Published
The city’s form says 70. The county’s ordinance says 90. Both are official, both are current — and this page is not going to pretend otherwise.
Two sentences, two documents, two different numbers
This page exists because something is wrong on the record, and pretending otherwise would be worse than the thing itself. Two official documents — both live on their publishers’ websites today, both re-opened for this page on 15 September 2026 — print different ground snow loads for the same town. The City of Ashton’s own building-permit application says one thing at the end of its signature paragraph:
Remember the snow load for Ashton is 70 lbs.
— City of Ashton Building Permit Application (city-published PDF, cityofashton.com/planning-and-zoning). Retrieved 15 September 2026
And the ordinance Fremont County adopted to set snow loads by district says another:
Section 3. Ground Snow Load: The ground snow load shall be … 115 PSF. for the North Fork Highlands district. 90 PSF. for the Ashton District…
— Fremont County Ordinance No. 2005-02, Section 3 (county-published PDF, fremontcountyid.gov DocumentCenter). Retrieved 15 September 2026
Seventy against ninety. Both quotations are verbatim, both sources are official, and this site is not going to quietly pick one. What follows is where each number lives, where this site’s own 90 comes from, and the question that settles it for a real project. First, the two documents side by side:
| The city’s application | The county’s ordinance | |
|---|---|---|
| Published by | City of Ashton | Fremont County Board of Commissioners |
| Kind of document | A permit form the applicant signs | An adopted ordinance with the force of law behind it |
| Prints | “Remember the snow load for Ashton is 70 lbs.” | “90 PSF. for the Ashton District” in Section 3 |
| Says where its number comes from | No — no unit beyond “lbs,” no citation, no district, no adoption date | Yes — loads are assigned by district, in named sections |
| How it reads | A reminder, appended to a paragraph the applicant signs | A rule, in the county’s adopted law |
| Date on the document | PDF file properties: November 5, 2008 | Ordinance No. 2005-02, from 2005 |
| Retrieved for this page | 15 September 2026 | 15 September 2026 |
Document one: the city’s application form
The 70 comes from the last sentence of the representation paragraph on the City of Ashton’s one-page building-permit application — the paragraph the applicant signs, above the signature line. The form is offered as a PDF on the city’s planning-and-zoning page. Read closely, here is everything that sentence does and does not tell you:
- It prints a number — “70 lbs.” — and nothing around it: no citation, no district, no adoption date.
- It writes “lbs,” not pounds per square foot; the unit is implied, not printed.
- It carries its own age: the PDF’s file properties read November 5, 2008.
- It does not say whether the figure still reflects current city practice — no form could.
That silence is not a scandal; it is a form doing form things in 2008. But it means the figure’s authority has to be asked about, not assumed. The full walk-through of that form — checkboxes, contractor number, fee math — is on the page that reads it field by field.
Document two: the ordinance this site quotes
The 90 comes from Fremont County Ordinance No. 2005-02, adopted by the board of county commissioners, which divides the county into snow-load districts and assigns each a figure. Before writing this page, every 90 on this site was re-read to confirm its source. The answer is one place — Section 3 of that ordinance — and the trail, checked today:
- The flagship snow-load page — quotes Section 3 beside the university study’s town figure, and has since launch
- The North Fork Highlands page — builds its district table from the same sentence of the same ordinance
- The Chester-and-Marysville page — what the ordinance assigns, and the two towns it assigns nothing to
- The county permit path — where the district figure enters a real application file
- The cost, frost-depth, lot-to-lot and builder pages — each names the Ashton District’s 90 with the same attribution
The ordinance text was first retrieved 13 August 2026 and re-verified today against the county’s own DocumentCenter copy. Why the site built on the ordinance number: it is the figure adopted by law, printed on the county permit path this site walks, and named in the plan-set requirements the county building department reviews — a reason to publish 90, not a reason to hide 70.
The third figure, because it is already on the record
There is a third number in this story, and this site has carried it openly since August: the University of Idaho’s statewide study, Ground Snow Loads for Idaho — 2015, models towns individually and returns 103 psf for Ashton at 5,260 feet. The 2015 edition is part of the fact’s identity — a vintaged reference, not a rolling series — re-pulled today from the university’s library and checked against this site’s existing framing, which matches. The study is also explicit about its own station data:
Ashton station (NWS) has a 50-yr ground snow load of 106 psf and elevation of 5,212 ft.
— Al Hatailah, Godfrey, Nielsen & Sack, Ground Snow Loads for Idaho — 2015, University of Idaho, footnote 48. Retrieved 15 September 2026
So the full honest picture is a table, not a sentence:
| Source | Prints | What it is | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|
| City of Ashton permit application | 70 lbs. | A one-line reminder on a form whose file properties read 2008; no unit, no citation, no district | 15 Sep 2026 |
| Fremont County Ordinance 2005-02, §3 | 90 PSF, Ashton District | The figure adopted by ordinance for the district — the source of every 90 on this site | 15 Sep 2026 |
| U of I study, 2015 edition | 103 psf at 5,260 ft | A town-level engineering reference; its footnote 48 records the Ashton NWS station at 106 psf, 5,212 ft | 15 Sep 2026 |
None of the three agrees with the others, and the two that disagree hardest — the city form and the county ordinance — are the two a permit file actually touches.
