Summit Land Conservancy partnership helps protect 128.6 acres in Ogden Canyon

128.6 acres in Ogden Canyon are now permanently protected as open space. Photo: Ogden Valley Land Trust

OGDEN CANYON, Utah — A partnership involving Summit Land Conservancy is helping extend land conservation efforts beyond Summit County, with 128.6 acres of forested land in Ogden Valley now permanently protected from future development.

Summit Land Conservancy and the Ogden Valley Land Trust announced Thursday that they have completed a conservation easement protecting the property, now known as the Keith and Belinda Rounkles Ogden Canyon Conservancy.

The land rises above Highway 39 along the Ogden River Scenic Byway and includes forested slopes, wildlife habitat, seasonal streams, and watershed lands near the gateway to Ogden Valley.

The project is the first major result of a partnership formed in July 2024, when Summit Land Conservancy and Ogden Valley Land Trust agreed to work together on conservation easements in the Ogden Valley. The arrangement pairs the local land trust’s relationships with landowners and knowledge of the valley with Summit Land Conservancy’s conservation, legal, fundraising, and stewardship expertise.

For Summit Land Conservancy, the partnership represents a model for how conservation organizations can work across communities to protect more land.

“This is exactly why partnerships like this matter,” Summit Land Conservancy CEO Cheryl Fox said. “Ogden Valley Land Trust knows this landscape and these landowners incredibly well, and Summit Land Conservancy brings additional capacity and expertise to help get projects across the finish line. When we work together, we can save more land and save it faster.”

Protecting Ogden Canyon

The 128.6-acre property provides habitat for mule deer, moose, turkey, California quail, dusky grouse and other wildlife. Four seasonal streams also cross the property, carrying snowmelt and stormwater toward the Ogden River.

The land sits roughly half a mile downstream from Pineview Reservoir and plays a role in protecting water quality in the Ogden River and the broader Weber River watershed.

The conservation easement permanently removes residential and commercial development rights from the property, ensuring it will remain undeveloped.

That protection comes as development pressure continues to increase in Ogden Valley. The property is about two miles from Snowbasin Resort and near Pineview Reservoir, areas that have seen growing residential and resort-oriented development.

A model for conservation partnerships

The project also highlights the role partnerships can play in helping local land trusts complete conservation projects that might otherwise require more time and resources than they can provide on their own.

“Ogden Valley Land Trust has always been about protecting the places that make this valley special,” said Kirk Langford, an Ogden Valley Land Trust board trustee. “Working with Summit Land Conservancy allows us to bring more resources to the table and help landowners turn their interest in conservation into permanent protection.”

Another Ogden Valley property is also nearing permanent protection through the partnership, according to Summit Land Conservancy.

For Fox, the collaboration is part of a broader effort to make conservation more accessible to landowners as development pressures grow.

“We’re seeing that landowners want to conserve their properties, but the process can be complicated, expensive, and time-consuming,” Fox said. “Our job is to make it possible. When organizations share expertise, relationships, and resources, we can spend less time reinventing the wheel and more time getting land protected.”

The newly protected property adds 128.6 acres to the growing network of conserved lands in northern Utah and demonstrates how conservation groups in different communities can combine resources to protect land beyond their immediate service areas.

“Saving land is a team sport,” Fox said. “It takes willing landowners, local partners, funding, expertise, and a lot of patience.”

For Summit Land Conservancy, the Ogden Canyon project offers a glimpse of how that team approach could help protect more Utah landscapes in the years ahead.