Sugar Bowl Ski Resort has inked a deal making it the operator of the Royal Gorge Cross Country Resort, America’s largest cross-country operation. In early August, a consortium of conservation nonprofits — including the Trust for Public Land, the Truckee Donner Land Trust and the Northern Sierra Partnership — purchased the 3,000-acre property nestled atop Donner Summit, after the previous owner, Kirk Syme, defaulted on his $16.7 million loan in June 2011. On Monday, the conservation groups placed a $500,000 deposit on the property and will need to raise a total of $11.25 million by Dec. 20, when the purchase …