy NayPosted at 5:50 PM, Apr 25, 2023 and last updated 7:50 PM, Apr 25, 2023 SANPETE COUNTY, Utah — Unprecedented amounts of snow have stacked up in so many areas across Utah, including dozens of cabins in Fairview Canyon, leaving many property owners concerned about the damage.
“It’s really crazy! A lot of deep snow!” said Craig Harvey, who’s owned a cabin for five years in the Fairview Lakes Association, a group of about 115 cabins near Electric Lake in the Manti-La Sal National Forest.
This is the most snow Harvey says he’s ever seen in the area.
“The first year we got it, only about 3-4 feet at the most, and the next year was about 8-9 feet of snow,” he said.
Now it’s past the 13-foot mark where the cabins stand and is almost completely burying some structures.
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Harvey and his wife have been going up to the area regularly through the winter months monitoring the conditions there thanks to his snowcat.
“We had to start tunneling down to get underneath our cabin to actually get to where we could turn on the power and water and things like that – dig a tunnel – about 8 feet deep each weekend, we dig down into it,” said Harvey.
He added that the snow is no longer soft and powdery but heavy and hard like cement in some spots.
“The cabin shifted over about three-quarters of an inch and the doors got jammed. I actually got them back open and barely got them back closed,” said Harvey. “And I have a nice rope and I tried to get through the big chunks of snow against the cabin and get it to move and it just wouldn’t even move.”
The main road in the area has had to temporarily close thanks to landslides that often bring large boulders down onto the road. And this week, the National Forest Service warned there could be more to come.
“We’ve had historical highs in some areas so we just want to make sure everybody’s prepared for conditions,” said U.S. Forest Service spokesperson Kim Huhyn.
Huhyn urged visitors to be smart about the changing conditions and to use their best judgment when navigating certain terrain. She suggested planning to wait out cases of flooding or when there’s debris left in the road that would make it unsafe to pass. Everyone should have food and water and some other emergency items in their vehicles in case they do have stay longer than planned and to report those instances to their local forest service offices.
“Landslides could be rock or debris in the road and we definitely want visitors to report that to us because a lot of times there will be road closures while we monitor them and then give us time to react,” said Huhyn.
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