Bargaining for Eden
The Fight for the Last Open Spaces in America
2008 Utah Book Award in Nonfiction
2009 Southwest Books of the Year
2004 Utah Arts Council Literature Program Nonfiction Book Award
"Every so often a book is published that brings the larger world into clear focus through a well-polished, high-quality lens directed at one small part of that world. Bargaining for Eden is such a book, and everyone who is interested in the human condition and the natural environment...will be well served by reading it. Stephen Trimble’s skills and perseverance as an investigative reporter honor the craft of writing and ...bring integrity, honesty, intelligence, humility and hope to a story that is about their antonyms. Trimble has offered us a way beyond hatred with a great and shocking story of the past and a template for the future." —Dick Dorworth, Mountain Gazette
"Trimble's book takes a courageous look at the ethics of landownership and the price of paradise." —Jennifer Winger, Nature Conservancy Magazine
"Bargaining For Eden is ...a vibrant montage of unusual suspects expressing quirky aspects of individualism, camaraderie, and Western ethos. Trimble's softspoken integrity puts the reader at ease. ...the author's essential honesty and kindness overshadow even his larger-than-life subjects. Steve Trimble is harder on himself than on anyone else in this book, and that's saying something. It is therefore the one book about the changing West that every American should read." —Kevin McCarthy, Amazon.com
We all love special places—but who should decide their future? In Bargaining for Eden, Trimble explores the fascinating ramifications of this question in two iconic places in The New West: a Utah mountain and its historic ski area and a redrock mesa on which Trimble builds a home. This is Trimble’s most innovative foray into literary non-fiction, incorporating ten years of fieldwork and writing.
In 1997, Trimble asked what seemed a straightforward query: “What will it take to get a racer down the mountain when the 2002 Winter Olympics come to Salt Lake City and the downhill race comes to Snowbasin?” He knew that the decisions along the way would reach far beyond what was still a funky historic ski area, much beloved by the local community. What he didn’t know: the answers to his question always included the words “Earl Holding.”
Holding owned Snowbasin. He was also one of the wealthiest people in the West, and he nearly always got what he wanted. At Snowbasin, what Earl wanted was to privatize the public lands that surrounded the ski runs on Mount Ogden. He wanted absolute ownership—despite the anger and agony of local people trying to preserve their special relationship with the mountain. In Bargaining for Eden, Trimble retraces Mount Ogden’s evolution from overused commons to reclaimed national forest to ski area—all community-based—and the subsequent loss of its sense of community as it developed on a grand scale to host the Winter Olympics.
With vast power and wealth, Earl got what he wanted.
While following this story, the author turned from observer to actor, buying land in Torrey, near Capitol Reef National Park in southern Utah redrock country. Trimble and his wife split the property, becoming land developers themselves on a tiny scale. A lifetime conservation activist and pilgrim to the public lands, Trimble must deal with the ethics of ownership and face Earl Holding’s values within himself. These same issues confront every New Westerner hoping for a piece of paradise—housebuilding, conservation easements, stewardship, sustainability, and the “devil’s bargains” of tourism.
How can a citizen grappling with change on extraordinary public lands in their backyard retain a voice? How can federal agencies be held to account? What responsibilities come with ownership of land in the rural West? Bargaining for Eden tracks these questions through remarkable and revealing stories.
Greed, politics, and patriarchy erode grassroots values and the public trust. And yet, we must find common ground. Trimble ends the book with a “credo” that moves us toward that place of healing.
(University of California Press, 2008)
Interview for "The Great American Read," filmed in Torrey in 2018 and featuring Bargaining for Eden
Interview with The Bloomsbury Review (July/August 2008)
Excerpt: Becoming Earl (at the University of California Press)
Excerpt: The Prophets of Place (in the Canyon Country Zephyr)
Excerpt: Devil's Bargains (at Terrain.org)
Excerpt: Credo—The People's West (in High Country News)
