The originator of the Snowbird resort concept was Ted Johnson, who had managed the Alta Lodge in the town of Alta at the head of Little Cottonwood Canyon for about a decade. He had explored the terrain below Alta in the Peruvian Gulch and Emma Mine/Gad Valley watersheds that later became Snowbird. Johnson met Dick Bass, a Texas oilman, in 1969, and the two of them partnered to create the Snowbird resort, which opened in 1971. In 1974, Johnson sold his interest in Snowbird to Bass.