Watershed & Wildlands

Public Lands Protections

For decades, Save Our Canyons has told one consistent story: the Wasatch is not just scenery — it is a living, breathing mosaic of public lands that belong to all of us.

From alpine ridgelines to foothill benches, from aspen groves glowing gold in October to powder-filled couloirs in January, the Wasatch is a patchwork quilt stitched together by different landowners, agencies, and communities. Some parcels are fiercely protected. Others are vulnerable. Some are managed for watershed health. Others for recreation, wildlife habitat, grazing, mining, or development. Understanding who manages what and why is at the heart of protecting this range.

Because when we talk about public lands, we are not talking about one thing. We are talking about a layered system of responsibility.

The Wasatch: A Patchwork Landscape

The Wasatch Mountains are a complex blend of public and private lands. In many places, a hiking trail might cross multiple jurisdictions in a single afternoon. A ridgeline might sit on federal land, while the canyon floor below is privately owned. A ski run may be permitted on national forest land, adjacent to protected wilderness.

This patchwork is both the Wasatch’s strength and its vulnerability. When coordinated management works, the mountains thrive. When decisions are siloed, we risk fragmentation of habitat, of access, and of community voice.

Who Manages Public Lands in the Wasatch?

U.S. Forest Service

The majority of the Wasatch Mountains sits within the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest, managed by the Forest Service. This agency oversees recreation, watershed protection, wildlife habitat, grazing permits, timber management, and ski area leases.

In Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons, Millcreek Canyon, American Fork Canyon, and beyond, the Forest Service plays a central role in shaping how we access and experience the mountains. Much of Save Our Canyons’ advocacy, from transportation planning to development review, engages directly with Forest Service decisions.

Bureau of Land Management

While less prominent in the steep upper Wasatch, BLM manages important foothill and lower elevation parcels along the Wasatch Front. These lands often face intense development pressure and are critical wildlife corridors and recreation spaces.

BLM lands frequently serve as the transition zone between growing communities and higher forested terrain, making thoughtful management essential.

Utah State Parks and State Trust Lands

Utah manages lands for multiple purposes. State Parks protect recreation and natural values in designated areas, while Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration parcels are managed to generate revenue for public schools.

These trust lands are often interspersed within federal forest boundaries, meaning a proposed development on a small state parcel can have outsized impacts on surrounding public lands.

Local Governments

Counties and municipalities also manage open space, trail systems, and watershed lands. For example, Salt Lake City Public Utilities manages protected watershed areas to keep our drinking water clean for hundreds of thousands of residents. Local zoning decisions, even on small private parcels, can affect wildlife migration, trail connectivity, and canyon character.

Congressionally Designated Lands

Portions of the Wasatch are further protected through federal designations such as wilderness areas, including the Lone Peak Wilderness, Twin Peak Wilderness, and Mount Olympus Wilderness. These lands, managed by the Forest Service, offer the highest level of federal protection from development and mechanized use.

Why This Matters

The Wasatch is not one park with one rulebook. It is a shared landscape governed by overlapping missions: recreation, revenue generation, conservation, water protection, habitat preservation, and economic growth.

Save Our Canyons works at the intersection of these missions.

We engage in forest planning processes.
We advocate for watershed protections.
We challenge inappropriate development on public and trust lands.
We push for responsible transportation solutions in the Cottonwoods.
We educate our community about how land ownership shapes outcomes.

Because protecting public lands is not just about drawing lines on a map. It is about understanding the system and showing up in every room where decisions are made.

The Work Ahead

The Wasatch faces increasing pressure: population growth along the Wasatch Front, climate change, recreation demand, and private development proposals within and adjacent to public lands.

But the mountains still belong to the public.

They belong to the skier skinning up at dawn.
The trail runner chasing sunset light.
The family picnicking in Millcreek.
The wildlife moving through migration corridors older than any city below.

The Wasatch is a patchwork, and every piece matters.

For over 50 years, Save Our Canyons has been working to ensure that this mosaic remains intact, connected, and protected, not just for today, but for generations who will look up at these same ridgelines and know they still belong to all of us.

