What's in the Granite Mountain Vault?

The catch-all forum for general topics and debates. Minimal moderation. Rated PG to PG-13.
Post Reply
IHAQ
God
Posts: 1533
Joined: Wed Nov 18, 2020 8:00 am

What's in the Granite Mountain Vault?

Post by IHAQ »

I read with interest a story about the Utah Department Of Transport looking to facilitate the rich skiers by building a large "gondola" to ferry people up the mountain.
While it will take years before skiers could be gliding through the skies of Little Cottonwood Canyon on a taxpayer-funded gondola, the Utah Department of Transportation will need to work out numerous land deals to make the controversial gondola a reality.

While much of the land needed to build the 22 proposed towers up the canyon is owned by the federal government, and will require navigating a mogul field of bureaucracy to transfer, one of Utah’s most influential institutions also owns land that the state will need to build the massive lift — The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

According to plans in UDOT’s draft environmental impact statement (EIS) — which was made public in August — a tower for the proposed gondola would be situated just below the church’s secretive Granite Mountain Records Vault.

The facility houses the “world’s largest collection of genealogical records,” and it was built in 1965 to protect important records for the church, according to the LDS Church’s website.

The gondola tower would be situated between the canyon’s roadway and a parking lot for the Granite Mountain Records Vault, potentially giving gondola riders an aerial view of the facility’s entrance. The tower would be 164 feet tall and require a quarter-acre plot.
https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/20 ... land-near/

So I have a few questions about the vault itself:
1. Who has access?
2. What is in there?
3. In this digital age, why is the church using physical space for records?
4. What is the back up system for what's in there should there be a geological event?
5. Are newly appointed Apostles given a tour?
Informant
CTR B
Posts: 154
Joined: Tue Nov 22, 2022 1:56 am
Location: Woodshed
Contact:

Re: What's in the Granite Mountain Vault?

Post by Informant »

You have a lot of questions. Have you heard of Google?

People who ski are not necessarily rich. Why would you think that?
IHAQ
God
Posts: 1533
Joined: Wed Nov 18, 2020 8:00 am

Re: What's in the Granite Mountain Vault?

Post by IHAQ »

Informant wrote:
Sun Nov 27, 2022 4:22 pm
People who ski are not necessarily rich. Why would you think that?
"Mountains of Money: What Happened to Utah Ski Resorts?" December 13, 2021
For better or for worse, our beloved ski resorts are full of high-speed quads, trams and gondolas. They race skiers atop mountains in less than half the time of the old rope tows or clunky, slow regular chair lifts. But there is just one downside …

Powder days have become powder mornings or even powder hours. With a huge abundance of skiers on the mountains (thanks to the quads), powder in bowls, cirques and gulches can be shredded so quickly that all freshies disappear literally within hours.

And things are about to get worse. For just $69, in addition to the regular cost of a day pass, Snowbird has introduced the “Express Lane”. Snowbird is now allowing wealthy skiers a chance to skip the lines. Regular all-day tickets now cost upwards of $150, so for a mere $220, you too can join the downhill elite!

But again there is a downside. Sadly, skiing at the best Utah resorts is becoming no longer viable for middle-class families, but is becoming much more of a sport for the wealthy or the single middle class who don’t have a problem eating an exclusive diet of Top Ramen.
https://utahstories.com/2021/12/mountai ... i-resorts/

The topic of the thread is in the title. Please stay on topic.
User avatar
Moksha
God
Posts: 5810
Joined: Wed Oct 28, 2020 3:13 am
Location: Koloburbia

Re: What's in the Granite Mountain Vault?

Post by Moksha »

The Vault is important to the Church, so this ski-lift scheme will never happen.

