Historic Mine Route Website

Hi Morgan and Colleen,

Thank you for the opportunity to work on the Historic Mine Route Virtual Basecamp website. After our conversations and a thorough review of the master document, it's clear that you've done remarkable preparation work — the copy is substantive, the structure is well thought out, and the vision for what this site needs to do is sharp.

The Historic Mine Route is a genuinely exciting project. Park City has world-class outdoor access and a silver mining heritage that most visitors only scratch the surface of — this site exists to change that. The Virtual Basecamp needs to be equal parts inspiring and functional: a place that gets people excited about the route before they lace up their boots, gives them everything they need to navigate it confidently, and celebrates the history and the people who made it possible.

Below is our proposal to design and build the Virtual Basecamp as a dedicated microsite, living at its own subdomain of parkcityhistory.org, with a clean, purposeful structure that serves hikers, history enthusiasts, and media alike.

Project Summary

CHALLENGE

The Historic Mine Route needs a dedicated digital home — one that can stand on its own as a destination, support the QR code on printed materials, and present a rich body of content (routes, maps, historic sites, audio guide, team bios, FAQs, and more) in a way that's easy to navigate on a phone in the field and equally compelling on a desktop at home. A section buried within the main museum site won't serve that purpose.

SOLUTION

A purpose-built microsite that will:

• Launch at a dedicated subdomain of parkcityhistory.org, consistent with the museum's digital presence and ready to support QR code deployment on printed materials
• Present the Virtual Basecamp as a true hub — a home page with clear pathways into each major section of the site
• Organize the depth of content (6+ route options, maps and navigation tools, historic site information, team bios, media assets, and FAQs) into a clean, intuitive structure that works for every kind of visitor
• Integrate seamlessly with TravelStorys, Mountain Trails Foundation, and other third-party tools visitors will rely on in the field
• Reflect the character of the Historic Mine Route itself: adventurous, historically grounded, and distinctly Park City

OUTCOME

A polished, well-organized microsite ready for the Miners Day launch — one that supports the route's printed materials and wayfinding signage, serves as a lasting resource for visitors and media, and gives the Friends of Ski Mountain Mining History a digital presence worthy of the work they've put into this project.

INVESTMENT
$14,500 with work completed in 11 Weeks from kickoff. This includes full design and buildout of all site sections using the content and direction provided in the master document, linking to and incorporating TravelStorys, Mountain Trails Foundation, AllTrails, and other navigation tools visitors will rely on in the field, and launch on a dedicated subdomain of parkcityhistory.org. Ongoing hosting and maintenance are available through Cinch Web Services as outlined below.

The Virtual Basecamp sits at the intersection of outdoor adventure and historical discovery — and the design needs to honor both. This isn't a museum exhibit that happens to mention hiking, or a trail app that happens to mention history. It's genuinely both, and the visual experience should feel that way: grounded in place, rich with story, and built for someone standing on a trailhead with a phone in their hand.

Our design philosophy for this site centers on three principles:

Mobile-First, Field-Ready

The majority of visitors will arrive via QR code on a printed map or rack card — meaning their first experience of the site will be on a phone, likely outdoors. Every page will be designed for that context first: large type, clear hierarchy, fast-loading images, and navigation that works with a thumb. The desktop experience will be equally strong, but mobile is the priority.

Visual Depth Without Visual Noise

The Historic Mine Route has exceptional raw material — dramatic landscapes, striking historic structures, a well-developed illustrated map, and a story worth telling. The design will give that material room to breathe. We'll use strong photography, purposeful typography, and a visual tone that reflects the character of the route: rugged but refined, historically rich without feeling like a textbook.

Structure That Serves the Content

The master document represents a significant amount of carefully organized content — six route variants, 24 historic sites, multiple navigation tools, team bios, media assets, and FAQs. The site architecture will present all of that without overwhelming visitors. The Virtual Basecamp home page functions as a true hub, with each section designed so visitors can go deep on what interests them without getting lost.

The result: A microsite that earns its place as the definitive digital resource for the Historic Mine Route — useful in the field, compelling at the planning stage, and built to represent the quality of the project it supports.

We'll work closely with Morgan, Colleen, and Wayne to design and build the Virtual Basecamp using the master document as our primary content source. The site is well-scoped and the copy is largely in hand — which puts us in a strong position to move efficiently from kickoff to launch.