Wildfire & Shared Stewardship

We view the risk of catastrophic wildfire as one of the biggest threats to the beauty and wildness of the Wasatch. Save Our Canyons remains committed to supporting work that uses best available science to reduce the risk of wildfire to biodiversity, watershed, airshed, and our communities.

In the Wasatch, fire has always been part of the story.

Long before trailheads, lift lines, and ridgeline homes, low, creeping flames moved through these forests clearing out underbrush, opening cones, renewing soil, and making space for new life. Just as spring runoff swells Big and Little Cottonwood Creeks and nourishes the watershed, periodic fire plays a vital role in keeping a forest healthy and resilient.

Not all fire is inherently bad. In fact, in the right conditions, it is restorative.

The challenge we face today isn’t fire itself: it’s catastrophic fire. Decades of suppression, coupled with rapid expansion into the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) along the Wasatch Front and back, have changed the equation. Forests have grown denser, fuels have accumulated, and more communities now sit directly in fire-prone landscapes. When fire does come, it burns hotter, faster, and with greater consequence.

Here in the Wasatch, stands of Quaking Aspen (Populus tremuloides) serve as an incredibly effective natural firebreak, thanks to their low flammability and ability to retain soil moisture. These deciduous trees are also some of the quickest to regenerate after a wildfire, often relying on fire disturbance to expand their footprint. The species is a cornerstone of biodiversity in mountainous regions of the West, providing exceptional forage and habitat throughout the year.

The life cycle of Quaking Aspen is one of many examples of the important role wildfire plays in our ecosystem. For thousands of years, Indigenous cultures in the Wasatch and around the world have recognized this. Ancestors of today’s Ute and Shoshone peoples are known to have practiced cultural burning in the region for at least the last 1,200 years as a way to steward the land, improve pasture, and enhance productivity of useful plants like Willow and Oak. To learn more about cultural burning and other traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) methods, check out [source]

As the Wasatch Front population began expanding in the mid-1800’s, many of the conifer trees in the range, primarily Douglas Fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) and Ponderosa Pine (Pinus ponderosa), were cut down for lumber. Along with the mining industry, this led to significant watershed contamination issues, prompting the creation of the Salt Lake Forest Reserve in 1904. Around this same time, policies and funding began prioritizing fire suppression – millions of dollars were sent towards well-equipped crews who were able to handle the biggest blazes.

Despite well-intentioned efforts to protect human lives and property, the fires keep getting bigger. By prioritizing reactive suppression over proactive forest health, dense stands of timber now fill many canyons of the Wasatch Mountains, with years of deadfall and ladder fuel that can easily turn a low-intensity ground fire into a severe crown fire. This issue is exacerbated by climate change, drought, and tree mortality caused by diseases and insect outbreaks, which have proliferated with a lack of fire. As the fuel load grows, development inches up the canyons further each year, and the WUI, where most fires ignite, is becoming increasingly precarious.

A lack of good fire has also allowed conifer trees to expand their range, encroaching into terrain that may have historically been Quaking Aspen stands or riparian areas. In combination with the removal of beavers (Castor canadensis), many drainages that previously had high water tables and wide fuel breaks became filled with flammable conifers, a phenomenon known as conifer encroachment.

As one might imagine, wide swaths of forest with miles of connected canopy, high fuel loads, prolonged drought, and a warming climate is a recipe for disaster. In a perfect world, we would like to see the natural fire process mitigate this threat, and we are lucky to have designated Wilderness areas for this. Because most of the Wasatch range is not Wilderness, however, we do recognize the need for watershed restoration projects that combine prescribed fire, [beaver dam analogs], mechanized fuel treatments, and aspen seeding to restore a healthy and safe ecosystem. Our goal is to invest in proactive wildfire mitigation: thoughtful forest management, defensible space around homes, community preparedness, and policies that recognize fire as a natural process in the right place and time.

We don’t take this lightly. Watershed restoration projects often involve fire, machinery, and chainsaws, which, if used poorly, could cause more harm than good. We participate actively during the planning processes for these projects to ensure that best practices are used and that high standards are maintained. Recent projects have been completed in Parleys, Lambs, and Millcreek Canyons, with work beginning in Big Cottonwood Canyon in 2026 and Little Cottonwood in the following years. As we partner on these projects, we will always advocate for solutions that leave minimal impact on the land and neighboring communities.