What 70-versus-90 means, and what it does not
The gap is 20 pounds per square foot on the ground-load input — the number a structural engineer starts from when sizing a roof. What it does to truss depth or framing cost is engineering, laid out on the flagship page; what needs saying here is direction. The city form’s figure is the lower one, and the asymmetry runs one way:
| If the office requires | The design must satisfy | A roof designed to exactly 70 |
|---|---|---|
| 70 lbs (city form) | 70 | Meets it — and sits 20 psf under the ordinance figure |
| 90 PSF (county ordinance) | 90 | Does not meet it — a redesign, not an adjustment, once drawings exist |
| 103 psf (study-informed design) | 103 | Does not meet it — and exceeds the ordinance minimum by design |
That one-way asymmetry is why the question is worth settling before drawings, while it costs a phone call, rather than after, when it costs a redesign — the same discipline the frost-depth and district-split pages teach.
The question that settles it
Neither document can tell you which number governs your project, because the answer lives in an office, not on paper: the office that will hold your permit decides what its reviewer requires. The sequence, and what each move settles:
| Move | Put it to | What the answer settles |
|---|---|---|
| Establish which office takes your application — city’s or county’s — before anything else | Both offices, in writing | Which file your lot lands in; the jurisdiction question is framed on the page about the city’s own code |
| Ask: “Which ground snow load governs the design review for this lot — the city application’s 70 lbs, or the ordinance’s 90 PSF Ashton District figure?” | The office that holds the permit, in writing, dated | The governing number for the design review — the one fact neither document gives you |
| Ask which ground snow load the design uses, and why | Your structural engineer, in writing | That the drawings and the governing number tell one story; a design may exceed the minimum, never undercut it |
| Put the answered number into the bid set | Every builder you price | Comparable bids — two roofs designed to different snow loads are different houses, and nothing on the bid’s face says so |
| Keep the written answer with the permit file | Yourself | The record, if the office’s answer ever differs from what its own form prints |
If the two offices give you conflicting answers, that is a real thing to know in advance — this site helps frame that call at (208) 656-1516.
Why publish this at all
A site that tells you Ashton is 90 PSF owes you the fact that the city’s own form says 70. Leaving it out would be easier — one number, one story, nothing to explain. But the point of reading primary documents is that sometimes they disagree, and a research site that only surfaces agreement is summarizing with extra steps. The county’s says 90, the city’s says 70, the state’s reference says 103. Knowing that is the most useful thing a buyer here can walk into a permit conversation already knowing.
Common questions
What is the ground snow load in Ashton, Idaho?
It depends which official document you read — and that is the honest answer. The City of Ashton's permit application prints 'Remember the snow load for Ashton is 70 lbs.' Fremont County Ordinance 2005-02, Section 3, assigns the Ashton District 90 PSF. The University of Idaho's 2015 study returns 103 psf for the town. The office that holds your permit decides which figure governs your project.
Why does the city's permit form say 70 lbs?
The form does not say — it prints the number as a one-line reminder at the end of its signature paragraph, with no unit beyond 'lbs,' no citation, and no adoption date, and the PDF's file properties date it to November 5, 2008. Where the figure comes from and whether it still reflects city practice is precisely the question to put to city hall in writing.
Why does this site publish 90 PSF?
Because every 90 on this site quotes the same source: Section 3 of Fremont County Ordinance No. 2005-02, which assigns ground snow loads by district — 90 PSF for the Ashton District. It is the figure adopted by ordinance and carried on the county permit path. Re-verified against the county's own PDF on 15 September 2026.
What does the University of Idaho study say for Ashton?
The 2015 edition returns a 50-year ground snow load of 103 psf for Ashton at 5,260 feet. Its footnote 48 adds that the Ashton NWS station shows 106 psf at 5,212 feet. The study is a vintaged engineering reference — the 2015 edition is part of the fact — and it was re-pulled from the university's library on 15 September 2026.
Which figure should my engineer design to?
The one required by the office that will hold your permit — established in writing before drawings. Ask the office directly which ground snow load governs its design review for your lot, and ask your engineer which value the design uses and why. A design to exactly 70 does not satisfy a 90-PSF requirement; the asymmetry runs one direction.
Is the difference between 70 and 90 significant?
It is 20 pounds per square foot on the ground-load input, and the city form's figure is the lower of the two. What it does to a specific roof is engineering — this page routes that to your engineer. The practical point is timing: settling the number before drawings costs a question; after, it can cost a redesign.
Are both documents current?
Both are live on their publishers' websites as of 15 September 2026 — the application PDF on the city's planning-and-zoning page, the ordinance in the county DocumentCenter. 'Current' means retrievable today; the city form's own file dates to 2008 and the ordinance to 2005, so whether each still reflects practice is a fair question to ask the office that uses it.
Does this disagreement affect the county permit path?
The county path carries the ordinance's district figures — that is unchanged, and the county permit page walks it as before. The 70-lb sentence sits on the city's own application, and which file a given lot lands in is the jurisdiction question this site frames on its city-code page. Neither document settles that by itself.
Where can I read the two sentences myself?
The city's application PDF is linked from cityofashton.com/planning-and-zoning; the ordinance is in the Fremont County DocumentCenter; the University of Idaho study is published by the university library. All three are quoted verbatim on this page as retrieved 15 September 2026.