When Sir Edmund Hillary of Mount Everest fame hiked the High Uintas -- twice

               South Kings Peak, with Kings Peak rising in the center background.

 THERE'S a legend about Sir Edmund Hillary, one of the first two men to conquer Mt. Everest in 1953, that he also climbed Kings Peak.

This is actually a true story, but it happened in the summer of 1978 when Sears and Kellwood (an outdoor equipment manufacturer), was testing camping gear in the Yellowstone drainage of the High Uintas.

Hillary, age 59 then, was said to have had little trouble hiking Kings Peak and the Uintas.

No stranger to Utah, Hillary had also floated the Green River during 1969, as part of the centennial commemoration of John Wesley Powell's 1869 original exploration of the area. (Source: http://www.hupc.org)

                                   Kings Peak on its southern side.

And, Sir Hillary had first visited the High Uintas in July of 1962, when he and his family enjoyed a 4-day camping trip in the Granddaddy Basin area.

"New Zealand mountain climber and family thrilled with pack trip into High Uintas areas" was a July 19, 1962 headline in the Uinta Basin Standard newspaper.

Duchesne District Ranger Larry Colton served as a guide for the Hillarys, as the family hiked and fished.

According to the newspaper, Hillary's wife, Lady Louise, and their three children -- Peter, 7, Sarah, 5, and Belinda, 3. -- ventured into the primitive area of the High Uintas.

Sir Hillary was under contract with the U.S. Forest Service to make a report on campgrounds in the western U.S. that year.

            Mirror Lake, with Bald Mountain rising in the background.

The family began at Mirror Lake, backpacked into the Granddaddy Basin area and then returned to Mirror Lake. They did a lot of hiking, but not any serious peaks. Sir Hillary said this trip was for finding "smiling" and not "fierce" peaks, according to the newspaper account.

The only negative to the trip were all the mosquitoes that they encountered, but that they got used to them.

Another Utah newspaper, the Vernal Express, reported that on that 1962 trip, Sir Hillary declared it "absolutely wonderful."

                      The High Uintas, northwest of Mirror Lake.

-A version of this story was also published in the Deseret News on Sept. 22, 2018.

Logan LDS Temple: Is a Historical Restoration in the works?

THE Logan Temple was the second temple in Utah built by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was dedicated on May 17, 1884. (The St. George Temple had been dedicated just seven years earlier, in 1877.)
The Ogden and Provo temples were opened in 1972-1973, in hopes of postponing remodeling and expansion of both the Logan and Manti temples. That worked for a few years, but usage of the Logan Temple had surged by the mid-1970s.
Initially, Church leaders considered building a new temple in Preston, Idaho. However, at about 27 miles distant from Logan, a temple there was considered too far away from the Cache County base of temple patrons. A remodel was the only option.

According to information from Fred Baker, head of the LDS Church's building program, from 1965-1991, the Logan Temple remodel presented a special challenge -- temple patrons doing endowment work had to travel from room-to-room to complete the process and each room was a step or two higher than the previous room. In fact, endowment patrons started on level one in the temple and ended up on the third level to complete the endowment. That equaled great symbolism in ascending, but complicated any interior remodeling.
The Logan Temple was a historic pioneer temple and like the Salt Lake Temple, had many, many unique paintings and hand-crafted work throughout the building.
Church leaders decided to gut the Logan Temple and redo it to accommodate the video presentation of the endowment. That proved to be an inspired decision.

Baker said the Logan Temple's main structural beam was found to be cracked in two when extensive remodeling work began in 1976. It was surmised that a past earthquake (possibly from the March 27, 1975 Pocatello Valley Idaho quake that was near the Utah-Idaho border and equaled 6.3 in strength).
Thus, if the temple had simply been renovated, the roof could have eventually collapsed ...
Brother Baker said the Church had remodeled all 13 existing temples during his tenure and only the Logan Temple patrons were upset -- they felt their historic temple was being wrecked. (And, when the remodel ended up removing the entire inside and the roof, with the sky showing above, it was indeed an extensive process.)
(Church Architect Emil Fetzer had looked at saving the solemn assembly room in  particular, but decided just propping that section up would make a mishmash of the rest of the temple -- totally redoing the inside was the only way to go.)
Baker said he felt he needed bodyguards when he went to Logan as Church members there were so upset at gutting the temple. He said there were notes placed on his car and also posters about Logan against the remodel process.
The Logan Temple was rededicated on March 13, 1979. All the pioneer era paintings were gone and the Temple inside looked more like the Ogden Temple than the Salt Lake Temple.
The Church did save two of the large paintings and put them in storage. Others were painting on walls and could not be salvaged.
The good news was that using the endowment film meant the temple could handle significantly more patrons and complete much more vicarious work for the dead than before.
-There is a strong rumor in Logan that a complete or partial restoration of the pioneer aspects of the Logan Temple are being considered now, though there is nothing definite and no timeline yet.
That would likely please many Church members in the Cache Valley. Although the outside of the Logan Temple is historic, the inside of the Temple is far too modern to match its pioneer legacy.
Would the Logan Temple's legendary original "Gold" sealing room -- and more -- return during a possible restoration? Time will tell.

-Note 1: Why the Manti Temple was NOT remodeled with a complete tear out process, like the Logan Temple had. This was because the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers and the Relief Society visited the First Presidency and asked that the Manti Temple only be renovated. Their request was granted and the pioneer aspects of the Manti Temple still remain today as it still lacks a temple endowment film. Obviously too, the Manti Temple's main supports were in better shape than Logan's and had NOT been damaged by an earthquake.

-Note 2: The Author co-wrote the official Ogden Temple history for the Church in 2014 and much of the above information on the Logan Temple was also obtained during that process.