BEAVER — When Mark Tucker looks over the Tushar Mountain range, the fires have subsided, but the mountain he and his children explore is not the same.
With catastrophic fires and floods that have ravaged the area, Tucker, who owns Tucker High Adventure Tours with two of his sons, has had to make the difficult decision to close their store.
“It started out as a dream to open up adventures and different things and help people enjoy the outdoors like my family does,” Tucker said. “We saw a need for this type of business in town, and it was something that we’d been dreaming about for a few years before that.”
The store is located at the gateway of the Tushar Mountain Range in Beaver, and since 2017, the Tuckers have been offering tours through mountain biking, rock climbing, rappelling, hiking, backpacking, back country, ski, and snowboarding. They opened the store to sell gear, as well as offer bike repairs.
“We opened up the shop here in Beaver so that we could better outfit people and help them enjoy the beauty that’s around here,” he said.
As the business grew, the Tuckers were offered other opportunities to manage properties for property owners in the area, which Mark Tucker said was a great added revenue as they grew their family business.
That, too, came crashing down with the fire and flooding.
“With the fire, all the properties we managed were destroyed, and the other half of them we couldn’t get up to. So, that revenue stream came to an abrupt halt,” he said. “As we got looking at things, we were still hoping to keep everything going through the winter, but once the flood came and destroyed the road and everything, it looks like it’s going to be at least a year before the resort opens back up and things get going up there.”
Outdoor recreation has been growing steadily over the years, with most recent data from 2024 showing that Utah’s outdoor recreation supports upward of 75,000 jobs statewide. That isn’t the case in all areas of the state, and those on the ground level know firsthand how quickly that can change.
Lance Syrett is the general manager of Ruby’s Inn in Bryce, which offers many outdoor adventure tours including horseback and ATV rides. He said this summer, his area hasn’t been as impacted by fires and floods as much, but several other factors have contributed to a decline in people seeking outdoor recreation experiences like these.
“Out here in Bryce Canyon, our fires happened last year,” Syrett said. “People in Beaver Mountain are being extremely impacted. It’s catastrophic what’s happened up there.
“(In Bryce), we are seeing a downturn in international business due to a lot of things in the world,” he added. “There are other economic factors that play into it like fuel prices and things like that, that affect outdoor recreation.”
Syrett, who mainly oversees lodging, said that he’s seen a lot more people focusing on necessities and less on those extra things.
“People need a place to sleep and something to eat; and at times like these, they don’t necessarily need to do an extra thing,” he said. “You can to hike into Bryce Canyon for $35 per carload. National parks are extremely economic.”
Watching the trickle-down effect of what’s happening in the outdoor recreation economy, Syrett said, is, however, hard to watch.
“Ruby’s Inn, being a family business, my brother operates the Western Activities, which is horseback and ATV and rodeo,” Syrett said. “He told me that due to those things being a little less busy, he hasn’t had to hire an extra employee that he would normally hire. That’s just one employee, but I think it makes a difference in that person not having a job.”
Being a smaller business, the Tuckers have seen that trickle-down effect and have had no choice but to close the doors of the business they had long dreamed of.
“For my oldest son, it has been his sole source of income, and it’s been difficult to shut down,” Tucker said. “In a lot of ways, it’s necessary.”
Tucker High Adventure has been holding a fire and flood sale that goes through the first week in September, where it is liquidating all items at the store, including skis and snowboards that it rented out.
“We still plan on doing some tours, but it looked like the best way to do it is to eliminate the cost of a brick and mortar,” Tucker said. “We thought it would be a good time before the ski season starts to give people a good deal on their gear and let them keep enjoying it, and it helps us get out of some cost.”
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