Site Architecture

The Virtual Basecamp consists of the following pages:

• Home — Hub page with visual pathways into all eight sections
• Audio Guide — TravelStorys integration and instructions
• Hike & Bike Options — Six route variants with descriptions, distances, and map links
• Historic Sites — Overview of the Friends of Ski Mountain Mining History preservation work and the 24 sites along the route
• Maps & Tools — Navigation resources including TravelStorys, Mountain Trails Foundation, Google Maps, AllTrails, Trailforks, and Strava
• Digital Media Kit — Downloadable assets including maps, logos, photos, press materials, and site-specific imagery
• Sponsors — Logo display page
• Meet the HMR Team — Bios and headshots for approximately 16 contributors and cameo voices
• FAQs — Comprehensive Q&A covering route logistics, accessibility, gear, and more

Strategy and Design

• We'll review comparable trail and heritage tourism sites to identify opportunities for visual differentiation and clarity
• We'll design the Home page and two to three interior page templates, which will be adapted and reused across the site
• Typography, color, and imagery will be chosen to reflect the character of the route — adventurous, historically grounded, and distinctly Park City
• Technical SEO best practices throughout: clean heading structure, meta descriptions, alt text, and mobile optimization
• All pages designed mobile-first, given the QR code entry point from printed materials

Development and Content Entry

• Built on WordPress with a visual builder and custom theme, consistent with the parkcityhistory.org technical environment
• All pages built and populated using content from the master document
• Illustrated map displayed and linked per final art direction from Gigi Perkins
• TravelStorys linked and incorporated on the Audio Guide and Maps & Tools pages; embed approach confirmed at kickoff
• Google Maps custom routes embedded on relevant Hike & Bike pages
• Digital Media Kit built as a structured asset page with thumbnail previews and download links
• Meet the HMR Team page built to accommodate approximately 16 entries with headshots, titles, and bios
• Fully responsive across all modern devices

Launch

We'll coordinate launch timing with your team and deploy to the confirmed subdomain of parkcityhistory.org. We recommend finalizing the subdomain as early as possible — the QR code for printed materials depends on it, and that decision is on the critical path for your map artist's timeline.

A Note on Content Dependencies

The master document is in excellent shape, and we'll use it as the foundation for the build. A few items remain in progress as of kickoff and will need to be finalized during the project:

• Route distances and times for several Hike & Bike variants (placeholders noted in the document)
• Final TravelStorys map (beta version referenced; final version to replace)
• Trailforks and Strava content (noted as coming)
• Headshots and bios for all 16 team members
• Photography for several pages (FPO placeholders noted throughout)

We'll build around these as needed and drop final content in as it's delivered. That said, timely delivery of outstanding assets is essential to meeting the August 3 deadline. We'll establish a content cutoff date at kickoff to protect the schedule.

We offer premium hosting and support through our sister company, Cinch Web Services — and we'd recommend it here for the same reasons we'd recommend WordPress over Wix or Squarespace for a project like this: you own everything.

With platform-based builders, your content, your design, and your domain relationship all live inside someone else's system. If the platform changes its pricing, discontinues a feature, or gets acquired, your options are limited. With a self-hosted WordPress site on Cinch, your content is yours, your files are portable, and you're never locked into a subscription to access what you built.

For the Historic Mine Route — a project with real community investment behind it, a growing asset library, and a main museum site that will need rebuilding in the not-too-distant future — that kind of ownership matters.

Hosting Services

Starting at $30/month, Cinch hosting includes:

• High-performance SSD servers optimized for WordPress
• 99.9% uptime guarantee
• SSL certificates and enterprise-grade security
• LiteSpeed webserver for speed and stability
• cPanel access for full control
• Layered protection: ModSecurity™, cPHulk, and CSF firewall

Support & Maintenance

Our monthly maintenance plan ($99/month) includes:

• Ongoing security monitoring
• Updates to WordPress core, plugins, and themes
• Daily automated backups with 90-day offsite storage
• "30-minute fixes" — if we can fix it in 30 minutes, it's included
• Uptime monitoring and alerting
• Optional staging environment for safe edits and testing

Additional Services

Available at $100/hour for new page creation, design or content updates, custom functionality, and more.

When the time comes to revisit the main parkcityhistory.org site, having both properties on the same platform and hosting environment will make that project simpler and more cost-effective from the start.