COULD Lone
Peak have been destroyed by a dynamite blast in 1937?
“Will dynamite crash hilltop(?)” was the
headline of an Associated Press story in the Ogden Standard-Examiner of August
19, 1937.
The story stated,
“Lone Peak, lofty outcropping of the Wasatch range upon which a great airliner
crashed last winter, is to be blasted at its tip into a tomb for the tragedy
that claimed seven lives.”
On December
15, 1936, a Western Air Express Boeing 247 crashed just below Hardy Ridge on
Lone Peak. Most of the aircraft was hurled over the ridge and dropped over a
thousand feet into the basin below.
Lone Peak is
an 11,253-foot above sea level summit in the Wasatch Mountains, located east of
Draper. (However, strictly speaking, Hardy Ridge is located hundreds of yards south
of Lone Peak, above Hardy Lake.)
The A.P.
story stated that Western Air Express had secured permission from the U.S.
Forest Service to dynamite the mountain top. This was in order to “bury the
crash area which now attracts sight-seers and which, because of frequent rock
slides, is considered a menace.”
The story
stated that the seven bodies, luggage, mail and plane parts were all recovered
after six months of searching, followed by two months of digging and removal
work.
It does NOT
appear that Lone Peak itself was ever dynamited. No reports of such a blast
could be found in old newspapers or through Google searches.
However, at least one person who read this report said a book on the history of the plane crash does mention that dynamite was indeed used to cover up the crash site.
(The Lone Peak area includes a lot of unstable looking rock and so an explosion could have likely altered the appearance of the area somewhat.)
However, at least one person who read this report said a book on the history of the plane crash does mention that dynamite was indeed used to cover up the crash site.
(The Lone Peak area includes a lot of unstable looking rock and so an explosion could have likely altered the appearance of the area somewhat.)
In any
event, according to www.lostflights.com, Amelia
Earhart herself participated in the search for the plane early on, but it
wasn’t located until July of 1937 (the month Earhart disappeared).
(There have
been four deaths on Lone Peak in the past 20 years. Two were from lightning and
two were from falls off cliffs.)
-Notwithstanding
the Lone Peak area’s disastrous plane crash, it has always been a popular
hiking destination. “Teachers climb peak” was a Sept. 6, 1915 headline in the
Salt Lake Telegram newspaper. The story said 15 principals and teachers from
the Jordan School District climbed the peak on Labor Day weekend. They faced a
heavy wind and snowstorm half-way up the mountain.
-The
American Fork Citizen newspaper of Sept. 8, 1923 stated that six men climbed
Lone Peak, also on Labor Day weekend. They camped overnight and had a large
fire that could be seen from all over the area.
-“Wasatch
Mountain Club hikers ascend Lone Peak” was an Aug. 4, 1925 headline in the Salt
Lake Telegram. A party of 14 took three days to complete the hike.
-“Hikers
climb peak to set new record” was a Telegram headline on Oct. 3, 1938. Wasatch
Mountain Club members, Odell Pedersen, W.C. Kamp, Orson Spencer and Keith
Anderson all climbed the peak in 3 hours and 58 minutes, one of the speediest
times ever.
-Three
members of the Wasatch Mountain Club scaled Lone Peak from the east side, that
includes a 700-foot-high wall of granite. They did it in July of 1958,
according to The Midvale Sentinel newspaper.
Malan's Peak is east of Mount Ogden Park.
-ANOTHER HISTORICAL TIDBIT: This
probably wouldn’t be safe in today’s drought conditions, but in the late 1930s,
Weber State College students would hike to Malan’s Peak and Malan’s Basin each
September and have a block “W” fire.
(Malan’s
Peak is east of 32nd Street in Ogden.)
Some 90 students made the first-ever such hike in 1937, according to the
Standard-Examiner of Sept. 20 that year.
In 1938,
approximately 150students made the hike. They left the college
campus at 6:30 p.m., drove to Taylor Canyon and reached the Basin about 9 p.m.
and returned about 1 a.m.
“A flaming W
on the mountain was lit at seven-thirty,” the Standard-Examiner of Sept. 10,
1938 reported.
This annual
hike eventually stopped, but was restarted in 1988, though the fire tradition
ceased.
Taylor Arave poses on Malan's Peak.
-All material was originally published in the Deseret News on May 13, 2020.