Some of the artifacts must be preserved at all costs, such as the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail, the Sacred Foreskin, the Spear of Destiny, the Sword of Laban, the Holy Handgrenade of Antioch, pieces of the True Cross, the Arkenstone, the Phial of Galadriel, the complete works of Daniel C. Peterson, and the Seer Stones and Sorting Hat. Risking all that for some dubious ski industry scheme seems foolish.

by the way, you don't need to be a prophet, seer, and revelator to realize the climate is changing. Skiing on the slush will not be all that appealing.
Cry Heaven and let loose the Penguins of Peace
User avatar
Moksha
God
Posts: 5810
Joined: Wed Oct 28, 2020 3:13 am
Location: Koloburbia

Re: What's in the Granite Mountain Vault?

Post by Moksha »

Details Bird wrote:
Mon Nov 28, 2022 12:07 pm
Some of the artifacts must be preserved at all costs, ....
Yeah, what he said.
Cry Heaven and let loose the Penguins of Peace
User avatar
Dr. Sunstoned
CTR B
Posts: 152
Joined: Wed Oct 28, 2020 1:59 am

Re: What's in the Granite Mountain Vault?

Post by Dr. Sunstoned »

Among other things, the vaults are storage for the church's genealogical records. About ten years ago I was do some research on asset management. I had a colleague who was working for the church in their Family Search department. He was dealing with terabytes of gemological data (all the names and group sheets submitted by members), so I interview him. Long story short, the Little Cottonwood canyon vaults (official name is Granite Mountain Records Vaults) do house most of the church's gemology records. According to my colleague the amount of records stored there is staggering. There is close to a hundred years worth of collected genealogical data. The problem is, and this is something he and his team were tasked to find a solution for, is that most of the data is stored on micro fish, which is basically a flat piece of film. The problem is that this film has a shelf life. Even with the climate controlled environment the church maintains, the firm is degenerating. My colleague estimated (this was ten years ago) that about a third of the records were no longer retrievable. Some efforts had been made to convert the data to a different format and different storage, but the efforts were unfocused and uncoordinated, which apparently is an common issue with the siloed technical departments of the church. I was offered a tour of the vaults, but we could never get our schedules to align, so it didn't happen.
IHAQ
God
Posts: 1533
Joined: Wed Nov 18, 2020 8:00 am

Re: What's in the Granite Mountain Vault?

Post by IHAQ »

That’s a great insight Dr Sunstoned, thanks.

Given the vast sums of money and free labour available, I’m surprised digital conversion hasn’t happened. Spending all that money on a vault full of degenerating film, pointless.
dastardly stem
God
Posts: 2259
Joined: Tue Nov 03, 2020 2:38 pm

Re: What's in the Granite Mountain Vault?

Post by dastardly stem »

Dr. Sunstoned wrote:
Tue Nov 29, 2022 6:58 am
Among other things, the vaults are storage for the church's genealogical records. About ten years ago I was do some research on asset management. I had a colleague who was working for the church in their Family Search department. He was dealing with terabytes of gemological data (all the names and group sheets submitted by members), so I interview him. Long story short, the Little Cottonwood canyon vaults (official name is Granite Mountain Records Vaults) do house most of the church's gemology records. According to my colleague the amount of records stored there is staggering. There is close to a hundred years worth of collected genealogical data. The problem is, and this is something he and his team were tasked to find a solution for, is that most of the data is stored on micro fish, which is basically a flat piece of film. The problem is that this film has a shelf life. Even with the climate controlled environment the church maintains, the firm is degenerating. My colleague estimated (this was ten years ago) that about a third of the records were no longer retrievable. Some efforts had been made to convert the data to a different format and different storage, but the efforts were unfocused and uncoordinated, which apparently is an common issue with the siloed technical departments of the church. I was offered a tour of the vaults, but we could never get our schedules to align, so it didn't happen.
They have since been working on digitizing the microfiche. I don't know how far along the are, but inside the vault itself they have machines running and volunteers manning them for hours a day. I probably know your colleague since I once worked for FamilySearch and dealt with the data too. Pretty sure they are measuring in petabytes rather than terabytes now.
“Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
Post Reply